Changing of Styles Since the Cup Run

[GingersRULE]

Some Canucks fans never cease to amaze me..I believe it was just last year this whole board was going up in air about how we needed more toughness and now Mike Gillis is adressing the issue..Dont go against what you say..But yes the style has changed as has the reffing so were going to have to change a little bit..And in regards to another poster above alot of teams have figured us out especially in the playoffs and toughness was one of the main issues..

 

[Tiranis]

I watched the video and it looked pretty similar to the system we have now, only that our system is constantly interrupted or pressured because they're not fast enough or not reading the play well enough.

Not fast enough? In 10-11, we hardly ever had to deal with the type of forecheck we do now and our forwards were able to fly through the neutral zone. We used to carry the puck in regularly and when we dumped it in, we had a winger flying in to retrieve it with puck support close by. Right now, the wingers are stationary and only get skating when the dump in happens and the puck support is staggered due to AV's adjustment of having the center come in deep to provide puck support.

Another symptom is the fact that the 2nd D is now almost never allowed to leave the zone before the puck is passed forward. We used to be able to create those trailing man situations because a guy could jump into play before the long pass was even made, then you had 4 guys coming in with speed against stationary neutral zone opponents.

 

[doobie604]

Yes, lost of pmd like Ehrhoff hurts. Still unable to replace a player like that. Always thought the Edler and Ehrhoff pair was like a lower end Keith and Seabrook. One big hitter who's got a good shot, and a really mobile partner who's creative and can carry the puck.

To the poster saying we won PT with similar lineup, well not all teams stay static. A lot of teams have gotten better while we gotten a bit worse, so how can we dominate the league again with the team we have now. MG making some big mistakes now, getting rid of Coho too quickly and keeping Luongo for too long. Ballard and Booth just adds to the mistake list since there is no chemistry there. We were a good team because of how the team gelled, it's going to be hard to find that chemistry again.

 

[Diamonddog01]

Right on. A lot of correct assertions in this post. Everything down to the system being in place and not being adjusted, rather than "suddenly" being put in place. You have the right of it.

Ironically, posters that advocate Ehrhoff being the linchpin D in the system fail to also cite that 2 PTs, not one, were won with a changing D corps. One with Ehrhoff, and one without. So how did be come so vital if that were that case?

Ehrhoff's absence is yet another red herring constructed by people to resolve what's actually going on here. It's an attempt to simplify something much more complex. There are multiple issues at play here, and missing a right side Dman like Ehrhoff is only one of them. A refusal to adjust is another. Lower sv % is yet another. And injuries again add to the pile. It's a culmination of factors, not just missing a guy like Ehrhoff.

I think most people recognize that we were not that great of a team last year, and that outstanding goaltending won us many games where we were either the worse team or had no business being in.

Very few are saying it's only due to Ehrhoff, but equally burying our heads in the sand and pretending that losing Ehrhoff is similar to losing Tambellini or Glass is a mistake. Ehrhoff was the key to our transition game, and our PP, I think it's silly to pretend that his loss has not affected the team negatively - despite winning a 2nd PT.

 

[B-rock]

Not sure why people bring up Grabner, he really contributed next to nothing while he was here. His being traded has nothing to do with anything when looking back at past teams.

I don't either. I can't wait until he's traded from the Islanders of all teams so that people finally realize he's not a great player. He's fast as hell and has a shot. That's it. For some Canuck fans he was the second coming of Bure. The truth is he is nothing close.

I understand the Ehrhoff thing, but Grabner? Come on!

 

[B-rock]

Some Canucks fans never cease to amaze me..I believe it was just last year this whole board was going up in air about how we needed more toughness and now Mike Gillis is adressing the issue..Dont go against what you say..But yes the style has changed as has the reffing so were going to have to change a little bit..And in regards to another poster above alot of teams have figured us out especially in the playoffs and toughness was one of the main issues..

Exactly, this is the problem with the armchair GM's that know everything about how to manage a team. You get guys pining for Grabner of all players, while at the same time whining about not being tough enough. It's silly.

