The Vancouver Canucks have gone from stingy to sloppy.

Submitting their third-straight shaky defensive performance to start the season, the Canucks absorbed an 8-2 beating at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday at GM Place.

The Flyers' Mike Richards, centre, celebrates his first of two goals Wednesday in Vancouver with teammates Daniel Briere, right, and Joffrey Lupul.
(Richard Lam/Canadian Press)

Mike Richards led the onslaught with two goals and two assists, while Daniel Brière had a goal and two helpers for Philadelphia (2-1-0), which held 4-1 and 7-2 leads at the intermissions.

"It seemed like there was one team on the ice that had something to prove, and that was Philly," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault.

Indeed, Brière continued to seem intent on proving he's worth the eight-year, $52-million US contract Philadelphia handed him in the off-season. The former Buffalo Sabre now has four goals and three assists in his first three games as a Flyer.

Jeff Carter, R.J. Umberger, Simon Gagne, Joffrey Lupul and Mike Knuble rounded out the Philadelphia scoring, while Martin Biron made 25 saves.

Ugly incident

Ryan Shannon and Lukas Krajicek scored power-play goals for the Canucks, who saw star goalie Roberto Luongo chased after allowing four goals on just 13 shots in the first period. Backup Curtis Sanford let in four goals on 17 shots upon taking over to start the second.

Vancouver (1-2-0), which last season parlayed a steely defensive style and Luongo's brilliant goaltending into a Northwest Division title, has surrendered 14 goals in its first three games. A year ago it took the Canucks until their eighth game to allow that many, and they never coughed up more than six in a single contest.

Vancouver's unsightly play Wednesday was matched by an ugly incident in the third period as Philadelphia's Jesse Boulerice cross-checked Ryan Kesler in the face as he was coming around the net.

"I'm just lucky my jaw isn't broken, hopefully it's not fractured," Kesler said. "Obviously it's a dirty play and you don't like to see that happen to anyone. … It shouldn't be in the game."

Boulerice said he expects to be suspended for the hit.

"I reacted in a bad way, the wrong way," he said.

With files from the Canadian Press