VANCOUVER - On another one of those joyless mornings after the night before, the Vancouver Canucks started practice Wednesday with several players wearing identical bandages on their foreheads as they launched into a lively one-on-on battle drill along the boards.

It appeared the Canucks had been probed by aliens, but they were really being examined by their coach, Willie Desjardins.

The Canucks are one of the lightest teams in the National Hockey League, but they are only as small as they play. The Anaheim Ducks are the league’s heaviest team, averaging 210 pounds, give or take an injury or lineup decision. The Ducks are about 12 pounds-per-man heavier across the lineup than the Canucks.

On Tuesday, however, the difference in weight class looked much greater. Godzilla was not only stronger than Bambi, but faster, too. Bad for Bambi, as the Canucks were beaten 4-0 and managed only seven shots in the final two periods while trailing on home ice against the NHL’s best team.

Afterwards, Desjardins voluntarily raised the question: “What is our team?”

On Wednesday, he went about finding out.

Those bandages were actually sweat monitors, part of the Canuck sports science department’s study of fluid loss. But the battle drill was no accident.

“We need to win one-on-ones,” Desjardins explained to reporters. “You’ve got to be prepared to battle. If you want to win in this league, you have to play hard. You just have to. I don’t think we competed maybe the way we needed to, and I believe we can compete that way. I don’t believe it’s something we can’t do. It was just a drill (about) who we are, that’s what we do.”

And lest there was any doubt about who they are, Desjardins reminded them during a pre-practice meeting.

“We talked about our team identity,” he said. “We talked about this is how we say who we are, these are the things we do when we play our game. And we kind of asked each other: ‘Is that how we played last night? And if it isn’t how we played, is that acceptable?’ I don’t think the guys felt that we played our best game last night. And if we can live with not playing our best game, we’ll play that way lots of nights because it’s a tough league to play your best. So that’s what we laid out, and it’s up to each of us to look at it.”

Desjardins said the team needs to define itself again.

That’s been a recurring trend for the Canucks, who have had a handful of alarmingly poor nights, usually at home, during an otherwise solid season.

It’s not that they lost to the Ducks, it’s that they were easily beaten and unable to generate any sustained pressure or put Anaheim under duress. The Canucks played like a small team.

It was a perfect storm in that way. Tough defenceman Kevin Bieksa, often criticized but suddenly invaluable, missed the first game during a six- to eight-week absence for a broken hand, and fiery fourth-liner Derek Dorsett left early in the second period after a hit-to-the-head by ex-Canuck Ryan Kesler. Gritty two-way centre Brad Richardson missed the game with a sore ankle, and Canuck enforcer Tom Sestito was sent to the minors earlier this month.

That’s a lot of combativeness out of the lineup.

“It’s not that you have three injuries, but to come from. . . kind of a group that plays the same way, I think maybe we did miss that a little bit and got fooled on it a little bit,” Desjardins said. “Maybe you get fooled once, but you sure shouldn’t get fooled twice.”

The visitors change from first to worst when the Buffalo Sabres visit the Canucks on Friday. Questions about the Canucks’ size and toughness, first raised when Vancouver was bullied by the Boston Bruins in the 2011 Stanley Cup final, are rekindled by performances like Tuesday’s.

“How heavy is Dorsett?” Desjardins asked, referring to the 190-pound warrior. “He’s not heavy. He competes with everybody every night. (Size) is not the factor that decides if you can compete. The factor is your passion, your drive, just how bad you want to find a way to win.”

In the second decade of the 21st century, toughness in hockey is no longer as simple and savage as beating somebody up. It’s about fighting to get to the other team’s net and protecting your own, winning battles for the puck, taking and giving hits without losing focus or discipline, and playing hard every night – not only when you feel well or the game is easy.

“When I think of team toughness, what I was brought up on was you take a hit or block a shot or get the stick or a big hit on you, you get back up and keep battling and go back in the corners and keep playing hard,” Canuck winger Shawn Matthias said. “I don’t think guys have to fight or be the craziest guys out there to define their toughness. You don’t have to be the toughest guy in the world. But if you back away or shy away, you’re not going to get anywhere in the last stretch, and especially not in the playoffs.”

Asked if size matters, 195-pound winger Jannik Hansen named smaller, skilled, 30-game winners the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Toughness is five guys up, five guys back, playing an in-your-face type game,” defenceman Luca Sbisa said. “Obviously, if someone takes liberties on some of our top guys or anyone, you’ve got to step up but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a fight. We’ve got to find a way to kind of just raise our level in being tough as a group.”

Or they’ll need to change the group.