from David Ebner of the Globe and Mail,

The mood afterwards was morose. The Vancouver Canucks had clung to threads of hope, fractional odds of making the postseason, and when it counted, they folded.

Oh, there are still fractional odds, near zero now, but the season is essentially over for the Canucks, and it ended ugly on Saturday night at home, a 5-1 punch-up at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. Coach John Tortorella could not do what he was hired to do, coax some fire out of a veteran group. The team was flat, and its best players did little. All that remain are six games and questions, the future of the coach, the future of the general manager, the future of a roster of underperformers.

In the locker room, a large scrum of reporters crowded around Daniel Sedin, in the absence of his brother, injured captain Henrik. Daniel has scored a single goal in 2014 and Saturday night was a non-entity. “It’s tough,” he said. Nearby sat Ryan Kesler, his hockey pants on, his shirt off, disbelief on his face, a tattoo of his children’s names and a Superman symbol with a K instead of an S on his right shoulder.

“We find a way to lose this game rather than a way to win,” said Kesler. “Good teams find a way to win.”

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