Post-Game Talk: Canucks lose to Devils 2-5 (Horvat x 2)

[vadim sharifijanov]

I think that’s why I am really on board with trading Bo. We hear all the time that MacKinnon, Crosby and those elite players are just f***ing hardcore and demand the rest of the team to be good. I don’t get that feeling from Bo, I really don’t. Like this team, you see it. Bo is doing great but where the f*** is that every single f***ing year.
The culture Benning created needs to be dismantled.

build is the wrong word

benning didn't build shit. this team is what happens when he tried to carry his tools and supplies to the construction site all in his arms instead of putting them in a box and now there's just a pile of stuff on the floor that everybody walks a wide berth around instead of cleaning up.

but you are absolutely right. i think petey was trending that way early on before his spirit was broken, quinn might still have a bit of that in him?

 

[Cogburn]

I need to know what happened between game 70 or so last year, and now.

Even not being the right positions of players to bring in, I like the new players individually, even in a short look(s) in Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Aman, Joshua, Lazar, Stillman and now Studnicka and Bear. Our only roster subtractions have been Chiasson, Highmore, Lammikko, Bailey, Dickinson, Richardson and Petan (most of whom aren't in the league at present), with maybe DiPietro counting, and I don't see a downgrade here.

We saw the same thing happen last season too, some of our new additions came out flying if anyone remembers Garland and OEL in their first few weeks.

The Bruce bounce got us going, and was it all momentum from there? Is our room toxic? I mean I could just read the expressions on a lot of the guys last night as being defeated after even the first goal.

Also, it wouldn't have fixed things, but the referees were awfully biased in what they did enforce, and not call, last night. Schenn being tossed...eh, being an "aggressor" is reason enough, but its hard to take that seriously when Wood got two for instigating. Tossing Joshua was a joke though, especially when Bastian was the third man from every angle, and he got nothing. As the game went on, there were some blatant slashes and high sticks I took note on, the one of Pettersson in the second (?) period was especially weak. I don't know, the Canucks sucked and the refs were even worse, but even if everything was even handed, we'd have lost too.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Curious how you all rank this trade in Canucks history? Worst or second worst? It's incredible that Benning's last off-season managed to destroy the Canuck's prospects to contend for the next 5 or 6 years.

This new management's signings for JTM and Boeser are a joke as well. I really hate being a fan of this team.

barry pederson was a disastrous return for young cam neely and the #3 pick, but even a washed up barry pederson scored 70 pts in his first two seasons here and contributed more than garland and OEL combined.

then when pederson was falling off a cliff, he was packaged with another guy falling off a cliff, tony tanti, for dan quinn and some other bums. dan quinn was then traded for essentially cliff ronning (two superskilled undersized centers with big question marks who wore #7) in the legendary deal that also included courtnall, momesso, and robert dirk, with garth butcher accompanying quinn to the blues.

for what it set into motion, i still think the kesler trade was the worst in our history, but OEL is right up there in terms of negative impact.

edit: adding pederson at C also allowed us to trade our previous number one center, patrik sundstrom, for prospect kirk mclean and young greg adams. OEL’s contract, and to a lesser degree garland’s, does the opposite of giving us flexibility to fill other holes.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

it’s fun to talk about the team being lazy, which is absolutely valid. but the other thing that jumped out at me is how this team has zero team fundamentals.

play to the whistle isn’t just an individual players’ character issue, it’s structure that’s ingrained as habit. bear’s head is up the whole way and he’s looking for the stretch pass because he expects the team to have a system where guys will be synchronized and everybody knows what to do and where to be.

as he has now learned, he can’t count on his teammates, which also means he can’t count on the system.

you can also see this in how our D basically concedes the blueline 3/4 of the time instead of trying to hold the line. the opposing team wins a puck battle in the corner and our D is already backing off into the neutral zone. that’s not a laziness issue, that’s them having no faith in the forwards being able to slow the breakout. they know they will get beat at the line and then there will be an odd man rush coming at demko.

this is why almost every player that started off good when he arrived here regresses. they have to rewire their instincts to just tread water. in two weeks bear will eat clock like everyone else.

.. and I'm sure if the situation was the Canucks down a goal at the end of the third period there would be appropriate urgency. Not the same thing.