 

[deckercky]

Grabner is referred as having "stone hands" by Islander fans. He had one good season playing with Tavares, and he really had nowhere to go here at the time.

...his best season was mostly on the third line. He's such a great individual player that he can be a real threat in that role (whereas I don't think he gains that much playing with a more offensive line).

We also didn't play the rest of the 2010-2011 playoffs the same way as we started playing them against the Hawks. Go back and watch the highlights.

All of the series started the same way when the Canucks were at home: The Canucks skating miles and hitting everything they could. The Canucks were ironically dominant physically until injuries caught up with them. The Canucks played a fast transition game, but the hitting was something that almost wasn't present through most of the regular season (partially Edlers injury contributed), and it threw other teams for a loop.

We're like Ottawa after they lost to Anaheim.

Sadly, I think the team right now shares more with Washington after they lost to Montreal. Dominant team has an unlucky loss and changes how they do everything.

I agree that Ehrhoff was the biggest loss. Sadly, we almost had the perfect replacement fall into our laps in Justin Schultz, but he went with Edmonton. The Canucks now don't play a transition game anywhere close to as well as in 2011, and lacking a defenceman who will get the puck forward in possession every time is the key to that.

Ehrhoff also wasn't anywhere close to as bad defensively as people make him out to be.

Maybe Buffalo will trade Miller and we can trade them Schneider for Ehrhoff.

 

[deckercky]

I don't think any of the individual moves were real issues btw.
-Ballard trade was fine at the time. Raymond had shown more, and I don't think AV would have tried Grabner on the 3rd line regularly. Canucks lacked a top 4 defender and couldn't depend on Hamhuis ignoring other suitors to take less to come here.
-Resigning Bieksa over Edler wasn't an issue. Bieksa's had some bad stretches, but he's a real driver of team success.
-As an avid Ballard defender, keeping Ballard over resigning Ehrhoff was the biggest mistake. Ehrhoff probably could have been kept on a reasonable term (5 or so years) and a reasonable cap hit ($5M or so).
-Hodgson for Kassian was fine too. It was position of strength to fill a position of weakness. Canucks have lacked a top 6 forward with size for some time, and Kassian's skillset will be valuable for quite some time.
-Trading for Booth was a no brainer. Samuelsson had ceased to be the player he was when he scored 35 goals. He was a subpar 2nd liner, and had slid down to the 3rd line already, where he wasn't particularly effective. Booth had the potential to be a great fit. Didn't work out, but it was the right move 100 times out of 100.

So the one bad move was not resigning Ehrhoff. The rest weren't individually bad (most were good moves), but they fundamentally changed the character of the team as a whole.

 

[mossey3535]

I don't think any of the individual moves were real issues btw.
-Ballard trade was fine at the time. Raymond had shown more, and I don't think AV would have tried Grabner on the 3rd line regularly. Canucks lacked a top 4 defender and couldn't depend on Hamhuis ignoring other suitors to take less to come here.
-Resigning Bieksa over Edler wasn't an issue. Bieksa's had some bad stretches, but he's a real driver of team success.
-As an avid Ballard defender, keeping Ballard over resigning Ehrhoff was the biggest mistake. Ehrhoff probably could have been kept on a reasonable term (5 or so years) and a reasonable cap hit ($5M or so).
-Hodgson for Kassian was fine too. It was position of strength to fill a position of weakness. Canucks have lacked a top 6 forward with size for some time, and Kassian's skillset will be valuable for quite some time.
-Trading for Booth was a no brainer. Samuelsson had ceased to be the player he was when he scored 35 goals. He was a subpar 2nd liner, and had slid down to the 3rd line already, where he wasn't particularly effective. Booth had the potential to be a great fit. Didn't work out, but it was the right move 100 times out of 100.

So the one bad move was not resigning Ehrhoff. The rest weren't individually bad (most were good moves), but they fundamentally changed the character of the team as a whole.

