HC Rick Tocchet makes his feelings known about Thatcher Demko letting in 5 goals in Canucks' collapse against Kraken

Coach Rick Tochet shared his thoughts following the Vancouver Canucks' 5-4 overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night. Vancouver had held a commanding 4-1 lead over the Kraken in the third period, but a stunning late collapse resulted in an eventual defeat in overtime.

Thatcher Demko was in net for the Canucks when the Kraken scored three times in the final five minutes to force overtime. Demko allowed five goals on 29 shots faced, but Tocchet absolved his goaltender of blame for the shocking defeat.

"Yeah, we have 4-1 lead, scramble goals off our guys, you know, off our defenseman, the other one, you know, scrambling if we protect the guts. No, he was fine, Demko's the least of our problems," Tocchet said.

The Canucks were missing two of their best players in Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes, but Tocchet felt that his team was in control for most of the game.

"We were pretty good for 55 minutes," Tocchet said. "We needed a couple of composure plays. We didn't get them. I'm sure that some of the guys feel bad. And we did a lot of good things. ... We needed somebody to calm the waters down a little bit."

The coach suggested that the Canucks' collapse may have been due to the three days off since their last game. However, he mainly pointed to execution errors with the puck in the final five minutes, which allowed Seattle to climb back into it.

Tocchet noted that the Canucks had opportunities to ice the game with an empty-netter, but poor decision-making led to giveaways instead.

Brock Boeser (two goals), Jake DeBrusk and Connor Garland scored for the Canucks. Vince Dunn (two goals), Jaden Schwartz (two goals), Matty Beniers scored for Kraken. Philipp Grubauer made 18 saves for the Kraken.

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Jake DeBrusk on Canucks' loss to Kraken

Forward Jake DeBrusk expressed his disappointment with the loss, saying that the team should have never allowed the game to reach overtime.

"Honestly, it's pretty devastating,"DeBrusk said. "We should never be losing that game, let alone letting it get to overtime. But it just goes to show, there's a couple bad bounces and a resilient team over there."

DeBrusk pointed out that the team needs to maintain its focus for a full 60 minutes no matter the score.

The loss drops the Canucks to 17-10-8 in the season. Next, the Canukcs face the Calgary Flames on Tuesday at Scotiabank Saddledome.