Post-Game Talk: Preds def. Canucks - 5-4 (SO) (Kuzmenko x2, Dries, Garland)

[Mr. Canucklehead]

A day later, and I'm still in stitches over @MS ' "the corpse of OEL" comment.

Seriously, I'm guffawing in my office.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Team (outside of one player) played a really good road game and probably deserved to win based on play and chances. Battled back well in the 3rd. Story of the game was basically two players : Tyler Myers and Andrei Kuzmenko.

- Tyler Myers played the single worst game of any Canuck non-goalie this year. Abysmal. On the ice for all 4 Nashville goals, partially or totally to blame for all 4 goals. Just a total mess, absolutely clueless in his positioning. Basically just giving up on trying to defend opposing players and trying to play goal instead. Can't transition the puck. Can't do anything. Advanced stats were just as bad as the eye test. This sort of play helps the tank but does not help the ability to move him this summer. Now 1 point and a -21 in his last 19 games.

- conversely, Kuzmenko is an absolute game-breaker and showed a ton of heart and will at the end of this game. Took over the game in the 3rd period and was the best player on the ice. People (including some clueless media) saying this player was a complimentary scorer or that Boeser was just as good should feel kind of embarrassed at such an awful take. Impact player.

- Miller, Pettersson, Garland were all quiet for the first 30 minutes but very good in the back half of the game.

- Boeser had that 4-point game and then is 5-0-2-2 -8 in the 5 games since. Slow. Listless. And it wasn't like he wasn't with players who were skating well.

- Beauvillier had probably his worst game. Wasn't actively bad but very quiet, contributed little.

- Di Giuseppe I thought was maybe our best skater in the first half of the game but was dropped down to promote Garland which was probably the correct call.

- lack of C depth is glaring - Tocchet clearly has no confidence in any of Studnicka/Aman/Dries and as a result the top 6 was pretty badly overplayed. And if you're a winger who isn't on the top 2 lines, it's hard to succeed - Podkolzin played 7 minutes tonight.

- Hughes-Bear pairing was excellent and tilted the ice.

- Christian Wolanin defied the boundaries of math by finishing with a 63% Corsi and 70% scoring chance share while being paired almost all night with Tyler Myers who was at 33% and 32%. Looks terrific with the puck on his stick - absolutely not overwhelmed by the pace at this level and looks more skilled and dynamic than the corpse of OEL that we're used to seeing out there.

Agree mostly.

Miller gets soft minutes again against a team with zero scoring depth and keeps his head above water just barely... Holy f*** this signing looks bad.

 

[mossey3535]

A day later, and I'm still in stitches over @MS ' "the corpse of OEL" comment.

Seriously, I'm guffawing in my office.

Someone with better Photoshop skills than me needs to put together "Weekend at OEL' s"

I guess EP and Kuz could be the guys propping him up?

 

[Peen]

lPeople (including some clueless media) saying this player was a complimentary scorer or that Boeser was just as good should feel kind of embarrassed at such an awful take. Impact player.
- Boeser had that 4-point game and then is 5-0-2-2 -8 in the 5 games since. Slow. Listless. And it wasn't like he wasn't with players who were skating well.

Totally agree. And it’s stupid because Drance - every f***ing blue moon that Boeser plays well is like “ha, told you so” but will never acknowledge that boeser has been given the exact same opportunities as Kuzmenko but looks like shit in those same minutes. Genuinely infuriating, and Drance is being willfully ignorant about this. He would mock the shit out of fans if they were being this ignorant about something else (rightfully) - but he’s a total hypocrite with the Kuzmenko Boeser thing.

- lack of C depth is glaring - Tocchet clearly has no confidence in any of Studnicka/Aman/Dries and as a result the top 6 was pretty badly overplayed. And if you're a winger who isn't on the top 2 lines, it's hard to succeed - Podkolzin played 7 minutes tonight.

Been saying it all season. Totally agree. This is why I hated bringing Podkolzin back up.

This is not an environment for wingers to succeed.

 

[Svencouver]

I have a feeling Kuzmenko is going to become a Tocchet favorite. Kuz really upped his intensity since being challenged and made some very nice plays off the wall to get the puck moving up the ice with control. Seeing that kind of change must be very gratifying for a coach that's trying to get a team to fix their bad habits.

Tocchet was obviously brought in to fix the room and sort out the real keepers from the chaff, and close the gaping black hole of misery and despair sucking the team in, and so I think it was a great choice to bring him in now and not in the offseason. You have to stop the bleeding.

 

[Jay26]

Totally agree. And it’s stupid because Drance - every f***ing blue moon that Boeser plays well is like “ha, told you so” but will never acknowledge that boeser has been given the exact same opportunities as Kuzmenko but looks like shit in those same minutes. Genuinely infuriating, and Drance is being willfully ignorant about this. He would mock the shit out of fans if they were being this ignorant about something else (rightfully) - but he’s a total hypocrite with the Kuzmenko Boeser thing.



Been saying it all season. Totally agree. This is why I hated bringing Podkolzin back up.

This is not an environment for wingers to succeed.

I saw someone on Twitter ask Drance if Kuzmenko is a play driver and he's still like "No I do not". I got a good laugh. Some people are just too proud not to stick with their narratives until the end.

 

[Peen]

I saw someone on Twitter ask Drance if Kuzmenko is a play driver and he's still like "No I do not". I got a good laugh. Some people are just too proud not to stick with their narratives until the end.

Yes.

I want Boeser to succeed. I expect Boeser to succeed in a different environment.

We have seen it in spells this year. I have been saying that he will be ppg next to crosby for a year.

That doesn’t mean I think that it will happen here. That doesn’t mean you should not trade him.

But for Drance, he gave the 3x6.6 an A+, so he’s fighting hard.

 

[mossey3535]

I saw someone on Twitter ask Drance if Kuzmenko is a play driver and he's still like "No I do not". I got a good laugh. Some people are just too proud not to stick with their narratives until the end.

I actually agree with him the majority of the time but like a NHL coach he does like playing his favourites.

 

[MS]

Totally agree. And it’s stupid because Drance - every f***ing blue moon that Boeser plays well is like “ha, told you so” but will never acknowledge that boeser has been given the exact same opportunities as Kuzmenko but looks like shit in those same minutes. Genuinely infuriating, and Drance is being willfully ignorant about this. He would mock the shit out of fans if they were being this ignorant about something else (rightfully) - but he’s a total hypocrite with the Kuzmenko Boeser thing.

Drance is also one of those people who doesn't seem to understand that refusing to admit that you are wrong about something makes you seem dumber, not smarter. Intelligent people can admit they were wrong and adjust their opinions for new information.

Drance also seems just smart enough to be able to understand the latest league trends and buzzwords and parrot those, but just doesn't seem to understand hockey at a base level.

Like, I don't know how anyone could watch the 60 games of hockey that have happened this year and come out of it with an opinion that Brock Boeser > Andrei Kuzmenko. You could bring a guy in from Africa who had never seen a hockey game before and he'd very quickly be able to understand that Kuzmenko is absolutely miles more dynamic than Boeser.

 

[Zippgunn]

Delia actually not that bad. Made some good saves on wide open chances.

Goal #1 - Makes the first three stops, I don't know what else you can ask for. Myers being useless behind him again, pretending to play goalie but making no actual physical move to save it. I mean besides the fact he shouldn't be there in the first place.

Goal #2 - A bit unlucky, Myers can't stop the net drive and then the puck ramps off Delia's stick and hits him in the glove arm before going in.

Goal #3 - Again, Stillman pinches into the neutral zone like a moron which creates the zone entry. Delia still makes the first save, but Stillman chases behind the net instead of closing the passing lane. This creates the dogpile in front where Myers has decided to play goalie - unfortunately if he had played his position he could have cut off Niderreiter's cross-crease drive.

Goal #4 - I mean forget about Myers giving the puck away. Again Delia makes the first two saves. The second is a deflection through traffic and Stillman decides to puck watch instead of playing the netfront so Granlund just walks in and pots the rebound.

I only watched the SIlovs highlights but from what I can tell from those and this game, team ES defence has progressively gotten better. Sure there are the catastrophic breakdowns but those were there before and I would argue that they've gotten less common. In this game if either Stillman or Myers eliminates complete bonehead plays we win this one outright.

Basically in the last two games they've played well enough defensively to give a rookie goalie and a guy who sucked just a week ago excellent chances at winning games. Both against the basement dwelling Flyers and the bubble Preds.

Sadly I think the consistent incremental (TINY INCREMENTS LOL) improvement of the defence means that within the next 5 games we're not going to be able to count on the team suckage generating automatic tank (lack of) points. This hurts to say as someone who is firmly on Team Tank.

I think they can beat STL easily based on these two results. We have to hope that the run of BOS, DAL, MIN, and TOR breaks their spirit or something. Still, you can always count on the Canucks to play inexplicably well against teams they shouldn't have a prayer against, and vice versa. After those 6 games I think the team will start to cement some of this defensive play and they will have good chances against a lot of the weaker teams after that.

Unpopular opinion probably but that's how I read the trends right now.

I agree, people saying that Delia was the "main reason" we lost this game are nuts. I guess he has to stop those 3rd and 4th shots when our D turn into the keystone kops...

 

[DFAC]

...and yet apparently some teams are "interested" in him. Do they even watch the games?

I mean Columbus gave Gudbranson a 4 x 4 contract so…..

 

[Numba9]

I agree, people saying that Delia was the "main reason" we lost this game are nuts. I guess he has to stop those 3rd and 4th shots when our D turn into the keystone kops...

Well I don't think Delia was the main reason but he wasn't great. If you don't want to have to stop the 3rd and 4th shots don't give up rebounds into the slot, smother the puck, use your stick, anything. Preventing additional chances is a big part of a goalie's job.

 

[Hit the post]

I mean Columbus gave Gudbranson a 4 x 4 contract so…..

Cam Barker had 300+ games at the NHL level despite being a bust. His draft pedigree made alot of GM's blind like NoGoodBranSuck. Except the later had the added benefit of being "big".

 

[Zippgunn]

Well I don't think Delia was the main reason but he wasn't great. If you don't want to have to stop the 3rd and 4th shots don't give up rebounds into the slot, smother the puck, use your stick, anything. Preventing additional chances is a big part of a goalie's job.

Those rebounds weren't "in the slot" they were basically in the crease where none of our buffoon d men could clear it.