Canucks Off to Hot Start

dave babych returns

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Dec 2, 2011
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Heycanucks you're still trying too hard IMO.

Higgins is playing a great territorial game, if he was finishing at all right now he'd be playing like a legit top six forward (which IMO he is not aside from the "by definition there are 180 'top six' forwards" angle).

Kesler and Hamhuis, we are going to have to wait and see. Hopefully these are just minor injury / comfort issues that will go away over the first half of the season, although with Kesler having sustained so many injuries over the last three years it's tough not to start worrying.
 

NYVanfan

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To counter some of the optimism I posted earlier, I'll post a few pessimistic things I've seen from my perspective...

- ryan kesler is invisible. ferrarro had a good line on kesler last night during the broadcast...said he's 'wandering' all over the ice with no real purpose. good analysis.

- i know chris higgins bro is on here sometimes, so sorry to say this but your brother isn't providing much. he's trade bait in my opinion.

- dan hamhuis looks like a shell of his former self.

- team sometimes falls into bad habits of trying to make the looooooooong cross ice pass out of the zone or turns the puck over too much instead of eating the puck along the boards and grinding it out of there.

And that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Anything else and I'd be trying too hard to find a negative.

not sure if the Higgins and Hamhuis points are fair. They're a bit below expectations, but not a ton.

For $2.5M Higgins is plays a solid, reasonably physical & defensive game, and should get his 40 pts ...he's not far from that now.

Hamhuis, ok he's -1 so far, but on a 40 pt pace, and in general is not terribly noticable when he's at his best. I imagine the D will take most time to adjust to the new system.

Kesler, I agree. He looks no better than Higgins out there, and should be 2x as good/effective. He is the biggest under-achiever so far in this very early campaign (but give the guy some time -- first time he's been healthy in ages, new system, etc.. He was also pretty good vs Edmonton)
 

carolinacanuck

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Apr 5, 2007
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not sure if the Higgins and Hamhuis points are fair. They're a bit below expectations, but not a ton.

For $2.5M Higgins is plays a solid, reasonably physical & defensive game, and should get his 40 pts ...he's not far from that now.

Hamhuis, ok he's -1 so far, but on a 40 pt pace, and in general is not terribly noticable when he's at his best. I imagine the D will take most time to adjust to the new system.

Kesler, I agree. He looks no better than Higgins out there, and should be 2x as good/effective. He is the biggest under-achiever so far in this very early campaign (but give the guy some time -- first time he's been healthy in ages, new system, etc.. He was also pretty good vs Edmonton)

yup, starting to think kes might be nursing something. it's just kind of shocking when jannik hansen is easily outplaying him. and that's not a slight on hansen, he's becoming one of my favorites, it's just not what i expected.
 

DCantheDDad

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Jul 1, 2013
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The last three games the squad has shown some tenacity and compete that has been missing for awhile. As not much else has changed, I'd say coaching staff would be responsable. I dont know how it will stand up over the season, but I can't remember the last time I saw the Canucks come back from two down, two games in a row.
 

Lonny Bohonos

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Apr 4, 2010
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I don't disagree with anyone that says they want to see us beat a real team now; but as least so far we've won the games we "should have" won.

I think part of the country club reputation the Canucks have gotten over the past two seasons has partly to do with the fact that they only seemed to show up for the big games and go on auto pilot for the non playoff teams.... usually resulting in them getting embarrassed.

Again, small sample size, but so far I prefer the character of the team that doesn't just mail it in when playing a supposed lesser opponent.

Who knows, maybe this will be the year we turn it all around and stop making back up goalies on crappy teams look like Veznia candidates. :handclap:

Would love to see stats on our record for beating teams we should beat. Through out the years.

Seems to me this has always been an issue with thr nucks which makes me question if there really was such an issue.
 

dave babych returns

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Dec 2, 2011
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Would love to see stats on our record for beating teams we should beat. Through out the years.

Seems to me this has always been an issue with thr nucks which makes me question if there really was such an issue.

Well it's one of those things. A couple of years back I seem to recall someone going back and determining that we'd done pretty darn well against "teams we should beat" (non-playoff teams is an easy shorthand for determining who we should be beating).

That being said, someone is always going to complain about us failing to beat the teams we should and others are always going to complain that we're not as good as our record because we pile up points against loser teams (ie. "teams we should beat") but fare considerably worse against contenders.

It's a confirmation bias thing IMO, you have a sense of which side of the coin your team is on and then when we get pasted by the Sharks you can go "see, we never put up a fight against the best teams" or when we flub a game against the Hurricanes you can go "see, we never beat the teams we need to beat."

Ultimately to finish what, 7th overall in the league (nevermind win the Presidents Trophy two years running) you need to do pretty damn well against pretty much every team.

All this being said, I am way to lazy to go back and review previous years results to see which cliche really bears out. Someone needs to build and maintain a database of game results and provide SQL access to the public so we can data mine without having to actually compile all that data..
 

Lonny Bohonos

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Well it's one of those things. A couple of years back I seem to recall someone going back and determining that we'd done pretty darn well against "teams we should beat" (non-playoff teams is an easy shorthand for determining who we should be beating).

That being said, someone is always going to complain about us failing to beat the teams we should and others are always going to complain that we're not as good as our record because we pile up points against loser teams (ie. "teams we should beat") but fare considerably worse against contenders.

It's a confirmation bias thing IMO, you have a sense of which side of the coin your team is on and then when we get pasted by the Sharks you can go "see, we never put up a fight against the best teams" or when we flub a game against the Hurricanes you can go "see, we never beat the teams we need to beat."

