The Canucks began the conclusion of a three-game midwestern road trip with an early effort reminiscent of theirs against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night. Hard skating. Hard hits. Back and forth action, sans offence. Through three minutes, the Canucks edged the Predators in shots, 1-zip. And early on, the Canucks came to play. Which is why it was only fitting that Nashville scored the first goal of the game. This was always the worry about Adam Foote’s aggressive defensive approach. He put an emphasis on swarming the puck carrier in the neutral zone and his defenceman pinching up in the play during training camp. Here, Quinn Hughes pinches up on Luke Evangelista, who gets the puck by him. Brady Skjei speeds past Elias Pettersson, leaving Tyler Myers with no choice but to go pressure the puck carrier. In doing so, this leaves Filip Forsberg wide open in the slot area, who is able to bury his own rebound past Thatcher Demko before a Canucks player touches him. To be fair, it wasn’t a great defensive back-c
