Vancouver Canucks Lose Two Defencemen in Loss to Ducks

Just a week after having a surplus of defencemen for the first time in months, the Vancouver Canucks lost Kyle Burroughs and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to injury Saturday night against the Anaheim Ducks.

Burroughs took a huge hit along the end boards behind his own net from Ducks fourth-liner Nicolas Deslauriers just :44-seconds into the game. The Canucks D-man went down and seemed to be favouring his right arm and shoulder.

“Burroughs doesn’t look very good for the short term,” Canucks Head Coach Bruce Boudreau said postgame as he actually reached for his own shoulder. “I don’t know the OEL thing yet.”

Ekman-Larsson was rubbed out along the side boards with 7:01 to play in the third period and didn’t return. At that point the game was already lopsided in favour of the Ducks so maybe his absence was precautionary, but as noted, Boudreau didn’t have an update.

Both lefty OEL and Burroughs, a right-shot, were lost from the left side of the game’s defensive depth chart.

Tyler Myers, Travis Hamonic and Luke Schenn were the righties playing their own side. Quinn Hughes was the remaining lefty.

The Ducks set the tone. Deslauriers’ hit on Burroughs led to Anaheim’s first goal of the game just :13-seconds later at the :57-second mark of the first period. It also led to a big night for the 6-foot-1, 220-pound, 30-year-old left wing from Quebec. Deslauriers finished with two goals and four shots-on-goal in fifteen minutes of ice time. They were just the 39th and 40th goals of his 474 game NHL career.

Anaheim played big and clearly with more intensity. The 26-19 hit total in favour of the Canucks for the game seemed somewhat arbitrary, much of it out of desperation or frustration.

The Canucks gave the Ducks five power plays and the road team cashed in on two of them. The Canucks went 1-for-3.

Vancouver will not practice Sunday – the Canucks host the Seattle Kraken on Monday night.