Article content continued

In his weekly TSN 1040 radio appearance, Benning says he figured the Canucks had the personnel to strike more often when opponents spent time in the penalty box. Instead, the Canucks power play matches the team’s overall offence, sitting 29thin the league at 13.8 per cent for the season.

“I thought our power play would be better this year than it’s been,” Benning said. “If you have a good power play in the NHL now, and you can score a goal a game, that really helps over the course of an 82-game schedule.

“It’s just one of those things where we’ve been working hard and competing. At times, maybe we don’t get to the net enough for rebound chances and second and third opportunities.”

The Canucks have been involved in so many close games this season where a power-play goal could have made a difference. It’s unlikely they were going to be a playoff team, but a more potent power play could have kept them in the race longer and prevented the bottom from falling out on the season the way it has with just three wins in the past 14 games.

Thursday’s 4-1 loss in St. Louis marked the end of a 41-game stretch – half a season’s worth of games – in which Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin and Brandon Sutter combined for a total of three power-play goals.

That’s not the real shocker, though. Quite astonishingly during that span, those three have produced just one conventional 5-on-4 marker with the man-advantage — Sutter scored on the power play against Minnesota on Feb. 4 (Daniel has a 5-on-3 goal in Philadelphia and scored the winner in Chicago on Tuesday with a 4-on-3 overtime goal). For most of the season, that trio has formed the foundation of the Canucks’ top power-play unit and has been a massive disappointment. Too often, the twins have been too static and Sutter has struggled to deliver as any kind of net-front presence.