I'm not trying to defend this poorly constructed team that for whatever reason we've been forced to watch get trotted out for half a decade or whatever. But teams run out the last 5 seconds of the first period all the time. Good teams, bad teams. There's just not much here to me.

good teams run out the clock when they’re up 3-1 at the end of the first. when they’re down by two and potentially can change the momentum going into the intermission, they try to halve the deficit.

 

[Tinhorn1]

Few things really jump out you about this team, as compared to last year.

#1: Demko. Say what you want about coaching, the defense, whatever, this is the single biggest reason the Canucks are where they're at, in my opinion. Worst numbers for any starting goalie in the league, I think someone said. If you don't have goaltending, you don't have anything. It also makes everyone else grip their sticks and play worse.

#2: OEL + Myers. You really see how much the Canucks relied on these guys to play above expectation. Nowhere close this year, which means the Canucks don't have anything resembling a top four. Hughes is also worse.

#3: Assistant coaching. You wonder how much this team misses Shaw. The team turned around when Boudreau showed up, yeah, but also when Shaw was elevated and put in charge of the defense. Without him they've all regressed. Big issues with Boudreau as well, but I really wonder about those lower down in the pecking order.

 

[EverTheCynic]

I need to know what happened between game 70 or so last year, and now.

Even not being the right positions of players to bring in, I like the new players individually, even in a short look(s) in Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Aman, Joshua, Lazar, Stillman and now Studnicka and Bear. Our only roster subtractions have been Chiasson, Highmore, Lammikko, Bailey, Dickinson, Richardson and Petan (most of whom aren't in the league at present), with maybe DiPietro counting, and I don't see a downgrade here.

We saw the same thing happen last season too, some of our new additions came out flying if anyone remembers Garland and OEL in their first few weeks.

The Bruce bounce got us going, and was it all momentum from there? Is our room toxic? I mean I could just read the expressions on a lot of the guys last night as being defeated after even the first goal.

Also, it wouldn't have fixed things, but the referees were awfully biased in what they did enforce, and not call, last night. Schenn being tossed...eh, being an "aggressor" is reason enough, but its hard to take that seriously when Wood got two for instigating. Tossing Joshua was a joke though, especially when Bastian was the third man from every angle, and he got nothing. As the game went on, there were some blatant slashes and high sticks I took note on, the one of Pettersson in the second (?) period was especially weak. I don't know, the Canucks sucked and the refs were even worse, but even if everything was even handed, we'd have lost too.

Pure basement dwelling fan speculation here.

The players strongly disliked the last management group and coaching staff. Felt like they were rudderless in a storm. Then ownership cleans house, and the players suddenly feel a jolt of energy. Like a weight was lifted off their shoulders. They felt free from all that burden of playing for a blatantly incompetent group.

So things went well for a while. Until camp this year, when they started to face some adversity. Then when the adversity came, all the same problems and feelings from the Benning era came back. The lousy attitudes and mentality in the room. The apathy coming back.

Because the problem was never upstairs, but always in the dressing room. It was always the players. When Green lost the room and the players clearly quit and gave up, you dont come back from that. Regardless of changes made. As soon as the adversity comes, you go right back to not giving a crap.

Because the reality is this team mentally checked out years ago. Its time to blow it up.

My baseless speculation.

 

[tantalum]

I need to know what happened between game 70 or so last year, and now.

Even not being the right positions of players to bring in, I like the new players individually, even in a short look(s) in Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Aman, Joshua, Lazar, Stillman and now Studnicka and Bear. Our only roster subtractions have been Chiasson, Highmore, Lammikko, Bailey, Dickinson, Richardson and Petan (most of whom aren't in the league at present), with maybe DiPietro counting, and I don't see a downgrade here.

We saw the same thing happen last season too, some of our new additions came out flying if anyone remembers Garland and OEL in their first few weeks.

The Bruce bounce got us going, and was it all momentum from there? Is our room toxic? I mean I could just read the expressions on a lot of the guys last night as being defeated after even the first goal.

