VANCOUVER – Nobody promised wins. But the Vancouver Canucks are finally starting to deliver on the effort and competitiveness they pledged as a baseline.

Their 4-2 loss Saturday to the Toronto Maple Leafs dropped the Canucks to 3-12-1, which is grotesque and worse than anyone expected even for the start of a National Hockey League rebuild.

But they had their goalie out and pressing for a late tying goal, as they did in Thursday’s 3-2 road loss to the San Jose Sharks, and the Canucks didn’t drown at five-on-five against another superstar-driven team.

And even though Vancouver’s poor middle period decided the game, the two shots that allowed Toronto to go ahead 3-1 could have been handled better by goalie Leevi Merilainen.

After getting outshot in 12 of their first 13 games, which included a 10-game losing streak, the Canucks have now narrowly outshot their opponents in three straight contests. Shots on Saturday were 29-28.

It is sobering that these last three games, a 6-5 overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday followed by the goalie-out losses against the Sharks and Leafs, probably constitute a “hot streak” at this stage for the NHL’s worst team.

But at least there is progress, which was difficult to find through most of October – a month that was Halloween for the Canucks from start to finish.

“Getting closer,” coach Manny Malhotra said Saturday night. “It's not close to where we need to be or need to get to, but there is progress there. It's frustrating as we talk about these games after loss after loss, but we do see improvement in different areas of our game. It's just... tough to see those when there's no correlation to wins.”

“Obviously, the........

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