The Vancouver Canucks forced a relative scoring explosion in Tuesday’s game against the Nashville Predators. Yes, three goals in 70:45 counts as an explosion for a team who hasn’t scored as many goals in a single game since April 24, and have only scored as many as three in four out of 10 playoff games this year. They’ve only managed 21 goals in their 10 playoff games, and have been taken to overtime four times, winning two of them.

This has to be very concerning to the team who outscored every other team during the regular season – leading them to win the President’s Trophy with 117 points. In reality, the Canucks should be rolling over the Predators right now. Likewise, they should have made quick work of the Chicago Blackhawks, but that didn’t happen either. Instead, the Vancouver/Nashville series is the only one in the second round in which both teams have won a game.

As tenuous as any Canuck lead is with Roberto Luongo in net (despite his two shutouts), many more questions surround the forwards. You won’t find a single Vancouver player in the top 10 in scoring. Daniel Sedin’s has five goals and three assists while Ryan Kesler has two and six, putting them in a tie for 15th in the league in playoff scoring. Henrik Sedin and six other forwards don’t have a single goal to their credit.

Rock solid goaltending or a hot group of scorers can get a team into the playoffs, but it takes a strong effort from both sides to go deep into it. Right now, neither side is truly pulling their weight. Vancouver is 6-4 this postseason, and five of their six wins have been by one goal. The other, two. What they need more right now than anything else is a blowout victory. Only then might the naysayers start to believe that this Canucks team is for real.