Also, it wouldn't have fixed things, but the referees were awfully biased in what they did enforce, and not call, last night. Schenn being tossed...eh, being an "aggressor" is reason enough, but its hard to take that seriously when Wood got two for instigating. Tossing Joshua was a joke though, especially when Bastian was the third man from every angle, and he got nothing. As the game went on, there were some blatant slashes and high sticks I took note on, the one of Pettersson in the second (?) period was especially weak. I don't know, the Canucks sucked and the refs were even worse, but even if everything was even handed, we'd have lost too.

There was a 30 game stretch where they got 21 wins. Outside of that time (62 games) they have another 21 wins.

Right now it suggests they had a 30 game blip playing at a 115 point pace. A team of extremes. Either everyone is going and they get some wins or Very few are and they get very few wins.

It seems this is a team that simply can’t play a mediocre game and squeak out points like playoff teams do. Likely because it is a team of players seemingly unable to learn structure. That’s why those other teams squeak out wins and points when maybe they shouldn’t or the overall effort isn’t there. They fall back on structure. This group of players have nothing to fall back on so you have these massive breakdowns which costs them games.

 

[Ita]

EDIT: Side note, this dude is, to the best of my knowledge, one of the VERY few youtubers who actually does his primitive builds legitimately (most others cheat using modern tools or a huge team of people), with ZERO help from anything or anyone. He does not narrate, he does not bring any tools except for his camera, and he shows every step of his work. This guy is a gigachard,

Who is this guy? Tried to reverse the Google image search but can't find the actual original source.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

EDIT: Side note, this dude is, to the best of my knowledge, one of the VERY few youtubers who actually does his primitive builds legitimately (most others cheat using modern tools or a huge team of people), with ZERO help from anything or anyone. He does not narrate, he does not bring any tools except for his camera, and he shows every step of his work. This guy is a gigachard,

Isn’t that Tom Hanks?

 

[m9]

good teams run out the clock when they’re up 3-1 at the end of the first. when they’re down by two and potentially can change the momentum going into the intermission, they try to halve the deficit.

Teams also "take a knee" at the end of a bad period to just end the period so they can move on. See it in football, basketball, hockey. Good teams, bad teams. It's just part of sports. The problem is this team just has too many bad periods because they're a bad team. I am much more concerned about the previous 19:55 that period vs whether or not they went all-out to hit a 1% stretch pass with 5 seconds left.

I would also add that the "follow-up" clip in this thread was the best team in the NHL in recent years (Tampa) caught napping at a much more important time in the game by one of the worst teams in the NHL in recent years (Ottawa).

Plays like the one Miller made last week where he gave the puck away with a few seconds left are much more concerning to me than this one.

I can respect where people are coming from that there's bad optics here. I'm just not sure there's much more than that.

 

[Hollywood Burrows]

love watching these losers get their asses kicked. Especially JT Miller!

 

[Hit the post]

build is the wrong word

benning didn't build shit. this team is what happens when he tried to carry his tools and supplies to the construction site all in his arms instead of putting them in a box and now there's just a pile of stuff on the floor that everybody walks a wide berth around instead of cleaning up.

but you are absolutely right. i think petey was trending that way early on before his spirit was broken, quinn might still have a bit of that in him?

Disagree. Benning did build feces. A big pile of feces.

 

[Pip]

Ducks win in OT

I believe the Canucks are the worst team in the NHL now

That Ducks game was a lot of fun to watch, unlike this one

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

I never called in and said to re-sign Horvat, I said, I gotta give him credit he’s playing well lol

I also said it’s kind of like Horvat giving an FU to Jim, trying to sign him for cheap, basically

I called in saying we need to rebuild, and that means trading multiple players, including bo.

Thanks for listening to my call though

I listened to half of it.

 

[Nucker101]

it’s fun to talk about the team being lazy, which is absolutely valid. but the other thing that jumped out at me is how this team has zero team fundamentals.

play to the whistle isn’t just an individual players’ character issue, it’s structure that’s ingrained as habit. bear’s head is up the whole way and he’s looking for the stretch pass because he expects the team to have a system where guys will be synchronized and everybody knows what to do and where to be.

as he has now learned, he can’t count on his teammates, which also means he can’t count on the system.

you can also see this in how our D basically concedes the blueline 3/4 of the time instead of trying to hold the line. the opposing team wins a puck battle in the corner and our D is already backing off into the neutral zone. that’s not a laziness issue, that’s them having no faith in the forwards being able to slow the breakout. they know they will get beat at the line and then there will be an odd man rush coming at demko.

this is why almost every player that started off good when he arrived here regresses. they have to rewire their instincts to just tread water. in two weeks bear will eat clock like everyone else.




good teams run out the clock when they’re up 3-1 at the end of the first. when they’re down by two and potentially can change the momentum going into the intermission, they try to halve the deficit.

