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The Vancouver Canucks are 0-4-2 to start the season and are perhaps the NHL’s biggest early-season disappointment.
Again, the Canucks can’t generate a meaningful offense — a factor so limiting that it’s already casting doubt on the team’s playoff hopes. I can’t imagine how frustrated the fanbase is right now because this story has been written so many times before.
The organization is already looking for answers. Head coach Bruce Boudreau remarked on Saturday that he has serious concerns with the stress level his team puts forward, this after a dazzling defeat courtesy of the Buffalo Sabers.
If Vancouver can’t pull itself out of this hole, we’ll quickly move into discussions about whether the team should remove the proverbial band-aid and start selling assets, triggering a rebuild that some say has been long overdue. long time. Others argue that there is enough talent on the roster and that other components (front office, coaching, specific roster holes) should be addressed first.
I’m back on offense with the Canucks. It is a paradox. Either we’ve vastly overestimated the individual skills of forwards like Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat and Conor Garland, or something else is preventing Vancouver’s core from producing consistently.
It’s admittedly hard to look at this roster — the one the Canucks iced on Saturday night — and think they’re too thin to score prowess (via DailyFaceoff):
The fourth line leaves something to be desired, but there is plenty of playing and shooting ability inside the front nine to qualify for the playoffs.
But set aside our qualitative opinions on the skills of this advanced group. This, along with goalkeeper Thatcher Demko, should be this team’s main strength. It’s certainly not the defense, which is a horror show – more on that in a moment.
Let’s look at Vancouver’s five-year offensive production at even strength. Despite this talent through the roster, they haven’t reached league averages once. In fact, they’re as sure as any bet of finishing in the league’s bottom third offensively – certainly in the Pettersson era (2018-present):
So what’s going on here? Are we being unrealistic about roster skill, or is something else causing Vancouver to be around 8% less effective than the league average team at even strength – and up to 11% this season?
I think defense, or lack thereof, is a big part of that. And how the Vancouver front office chooses to attack this issue, given their current salary cap situation, seems nebulous to me. Because if you watch a Canucks game, that team’s difficulty moving the puck out of the defensive zone is impossible to miss. Not only does this prevent any chance of transition or counter-attacking play, but it also sucks forwards deeper into the defensive third, working harder to avoid goals against and sacrificing attacking opportunities as a result. Unless puck-moving sensation Quinn Hughes is on the ice (he’s currently day by day with an injury), it’s a chore.
Consider Vancouver’s top four scorers and how they’ve produced with and without Hughes on the ice over the past three seasons. The quality of a teammate can have a clear impact on production, and across the league, frontline forwards playing with first-pair defenders are consistently the most productive. swap the first pair with the third pair, and you will see a decrease in performance.
But these performance drops are staggering:
The Canucks have scored as one of the best teams in the NHL when the best units have been on the ice. The problem is that as soon as the first pairing defense comes off the ice, the offense immediately moves in the opposite direction – players like Miller and Boeser see almost 10% less production, and Pettersson hits 20%. (Curiously, Bo Horvat sees his numbers improving with Hughes out. I haven’t figured that one out yet!)
This, of course, also ignores the defensive component at play here. These forwards – when not playing with the first pairing – have less significant offensive zone time per shift, and because their shift length remains unchanged, we know they are spending more of their minutes at clearing the defensive zone or making their way through the middle of the ice. It’s definitely an important part of hockey, and these forwards aren’t just getting paid to score goals. They are also paid to play reliable defensive hockey and, most importantly, to generate favorable goal differentials for their team.
And that’s the catch. This group from Vancouver is already struggling to control the game with their best units on the ice. Take away their best pairing, and it’s a war of attrition.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Tyler Myers, Kyle Burroughs, Luke Schenn (Hughes’ most common partner so far this season), Riley Stillman, Tucker Poolman and the rest of the Canucks blue line depth chart have tradeable skills . But as a collection of talent compared to what other teams dress in the league, it’s deeply disappointing. And sometimes a bad defensive group doesn’t just mean bad defensive play and big goals against totals.
In this case, Vancouver’s defensive problems show up all over the ice.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Daily Faceoff, Hockey Reference
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