Call it revenge, call it inconsistency.
Or simply, as Vancouver Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault called it: just not good enough.
What started as a promising game for the Canucks against the Chicago Blackhawks Wednesday night at Rogers Arena quickly became sour grapes as the home team gave up its lead to uncork a 5-1 defeat to their rivals.
"We're aware where our game is right now," Vigneault said. "We're not that far away and we're not good enough right now."
Returning to similar territory at the .500 mark, the Canucks fall to a 9-9-1 record and plummet to 19th in the overall NHL standings.
Meanwhile, the Blackhawks -- who returned for what they called revenge after the Canucks 6-2 win in Chicago Nov. 6 -- climbed to become the league's top team.
"We wanted to play better, that's for sure," said Chicago's Patrick Kane. He picked up a goal and an assist Wednesday.
"We were upset about the loss -- no question. We wanted to stay out of the box but more importantly stay disciplined as a team, do the things that make us successful, and I think we did that."
They also picked up power plays. Vancouver didn't.
The Canucks continued to struggle at even strength and went without a single man-advantage opportunity despite a call in the dying seconds of the third period.
"I didn't think there was anything to call tonight," Henrik Sedin said, and other Canucks reiterated. "I thought we played a good 45 or 50 minutes and played one of the best teams in the league and played well."
The high-octane rivalry between the Blackhawks and Canucks that usually makes for a game worth the price of admission, fell flat.
In what seemed a fairly emotionless game, Jannik Hansen opened the scoring early in the middle frame only for the Canucks to give up penalties and give way to a pair of Chicago goals.
Then the Canucks retired for the night.
The Blackhawks put distance on their one-goal lead by picking up three additional goals with roughly seven minuets left to play.
Starting goaltender Cory Schneider, in for Roberto Luongo who didn't dress Wednesday due to an unspecified upper body injury, said the team is capable of more.
"They made me look great in the past with a lot of goal support and there's a time when I steal a game. You've got to go through these phases, but I believe my guys can score whenever they want. But [the Blackhawks] didn't want to take any penalties with what happened in their building."
"I'm sure they were keeping their emotions in check and it was more of tight-checking game," he continued. "It just got out of hand in the end."
Twitter: @kimiyasho