100% agree with everything here

 

[Sedinery]

Even though it was a dive, the penalty Pearson took 190 feet away from his net was a complete momentum shift for the mentally weak canucks

Pearson is slow and lazy and his penalties have been unjustified but what is worse is he never misses a shift because of his actions

Zero accountability yet Rathbone sits

 

[604]

Arizona is full of a bunch of guys on short term contracts/journeymen trying to seize an opportunity to increase their value, earn their next contract, or get traded at the deadline. They are actually trying.

The Canucks, on the other hand, are full of a bunch of soft guys on multi year deals cashing their cheques.

Awesome that Guenter has 6 points in 8 games on an ELC while we spend 13MM on OEL and Garland.

The only question is:

Has everyone finally realized that we need to give up on competing now and go full rebuild?

(As an aside, firing the coach is such a bad take...this core is done, stick a fork in them - a coaching change isn't fixing anything)

 

[604]

Do people really think firing the coach again is the real solution here? This team is just very flawed, in terms of roster construction, team chemistry and mental toughness. Without Demko playing at a Vezina level this year, it's all getting exposed.

It's just not a good team. They'll probably go on a winning stream if/when Demko gets hot, but at the end of the day it's a mediocre team at best.


Tired of hearing it from the apologists with the excuses, not like other teams in the NHL don't deal with injuries, bad puck luck, etc.

Either this management team has to pull a couple of rabbits out of a hat with a couple of homerun moves or you're going to be stuck in no-man's land for the foreseeable future.

Better trade Demko before he gets hot.

Could set our rebuild back 5 years.

(Kind of serious)

 

[iceburg]

I need to know what happened between game 70 or so last year, and now.

Even not being the right positions of players to bring in, I like the new players individually, even in a short look(s) in Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Aman, Joshua, Lazar, Stillman and now Studnicka and Bear. Our only roster subtractions have been Chiasson, Highmore, Lammikko, Bailey, Dickinson, Richardson and Petan (most of whom aren't in the league at present), with maybe DiPietro counting, and I don't see a downgrade here.

We saw the same thing happen last season too, some of our new additions came out flying if anyone remembers Garland and OEL in their first few weeks.

The Bruce bounce got us going, and was it all momentum from there? Is our room toxic? I mean I could just read the expressions on a lot of the guys last night as being defeated after even the first goal.

Also, it wouldn't have fixed things, but the referees were awfully biased in what they did enforce, and not call, last night. Schenn being tossed...eh, being an "aggressor" is reason enough, but its hard to take that seriously when Wood got two for instigating. Tossing Joshua was a joke though, especially when Bastian was the third man from every angle, and he got nothing. As the game went on, there were some blatant slashes and high sticks I took note on, the one of Pettersson in the second (?) period was especially weak. I don't know, the Canucks sucked and the refs were even worse, but even if everything was even handed, we'd have lost too.

What we know:
-The team is better on paper with more skill and grit at forward and depth on defense
-The overall ranking of their D core is still bottom tier
-The team is not balanced. Individually good players but individual roles don't mesh well.
-Demko has been average

What we/I suspect:
-this team has a hard time individually and collectively finding the motivation to win.
-the team survived for a time on motivation provided by "Bruce There It Is" and stellar goaltending.
-leadership is unsteady or even fractured

Conclusion:
A consistently competitive team has more than just talent. It has a well balanced, unselfish, line-up of good players all knowing and excelling in their roles. It has a collective will to win, not one or two players being "intense". It's a calmness and resolve in pursuit of winning. Not all players have this inherently and it's very difficult to find. It takes modeling by individuals that ooze this character. IMO the team has yet to find this fearless leader on their team.

