NEWARK, N.J. — There is a stark reality about the talent disparity the Vancouver Canucks face near the start of their rebuild. But not having the talent they’d like doesn’t mean they can’t be competitive.

Penalty killing could be a great equalizer for them. You don’t have to have the best players to be effective while shorthanded. Great PK units tend to be classic sum-of-its-parts success stories, just smart, tenacious, hard-working players working together.

Penalty killing is one factor that could keep the Canucks in games. But in Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils, it sunk them like a torpedo.

Through six games, the Canucks have yielded a staggering 11 goals to opposition power plays. Before Saturday, there were eight National Hockey League teams that hadn’t allowed 10 goals in total.

The Canucks had the league’s worst penalty killing before they were torched by the Devils, who went 3-for-3 with the man-advantage to blow up a tight game. Vancouver’s shorthanded success rate for the season is now an abysmal 50 per cent (11-for-22).

That kind of execution shorthanded would be unsurvivable over the long-term for even the best teams in hockey. For the Canucks, it prevents them being able to compete.

“Obviously, you know, you’ve got to be able to think the game on the PK,” senior defenceman Luke Schenn said. “But at the end of the day, PK is hard work and competing. And we've obviously got a long ways to go in terms of that. The PK is costing us for sure right now. The PK is hard work. It's everyone being on the same page, being aggressive, blocking shots. It's having good sticks in the corners and through lanes. It's being ready off faceoffs.”

“I mean, I think we were fine five-on-five,” defenceman Elias Pettersson said. “It's the PK that killed us this game.”

It hurt them last game, too, when the Carolina Hurricanes’........

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