from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

In the first 11 minutes of Thursday’s game, when the Vancouver Canucks had one shot and the Colorado Avalanche had three goals. The visiting team’s best shift of offensive-zone pressure was when three Vancouver forwards converged on the puck in the corner and determinedly froze it for a faceoff.

The Canucks didn’t compete. They skated a little, tried a little, but never came close to actually competing with an Avalanche team that awakened from its opening-month doldrums by humiliating Vancouver 7-1.

It was a convincing display by both teams -- that the Avalanche is a Stanley Cup contender while the Canucks will have to paddle like mad just to stay near the National Hockey League playoff race. They could be out of it sooner than anyone thought, scuffling through their first 14 games at 5-7-2 and now facing a more difficult schedule through the 21-game quarter-pole.

The way the Canucks played Thursday, the word “playoffs” should sound like Jim Mora’s incredulous utterance: “Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game.”

continued

Game highlights are below.