Finally, management and coaching don't get off the hook. JR, by going into the room recently, is trying to model leadership but he also has to find it externally if it isn't in the room right now (that and finally fix the D). Coaching needs to put in best systems to give this group the best chance for success and hold players accountable when there's evidence of selfishness or self pity,

The bottom line, this team doesn't have what it takes to win, I would say more so in collective resolve than in talent.

 

[valkynax]

Who is this guy? Tried to reverse the Google image search but can't find the actual original source.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA/videos

 

[Egghead1999]

There's like 5 seconds left here.. people making something out of nothing.

no one asks them to make chicken salad out of chicken shxt. However, good players can make something out of nothing. Anyway, there were so many factors (line changing, who was/had been on the ice....). It just looked so bad.

 

[Regress2TheMeme]

Pearson has been taking a lot of bad penalties this year and with the horrible PK it's done a lot of damage. Team needs to move on from this player. He does some good things that could help the right team but his slowness is a problem on a team of slow players making much more money than he does.

Also, Miller looks way slower this year. He's always slowing the game down. Last season he looked like a different player that could push the pace and actually create something when the rest of the team couldn't.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

What was most disconcerting wasnt the loss, but the way they lost...The Canucks didnt have another gear to go to, while the NJD were in idle, and were perfectly happy playing out the clock...(Canucks only managed 4 shots on goal in the 3rd period).

Credit to the NJD, they are a good team, as the Oilers and Flames will find out.

I dont think you can point fingers at individual players here..Its a collective problem.

After the entire month of October, the Canucks have 2 wins, and are the worst team in the NHL...This has to be worse than Travis Greens starts in the previous two seasons.

 

[Scorvat]

I need to know what happened between game 70 or so last year, and now.

Even not being the right positions of players to bring in, I like the new players individually, even in a short look(s) in Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Aman, Joshua, Lazar, Stillman and now Studnicka and Bear. Our only roster subtractions have been Chiasson, Highmore, Lammikko, Bailey, Dickinson, Richardson and Petan (most of whom aren't in the league at present), with maybe DiPietro counting, and I don't see a downgrade here.

We saw the same thing happen last season too, some of our new additions came out flying if anyone remembers Garland and OEL in their first few weeks.

The Bruce bounce got us going, and was it all momentum from there? Is our room toxic? I mean I could just read the expressions on a lot of the guys last night as being defeated after even the first goal.

Also, it wouldn't have fixed things, but the referees were awfully biased in what they did enforce, and not call, last night. Schenn being tossed...eh, being an "aggressor" is reason enough, but its hard to take that seriously when Wood got two for instigating. Tossing Joshua was a joke though, especially when Bastian was the third man from every angle, and he got nothing. As the game went on, there were some blatant slashes and high sticks I took note on, the one of Pettersson in the second (?) period was especially weak. I don't know, the Canucks sucked and the refs were even worse, but even if everything was even handed, we'd have lost too.

What happened is expectations and pressure kicked in. Any time this core group has any pressure on them they wilt and collapse. Probably from a lack of support from the organization, but this group is not it.

Gotta ask if Miller is only a "superstar" when there are no expectations for the team to be any good. In 2021 and 2023 now we have seen the same unfocused, defensive liability, grumpy turnover machine. Hes been better since moving to the wing but still not close to last year or 2020.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Pearson has been taking a lot of bad penalties this year and with the horrible PK it's done a lot of damage. Team needs to move on from this player. He does some good things that could help the right team but his slowness is a problem on a team of slow players making much more money than he does.

Also, Miller looks way slower this year. He's always slowing the game down. Last season he looked like a different player that could push the pace and actually create something when the rest of the team couldn't.

Im so happy to hear someone other than me point this out. I started to think I'm just imagining things.

What happened is expectations and pressure kicked in. Any time this core group has any pressure on them they wilt and collapse. Probably from a lack of support from the organization, but this group is not it.

Gotta ask if Miller is only a "superstar" when there are no expectations for the team to be any good. In 2021 and 2023 now we have seen the same unfocused, defensive liability, grumpy turnover machine. Hes been better since moving to the wing but still not close to last year or 2020.

Also, Myers & OEL are not near elite shutdown pair,Demko isn't prime Patrick Roy and yea.. Miller isn't a ~100p player.