It was funny seeing some Canuck fans over the summer on HF discuss how the Canucks were being slept on and we would all see them contend for the division this year with their incredibly deep forward group. Those threads were bumped over the weekend and are an entertaining read
I was one of them, I thought they were ready to take a solid step forward. They looked like they had some really nice pieces and Demko played pretty elite last year.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
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
The Following User Says Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
Either Yeo has dirt on Boudreau or Canucks brass wanted a coach on staff that could deliver top draft lottery odds if things go sideways.
Or maybe for all his success Boudreau is still prone to the same shortcomings as the rest of us when it comes to separating one's work qualifications from our own feelings about them as a person?
Sent from my SM-G986W using Tapatalk
__________________
Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
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.
Every team will go on a roll when the goalie is on a heater (like they were for a while under Boudreau last year), and every team will slump when their goalie goes ice cold (as they are now). The question is: where do they average out? And the last couple years tells us they average out as a lower-bubble team. Demko will rebound, and they will have their winning streaks, but they are likely to continue to be an average team.
Their PP was 9th last year (23.5%) and their PK was 30th (74.9%), which totals 98.4% (100% would be average). This sounds about right for them, as they are talented offensively, but crappy defensively.
The problem is the bolded. We have seen it before, and we are seeing it again. We can talk about Demko playing poorly right now, and we can talk about special teams being cold, but the bottom line is that this problem hasn't been addressed, and continues to haunt the team.
The Canucks, on paper, are probably better than a bubble team, and more likely a lower-seed playoff team. However, their dressing room problem continues to keep them down in the lower-bubble-team range. And until they solve it, they are just spinning their wheels.
That Horvat quote cracks me up. Tough look when your captain is that negative
The quote has been taken out of context on reddit. What he said is that he understands that the FANS feel like they'll never win again.
He didn't say HE thinks they'll never win again.
Small but significant.
EDIT:
Full quote
Quote:
"My jersey got thrown on the ice last year and I'll never forget that for as long as I play," Canuck captain Bo Horvat recalled. "It's something that hits home, and when you see it again happening this year, it definitely sucks. But I understand their frustration.
"We haven't really given them much to cheer about. It's been a lot of years in the rebuild stage and. . . at this point in the season, it just feels like it's never going to happen, like we’re never going to win again."
Vancouver is No Good IV: It's Like We're Never Going To Win Again
It should just be this.
__________________ "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
Is that account a legit Canucks fan? Could just be a troll trying to make Canuck fans look bad. He doesn't follow anything Canucks, nor posted anything hockey related till that post. Definitely not a reflection on Canuck fans.
Newflash Miller. Those fans pay your bills. Trouble with NHL players is that they've never worked a real job in their life. Take some responsibility. You cash the cheques, now put in the work.
There's the actual footage... that's a guy who's clearly on the defensive right away.
I would say the bigger news out of that interview is that he was asked about Horvat's quote about it feeling like they weren't going to win again... and said "part of this is being a man and doing your job, if everyone looks themselves in the mirror it should never feel like you're not going to win".
That comes across like a shot at Horvat.
__________________ "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
