No team is perfect, and the Vancouver Canucks problems are thoroughly chewed over every pre-season. But where’s the fun in that?
Canucks Push Aside Problems
The best part of any sport – if you aren’t playing them – is predicting the future. Early season results let everyone find whatever nugget they can from a tiny sample size and inflate it beyond all reason.
Auston Matthews will get a hat trick every game! Six of the seven Canadian teams are comfortably in the playoffs! The Vancouver Canucks penalty kill is at… Okay, it’s still below 75%. But it’s doing better than last year!
As fun as all that is, there are things that can be winkled out from Vancouver’s first two games. The Edmonton Oilers are a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup, after all, even with imperfections of their own. They take the games seriously.
Winning the first two games of the year is a good start, of course. Scoring 12 goals while you’re at it is even better. But who’s doing the scoring isn’t the most important thing to learn.
After all, players can go hot and cold, and even mid-season, two games is hardly a good marker for them. But it is always fun when a player sent down – Jack Studnicka – and the player who supposedly replaced him – Sam Lafferty – both score.
So let’s see what we saw.
Who Goes There
With Ilya Mikheyev still out with injury – and with an apparent setback – who takes his place is a big deal. That’s top-line minutes right there, and they can’t just be handed out to anyone. Since we don’t know how long Mikheyev’s absence will last, some consideration for a long-term fix –
Oh, Conor Garland? The guy everyone (including him) is trying to trade away? Huh.
Garland is a professional, that can absolutely be said for him. Both he and the team have acknowledged that this fit just isn’t working, and they’ve probably been talking trade for over a year now.
At least partially as a consequence, he hasn’t exactly been a central figure for Vancouver. While he’s the last of the Canucks problems, they aren’t going to run a lot of set plays through him. After two games theoretically on the top line, he’s averaging sub-10 minutes and a whisper of the power play.
Black-And-Blue Line
Carson Soucy‘s absence is another unpleasant surprise, and one the Canucks are having a more difficult time covering. Signing older college players gets a team a more physically mature prospect, but there are few who are NHL-ready.
There are matchups a coach will try to shelter when they can. Especially if the opponent is Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. But on the road, the only shelter is on the bench. Neither Noah Juulsen nor Akito Hirose saw 90 seconds of ice time in the third period.
The Canucks still won, but Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek each played over 25 minutes. Ian Cole was 14 seconds back of that mark, and Tyler Myers was just below 20. It’s hard to picture that combination enduring over the next four games, all on the road.
Guillaume Brisebois is also out with an “upper-body injury” sustained in the pre-season. Suspicions are that he’s concussed from a high hit against the Seattle Kraken. If so, his availability becomes a question mark. And the team isn’t talking.
I Am Blue(ger)
One of the Canucks problems from last year was, famously, their penalty kill. We joked about it earlier, but it’s easy to see the improvements that have been made. Facing some non-Oilers teams should help get Vancouver’s numbers up to their true talent level.
Unfortunately, the injury bug has hit here, too. While new arrivals Lafferty and Pius Suter have done well enough, hopes were high for Teddy Blueger taking on this role. But he has yet to skate for the team in the regular season and won’t be on this road trip.
It’s a loss, but Dakota Joshua has stepped up here, paired with Phillip Di Giuseppe. Add Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller as perpetual threats out there and the PK feel is very different from previous seasons. Sticks are far more active, and the formerly easy cross-ice pass is proving much more difficult to execute.
Canucks Take Problems, Make Them Yours
Speaking of special teams, the Canucks power play is looking even more dangerous than last season. It has a fluidity to it, making it more difficult to predict who the shooter will be. Last year’s was a good power play, don’t get us wrong! But this one looks better.
Then there’s Captain Quinn Hughes. He is looking for that shot when the team is a man up, and that really changes the Canucks look. We know he’s worked on his shot in the off-season specifically to use on the power play.
Like with Pettersson, when Hughes recognizes a weakness in his game – even a perceived one – he corrects it. There should be some hesitancy in any PK unit to expect him to dish the puck off as a first option.
Vancouver has four more games and ten more days on the road this trip. Some coaches like early road trips, using them to get to know players and avoid distractions. Those don’t seem like a problem for Rick Tocchet, but sooner or later adversity will bite.
It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of team comes back to Vancouver for their second home game.
Main Photo Credit: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports
