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CorsiHockeyLeague · 10-24-2022, 10:23 AM

If you actually want to understand what's going wrong here, there are a few things to note.

First, Thatcher Demko is playing quite badly. Last season, he was arguably the best 5v5 goaltender in the league. But almost every goalie has a "down" year, and even if your "down" year is going from a .915 to a .908, that's enough to make a big difference. Right now he's .858. If he was playing like he did last year, they win at least three and possibly all four of those games with multi goal leads. This is something the Canucks can be hopeful about, because even if it's a down year, he didn't forget how to goalie and it's pretty likely will at least be back up to "good" soon.

Second, their special teams. It's not surprising that the PK is poor, because it was last season, but the power play, given the people who are on it, should be quite good. Instead, it's 26th in the league at 13%. Like the goaltending, that's something that is likely to improve, and even if it's not world-beating it's probably going to be well above average. That being said, the PK is dead last in the league, just like last season, and that might not get much better. If it can be just average, it would be fine, but if it's still bottom 5 that's probably what will end any playoff aspirations.

The biggest problem is really just giving up scoring chances. This is obviously because the defense is bad (not a surprise) and because, apparently, a bunch of their forwards think that their only job is scoring goals. They're outshooting their opponents, they're out-attempting their opponents, they're out-possessing their opponents but their share of high danger chances is 24th in the league. Last year their goalie bailed them out, and this year, all those high danger shots are going in the net.

So if anyone was wondering "what happened to the team that was winning all those games under Boudreau last season", it's still there - just minus the special teams heater and the all-world goaltending, which are the parts of the game most prone to being extremely streaky, so as completely ridiculous as their results have been, this was a real possibility.

10-24-2022, 10:23 AM	#385
CorsiHockeyLeague Franchise Player Join Date: Feb 2015 Exp:	If you actually want to understand what's going wrong here, there are a few things to note. First, Thatcher Demko is playing quite badly. Last season, he was arguably the best 5v5 goaltender in the league. But almost every goalie has a "down" year, and even if your "down" year is going from a .915 to a .908, that's enough to make a big difference. Right now he's .858. If he was playing like he did last year, they win at least three and possibly all four of those games with multi goal leads. This is something the Canucks can be hopeful about, because even if it's a down year, he didn't forget how to goalie and it's pretty likely will at least be back up to "good" soon. Second, their special teams. It's not surprising that the PK is poor, because it was last season, but the power play, given the people who are on it, should be quite good. Instead, it's 26th in the league at 13%. Like the goaltending, that's something that is likely to improve, and even if it's not world-beating it's probably going to be well above average. That being said, the PK is dead last in the league, just like last season, and that might not get much better. If it can be just average, it would be fine, but if it's still bottom 5 that's probably what will end any playoff aspirations. The biggest problem is really just giving up scoring chances. This is obviously because the defense is bad (not a surprise) and because, apparently, a bunch of their forwards think that their only job is scoring goals. They're outshooting their opponents, they're out-attempting their opponents, they're out-possessing their opponents but their share of high danger chances is 24th in the league. Last year their goalie bailed them out, and this year, all those high danger shots are going in the net. So if anyone was wondering "what happened to the team that was winning all those games under Boudreau last season", it's still there - just minus the special teams heater and the all-world goaltending, which are the parts of the game most prone to being extremely streaky, so as completely ridiculous as their results have been, this was a real possibility. __________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno