There are two ways to improve your average performance in any field: raise your ceiling or raise your floor. The Vancouver Canucks ceiling wasn’t going anywhere, so they worked on their floor. That might be enough.
Canucks Work on What They Can Reach
There are a lot of different factors in running a business, and a sports team is no different. Mostly. Having an artificial limit like the NHL’s salary cap incorporates a unique challenge other industries don’t have.
We won’t rehash all of the problems Vancouver’s cap mismanagement has caused because frankly, we don’t have the space. But in general terms, it does mean they couldn’t pursue particularly high-end talent this offseason. Fortunately, they didn’t have to.
Moving out a generally capable player like Oliver Ekman-Larsson simply wasn’t possible, even with some retained salary. The maximum amount – 50% retained – wasn’t going to give Vancouver enough relief to do enough.
In theory, buying out someone at Ekman-Larsson’s pay level changes a team’s ceiling. In this case, unfortunately, his on-ice results were bad enough that he couldn’t be considered a top-end player. Moving him actually changed the Canucks floor.
There’s a reason why his next contract was for a single year and a quarter of his previous salary. It really highlights how the Florida Panthers expected to use him this season. It wasn’t for 25 minutes a night.
Canucks Ceiling is Through the Roof
The person actually representing the Vancouver Canucks ceiling on defence is Quinn Hughes. That was well understood even before the mad stab in the dark that was the Ekman-Larsson trade. The Canucks captain is unlike any player they’ve ever had in fifty years.
Hughes isn’t alone in the realm of excellent players, of course. Elias Pettersson has kicked off the year with 10 points in his first five games and is aiming for the century mark once again. This season he’s also determined to get Selke votes, and it’s hard to argue against him.
Then there is Vancouver’s rock in net, Thatcher Demko. Whether the season is a success for him personally – beyond team results – will be determined by his health. His 11-4-2 record after coming back from surgery is far more typical than the 3-10-2 start he struggled through.
There are players just below the levels of this upper-echelon trio. J.T. Miller has been unleashed with his move West. Conor Garland, Andrei Kuzmenko, Ilya Mikheyev, and Brock Boeser – assuming the latter two’s health remains good – are rock-solid forwards.
And Filip Hronek should be there on the defence, but needs to prove it. His place on the team is in flux and is worth putting into its own special category.
The issue for Vancouver hasn’t been their best players or even their second-tier guys. It’s the ones that provide the so-called floor of overall talent for the team. The ones opponents match their stars against when the Canucks are on the road.
The Floor is Lava!
While the Canucks ceiling is fine – and has been for a few years, really – the floor has been low. We’re talking sub-basement levels of low. The slightly damp, spider-filled crawlspace you only visit when something’s gone wrong with the plumbing.
The bottom pair on defence and the fourth-line forwards aren’t exactly useless spots. Even on teams without any playoff aspirations, they can at the very least see how prospects look for a few games. Akito Hirose, Cole McWard, Aidan McDonough and others got a shot there last year.
But ideally, a team wants more from those players than a chance for the stars to rest. Having players who can keep hold of the puck is good. Ones that can keep their opponents hemmed into their own end are better. Ones that are also an occasional threat to score are the best.
This was an area that Vancouver could improve with a little cautious trading and free-agent fishing.*
Got Him, Need Him, Got Him, Got Him…
The Canucks, not being a successful team last season, mixed up their lines a lot. Reasons abound, from “shaking things up” in hopes of improved results to testing young players to trades to call-ups. The worse a team is, the more likely mixing lines will happen.
Particularly telling for Vancouver is the fact that no one played just one game. Injuries forced Tucker Poolman out after three games, and Hronek decided to heal up for next year. But otherwise? Aatu Räty played the fewest games with three.
The Canucks tried anything, and at least three times. That’s never great news if you’re a fan. Even worse when you know the team can’t afford to improve the team by much. They can, however, improve the team by a little.
Getting the Canucks Ceiling Within Reach
Starting with the obvious, the penalty kill last season was a nightmare. The team felt like they were down by a goal before the opening faceoff, and that’s hard to fight through. So their “big” signings were defensive specialists Teddy Blueger and Pius Suter.
Sam Lafferty can also be considered that, as per his use in Chicago and Toronto over the past two years. It doesn’t end there, as all three are expected to contribute at least a little on offence. More than the bottom six did last year, anyway.
On defence, Carson Soucy and Ian Cole both have extensive experience when down a man. The hope for Soucy is that he’ll be able to handle a larger workload if given the opportunity, bringing more offence with more ice time. But if he cuts down goals against, that’s good, too.
Even the newest arrival, Mark Friedman, is expected to work short-handed. He’s only played 67 games – including two with Vancouver – but even he averaged a minute per game on that special team.
As for that third position, it too has been shored up. Gone to Abbotsford – but not forgotten – is last season’s sacrificial lamb, Spencer Martin. Out of the system is Collin Delia, in to hold what he could until Demko’s return. And Arturs Silovs continues to season.
In exchange for them is veteran Casey DeSmith, a more expensive backup than originally planned. But not by all that much, and the team has realized it’s a position worth paying for.
Management knows they can’t afford to raise the Canucks ceiling, and they haven’t been subtle about lifting the floor. After five games, has their effort produced results?
The Verdict
Get serious here – it’s been five games and four of them were on the road. It’s obviously far too early to pass final judgment on what we’ve seen so far.
On the other hand, what we do get to see is the weakest players being targeted by opposing coaches. The opportunity is there to exploit a visiting team’s weakness, and boy howdy do they.
The results so far are what you’d expect. If you didn’t know the Canucks played four on the road to one at home, the numbers would be downright alarming.
The instant your eyes venture past the top players, the possession and opportunity numbers plummet. Fully half the team has Corsi rating below 40% with Lafferty at a paltry 27.4%. But these guys are the PK squad in large part, and they just played Edmonton and Tampa Bay.
Unfortunately, just considering even strength time doesn’t improve matters. They are still being exploited and it shows. Those big, negative Corsi numbers hit the low ice-time guys the hardest, even without the penalty kill time.
However.
The end results haven’t been that bad. Where it counts – goals against – the Canucks are 11th best in the league at 2.60 per game average. And their goals for is fifth best at a 4.00 GPG average. Only two forwards and three defencemen are without a point after just five games.
The power play is sitting at third best in the league, and the penalty kill is… Ah. Okay, it’s a very modest 19th right now. But that’s still 13 spots better than last season.
And for the Vancouver Canucks, baby steps just might be enough.
*And one gigantic, record-setting buyout.
Main Photo Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports
