GDT: WCSF | GM 3 | Vancouver Canucks @ Edmonton Oilers | Sunday, May 12th | 6:30PM PST | SPAC

[crazychimp]

Lindholm-Miller-Boeser

Hog-Pettersson-Suter

Garland-Blueger-Joshua

PDG-Lafferty-Mikheyev



Oilers have a loaded line, play Lindholm with Miller & Boeser as a great match up line.

Mikheyev is a perimeter player and has been invisible the entire series drop him to the 4th line and play Suter with Pettersson & Hoglander that line was great when briefly put together in the regular season.

Could also go with the line that won the preds series Suter-Pettersson-Boeser and have Lindholm-Miller-Hoglander

And load up the lines near the end of the periods with the lotto line.

Only thing is it’s tough to break up Miller/Boeser because of the chemistry.

 

[canuckking1]

Juulsen in for Cole is dangerous as hell. Juulsen is a guy that needs a few games to get going. He would instantly help the PK tho

 

[rypper]

I think you have to give it a shot. Miller looks great with whoever is on his flank.

The best Pettersson looked up until last night (and maybe including) was with Boeser and Suter.

 

[Grumbler]

Need to find an answer for McDavid line or we are done. They are getting better.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Juulsen in for Cole is dangerous as hell. Juulsen is a guy that needs a few games to get going. He would instantly help the PK tho

Sounds like if Juulsen draws in, it may be for Myers, who got banged up last night.

 

[CanucksSayEh]

The three headed monster didn't work with JT-EP-Bo, it sure as hell ain't gonna work with JT-EP-EL, they just don't have the wingers for it, especially after dealing Kuz.

Whether EDM stacks a line, or rolls McDrai seperate, you gotta fight fire with fire.

BB-JT-Suter/Hogs
EP-EL-Hogs/Mik/Suter

Let the 3rd line get the soft matchups while still keeping Miller/Lindholm vs McDrai.

 

[M2Beezy]

Edmonton game plan that worked (barely) in game two was load up the top line with Bouchard and Ekholm and try and score. Everyone else is just wasting time, try to stop any Canuck offense until the first unit comes back on. It was nuts to see but it worked for them. If the Canucks can contain the first unit, theres no way Edmonton can win, especially with Stuart Skinner in net

 

[arttk]

Might see some shuffles in Game 3.

Might as well go with 7D

 

[rypper]

Skinner has looked very average. We aren't testing him enough. Plus he seems prone to mental fragility breakdown. Like you beat him once or twice and you're in his head for the rest of the game.

 

[bossram]

Need to find an answer for McDavid line or we are done. They are getting better.

Yep.

The loaded Drai-McDavid-Hyman line was essentially unstoppable. Canucks had no answer, and that was even after Tocc pivoted to basically all of his best forwards together as a checking line (we saw quite a bit of Petey - Miller - Boeser as a hard match in the 3rd).

The Soucy-Myers matchup pair certainly didn't work.

 

[arttk]

Edmonton game plan that worked (barely) in game two was load up the top line with Bouchard and Ekholm and try and score. Everyone else is just wasting time, try to stop any Canuck offense until the first unit comes back on. It was nuts to see but it worked for them. If the Canucks can contain the first unit, theres no way Edmonton can win, especially with Stuart Skinner in net

Yeah that’s why I am not too worried, we just need to figure out what’s the best combo to limit the damage of that loaded unit.

I think Dak needs to look at some tape because he wasn’t good last night. Hog needs to sit, throw in Aman or Pod

 

[Baby Pettersson]

Good, Hoglander has been doing nothing but cardio out there.
We need some fresh blood.



I went to Edmonton twice in my lifetime, nothing against the fine people of Edmonton but it's your standard prairie big city. Nothing more, nothing less. You gotta dig deep to find something to do, unless you got family there...there is nothing much left there.

West Edmonton Mall got boring within 15 minutes, downtown is pretty meh. For someone who was born and raised in Winnipeg, its the same old.

Meanwhile it's a big exciting trip for me going to Edmonton from Saskatoon! Lmao

 

[Baby Pettersson]

Skinner has looked very average. We aren't testing him enough. Plus he seems prone to mental fragility breakdown. Like you beat him once or twice and you're in his head for the rest of the game.

I think we can exploit this even more in Edmonton. He has more pressure on him to perform in front of his fans.

 

[Leif Rohlin]

I think you have to give it a shot. Miller looks great with whoever is on his flank.

The best Pettersson looked up until last night (and maybe including) was with Boeser and Suter.

It was one shift but it definitely looked good and the Pettersson-Boeser combo has worked in the past. Literally as soon as I saw Pettersson on that line for the faceoff I knew it would be a good shift.

I think you either go with that or lotto line and Joshua-Lindholm-Garland. You just can't keep trotting out Pettersson with black hole wingers.

I'd try those options first but if we look like shit in Game 3 and want to make bigger changes we could try something like this:

Joshua-Miller-Boeser
Pettersson-Lindholm-Garland
Podkolzin-Suter-Lafferty/Mikheyev
PDG-Blueger-Lafferty/Mikheyev

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Mikheyev is signed for another two years at 4.75 million, he needs to be bought out if possible, or traded for a sweetener, because he’s been extremely unproductive, I don’t care if he’s working hard

It has to be the latter. We'd be carrying 7M in dead capspace going into the season after next (2025-26). That basically means we're losing Boeser.

 

[canuckking1]

Sounds like if Juulsen draws in, it may be for Myers, who got banged up last night.

Myers has been playing some good hockey outside of that mistake yesterday. Would be a huge gut punch for the team

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Might see some shuffles in Game 3.

Good.

Much as we've all, rightly, dogged on Mikheyev. He is actually playing well despite being an offensive black hole. Hoglander has been borderline useless outside of a few decent shifts spanning two series now. It's a damn shame too because he looked to have finally taking that next step.

Hopefully, it's just a bump in the road for his development. This is his first taste of playoff hockey after all.

 

[Leif Rohlin]

Yep.

The loaded Drai-McDavid-Hyman line was essentially unstoppable. Canucks had no answer, and that was even after Tocc pivoted to basically all of his best forwards together as a checking line (we saw quite a bit of Petey - Miller - Boeser as a hard match in the 3rd).

The Soucy-Myers matchup pair certainly didn't work.

Hughes is the answer. With him on the ice we were basically even against the McDavid line.

If we're going to run the lotto line for the whole game (which I think we should try) we need to make sure Hughes is on the ice with them. That makes a massive difference.

 

[Kryten]

Myers has been playing some good hockey outside of that mistake yesterday. Would be a huge gut punch for the team

Did you watch game 1 on Wednesday? Cole was responsible for 3 goals against and Myers was still the worst Canuck. Last night Myers was still terrible 80% of the time

 

[bossram]

Hughes is the answer. With him on the ice we were basically even against the McDavid line.

If we're going to run the lotto line for the whole game (which I think we should try) we need to make sure Hughes is on the ice with them. That makes a massive difference.

I do think Hughes-Hronek will have to be the adjustment as the new matchup pair. But with the series shifting to EDM, it will be pretty easy for Knoblauch to get away from it and maximize McDavid's shifts against the Canucks' other pairs.

We did see Tocchet pivot toward the Lotto Line as essentially a primary matchup line in the 3rd last night.

The issue with this alignment, which is probably their best way to slow down the Drai-McD-Hyman unit, is that the Canucks would be allocating all of their best players to the task of damage control. They're still going to need to play, create offense, and score and they're only going to have the Garland/Lindholm/Joshua unit to do so, given whatever combos of the remaining available forwards will be abjectly ineffective.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Did you watch game 1 on Wednesday? Cole was responsible for 3 goals against and Myers was still the worst Canuck. Last night Myers was still terrible 80% of the time

No he wasn't? Myers was fine in game 1. He had the miscue on McDavid and some sloppy plays in game 2, yes. But I'm gonna ask you if you watched game 1 because Myers wasn't anywhere close to how bad Cole played.

 

[NetMapel]

After watching yesterday’s game, I am surprisingly positive despite the loss. The narrative of this series was overwhelmingly in favour of the oilers and so I guess I was expecting us to get crushed like Bruins by Panthers. However, what I saw was a very beatable oilers team. Canucks were beaten by the incredibly effective and talented McDavid/Draisatl line + Hyman. More importantly, Canucks were beaten by their own silly mistakes. So if those mistakes can be minimized, which I think it can, combined with a possible Demko return later in the series, I don’t see us completely written off. McDavid and Draisatl playing huge minutes should lead to more fatigue for them as well.

We can only work on what we have control over, which is better disciplines and play hard. Overall, I remain positive and think we can at least split the games in Edmonton for the next two games.

 

[beckstreaker07]

Yep.

The loaded Drai-McDavid-Hyman line was essentially unstoppable. Canucks had no answer, and that was even after Tocc pivoted to basically all of his best forwards together as a checking line (we saw quite a bit of Petey - Miller - Boeser as a hard match in the 3rd).

The Soucy-Myers matchup pair certainly didn't work.

Nucks will need to deploy two lines against them with the hope of wearing them down over the series If they are going to be playing close to 30 minutes a game on the same line.

 

[gianni]

Oilers had to play dirty & benefitted from a biased referee; just to barely squeak out a win. I like the Canucks chances.

 

[aquaweenie]

As much as Mik has no finish I actually think he’s been a better complement than Hoglander in the playoffs in terms of puck retrievals and possession. I’d consider moving Hoglander down instead and let him just focus on playing his game instead of trying to play off Pettersson.

They’ve both been bad