Ultimately to finish what, 7th overall in the league (nevermind win the Presidents Trophy two years running) you need to do pretty damn well against pretty much every team.

All this being said, I am way to lazy to go back and review previous years results to see which cliche really bears out. Someone needs to build and maintain a database of game results and provide SQL access to the public so we can data mine without having to actually compile all that data..

Kinda what think. I always remember being pissed we lost to ****** teams which in reality was probably influenced by my expectations.

Those 10 losses to crap teams outwiegh the 20 losses to good teams. And vice versa the 10 wins over good teams beats the 20 wins over crap teams.
 

Eddy Punch Clock

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Jun 13, 2007
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It's not just the losing to non playoffs teams though... because any team can win any time; it's the fashion in which we lost many of those games.

I simply don't have the memory to pull specific games out of my arse right now but I can distinctly remember the Canucks just not showing up or playing completely uninspired hockey against lesser teams the past couple of seasons.

They were accused on more than one occasion of "looking ahead" to the next game.

I'm sure it happens to other teams, but we also really seemed to have a knack for making rookie back up goalies look like top ten ones.
 

Lonny Bohonos

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It's not just the losing to non playoffs teams though... because any team can win any time; it's the fashion in which we lost many of those games.

I simply don't have the memory to pull specific games out of my arse right now but I can distinctly remember the Canucks just not showing up or playing completely uninspired hockey against lesser teams the past couple of seasons.

They were accused on more than one occasion of "looking ahead" to the next game.

I'm sure it happens to other teams, but we also really seemed to have a knack for making rookie back up goalies look like top ten ones.
I was referring to decades of Canucks hockey not just the last few years. I think it has to do with expectations on both the fans and the players.

To add to the rookie goalies looking like stars ive always felt the Canucks have been more than charitable in offering up first goals, hatricks and fastest goals scored. Lol
 

Wetcoaster

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The Canucks have a 7 game 11 day road trip coming up starting October 15 that will give a better read on where they are at.

It begins in Philly, then Buffalo, then back to back with the Pens and CBJ, NYI and they finish up back to back with the Devils and the Blues. That St. Louis gane could be really tough.

An their first games back are against the Caps and DRW.
 

WetcoastOrca

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Jun 3, 2011
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Lost in all the debate about our forward depth is the play of Luongo. I can't recall him having such a strong start in years. Maybe all of the turmoil made him focus on getting off to a good start and of course the Olympics are coming up as well.
 

Stonz

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Oct 10, 2006
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On Higgins, I think he's been one of our most effective players at generating quality 5v5 chances/shots, he's simply snake bitten at the moment. He just needs to pot that first one, as he's been unlucky not to have a couple a least. Zero complaints on his play from me, for what that's worth.
 

MS

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Mar 18, 2002
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Would love to see stats on our record for beating teams we should beat. Through out the years.

Seems to me this has always been an issue with thr nucks which makes me question if there really was such an issue.

We've consistently destroyed non-playoff teams for the past many years. Like, best in the NHL against bad teams sort of record.

We could go 30-3 against non-playoff teams and people would be moaning during the 3 losses that we 'never show up against bad teams'. You're not going to win every game.

Even back in 05-06, people blamed our record against bad teams for missing the playoffs because we lost 3 times to a last-place St. Louis team, but in fact our record against non-playoff teams was absurdly good overall and our record against good teams utterly terrible.
 

Dissonance

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Would love to see stats on our record for beating teams we should beat. Through out the years.

Seems to me this has always been an issue with thr nucks which makes me question if there really was such an issue.

Last season we went:

9-8-5 against playoff teams.

17-7-2 against non-playoff teams.

---

In 2010-11, it was even more lopsided:

17-13-7 against playoff teams.

37-6-2 against non-playoff teams.
 

opendoor

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Dec 12, 2006
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09-10 was the only season I recall where the Canucks legitimately played poorly against weaker competition. IIRC they had a sub .600 record against non-playoff teams whereas most great teams (and the Canucks themselves in other recent years) are usually in the .700-.800 range.
 

Barney Gumble

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Jan 2, 2007
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Would love to see stats on our record for beating teams we should beat. Through out the years.
I *STILL* haven't forgotten we lost to the lottery pick Blues all 4 times in Crawford's last season. We win just two of those four games and we don't miss the playoffs that season.
 

Proto

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Jan 30, 2010
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Ignoring results for a second, I'd just same I'm pleased that the team is mostly working hard, regardless of the score in the game. I still think they might need either a really good scoring winger or a good third-line centre to compete with the upper tier of teams in the league, but I like what I see.

Luongo's numbers are so-so, but with the exception of being shaky on the puck int he Edmonton game, he's looked good. He's tracking pucks well and doesn't seem out of the play/off his reads very much. Even that Jagr goal last night was close to being a save. Hopefully that continues.

It's also nice to hear Luongo go out of his way ot keep praising Tortorella. Hopefully it's an indication that the "fresh start" is doing him some good.
 

Proto

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Jan 30, 2010
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Higgins has 16 shots in 4 games, a bundle more close chances, has made some good passes, is all over the neutral zone breaking up plays, and has been a menace on the forecheck.

I don't think I have a single complaint about how he's playing.
 

Wetcoaster

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Higgins has 16 shots in 4 games, a bundle more close chances, has made some good passes, is all over the neutral zone breaking up plays, and has been a menace on the forecheck.

I don't think I have a single complaint about how he's playing.
Higgins has a history of being a streaky scorer.
 

Pip

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I don't understand why we discount wins against the Oilers, I read on the mainboards that they're supposed to finish easily ahead of us.

:D
 

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