The Canucks are suffocating again against the Flyers and are noticing a worrying trend

One game could be a coincidence, but two games could not. After taking and losing the lead twice against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night, the Vancouver Canucks are beginning to show a worrying trend.

In Wednesday’s season opener against the Calgary Flames, the Canucks led 3-0 and 4-1, thanks in large part to two power-play goals and a strong individual performance from Brock Boeser.

Four unanswered Flames goals in less than 14 minutes gave Calgary a 5-4 lead, but JT Miller was able to capitalize on the death with an extra attacker on the ice to tie the game at 5-5.

As we know, disaster struck in overtime when Connor Zary fought unabated through the Canucks’ defense, scored, and won the 11-goal game 6-5.

In general, the Canucks could just clean up this mistake, eliminate some penalties and other mistakes, and move on to the next one. But they pulled off the same escape Friday against the Flyers.

Forwards Nils Hoglander and Teddy Blueger scored goals midway through the first and second periods to give the Canucks leads 1-0 and 2-1, respectively, but Tyson Foerster and Cam York took advantage of extremely lax defense to deny Kevin Lankinen ( who was outstanding) to punish by the way) and the Canucks.

As good as Lankinen was on Friday and as bad as Arturs Silovs was on Wednesday, the Canucks still found a way to lose a game instead of winning one. They have a record of 0-0-2 and will now be without Tyler Myers for the foreseeable future as the 34-year-old defenseman suffered an apparent lower-body injury against the Flyers after just 36 seconds of ice time.

Elias Pettersson, who is paid like an NHL superstar, hasn’t played like one in two games. He has one assist and exactly two shots on goal so far, so he’ll need to get back on his horse if the Canucks want to have a chance of repeating last season’s success.

And with Myers sidelined, a team with already questionable defensive depth looks shallower than ever.