Great post! I'd just like to say that keeping Ballard versus keeping Edler weren't necessarily linked. We did offer Ehrhoff a contract, and if he had signed we would have had both.

We WOULD probably have had to move Ballard after, but I've never heard it said that we let Ehrhoff go because Ballard was his replacement (although I personally thought that it would work).

 

[Waveburner]

As tough (boring) as it is to watch the Canucks right now I do think the doomsayers about the future of the franchise are way ahead of themselves. The Canucks have issues but they are not so drastic that it would take an overhaul to fix.

What they really need is a third line center, Kesler healthy and to resolve the neverending goalie situation. A puck moving right side D-man would be amazing, but really just someone a touch more reliable than Ballard would be OK. Gillis has time to figure things out to keep this team contending for a long time. This trading deadline/offseason will be the the biggest of his career. He has to fix his mistakes and the pro scouts need to get a whole lot better.

I don't know that I'd call myself an optimist as far as the Canucks go, but I don't want to watch Gillis run the team into the ground, so I'll try to have some faith.

 

[Dado]

If we're having this much trouble finding a 3C, how the hell are we going to replace Hank and Daniel?

 

[Snatcher Demko]

I don't think any of the individual moves were real issues btw.
-Ballard trade was fine at the time. Raymond had shown more, and I don't think AV would have tried Grabner on the 3rd line regularly. Canucks lacked a top 4 defender and couldn't depend on Hamhuis ignoring other suitors to take less to come here.
-Resigning Bieksa over Edler wasn't an issue. Bieksa's had some bad stretches, but he's a real driver of team success.
-As an avid Ballard defender, keeping Ballard over resigning Ehrhoff was the biggest mistake. Ehrhoff probably could have been kept on a reasonable term (5 or so years) and a reasonable cap hit ($5M or so).
-Hodgson for Kassian was fine too. It was position of strength to fill a position of weakness. Canucks have lacked a top 6 forward with size for some time, and Kassian's skillset will be valuable for quite some time.
-Trading for Booth was a no brainer. Samuelsson had ceased to be the player he was when he scored 35 goals. He was a subpar 2nd liner, and had slid down to the 3rd line already, where he wasn't particularly effective. Booth had the potential to be a great fit. Didn't work out, but it was the right move 100 times out of 100.

So the one bad move was not resigning Ehrhoff. The rest weren't individually bad (most were good moves), but they fundamentally changed the character of the team as a whole.

Agree on the other points (btw you wrote Edler in place of Ehrhoff), but on Ballard - has been a trainwreck since day 1.

Completely useless acquisition, negative when cap value considered. Was IMO a factor in not re-signing Ehrhoff, which in hindsight was a big mistake. And I am not a huge Ehrhoff fan. Gillis should have cut his losses after 2011.

To me, shows that pro-scouting has been a problem for the past 2 years here.

 

[Yossarian54]

If we're having this much trouble finding a 3C, how the hell are we going to replace Hank and Daniel?

I don't think anyone should be under the illusion that we can replace the Sedins when they retire. That is crazy talk.

 

[Royal Canuck]

If we're having this much trouble finding a 3C, how the hell are we going to replace Hank and Daniel?

I'll be shocked if the Sedins don't retire as Canucks.

 

[Dado]

I'll be shocked if the Sedins don't retire as Canucks.

Sure. But trade or retire, they're still going to need replacing!

 

[Jyrki21]

I'm not sure why people blame pro scouting for everything. Every offseason the Canucks are choosing from what's available, which is never all that much. It's not like they said "We want Keith Ballard!" and then Gillis assembled a monster package to get him at any price. If anything, Tallon probably shopped Ballard around as a salary dump, the Canucks figured they could use another defenseman, and made an offer while the opportunity was there. It's not like the pro scouts told Gillis to take him over some amazingly better option.

And moreover, the role of pro scouts is surely overstated here. Seemingly everyone here has a strong opinion about pretty much every NHL player. The decision to go after veteran players probably doesn't need much insider knowledge from scouts. These players aren't such unknown commodities that we're depending on soothsayers and oracles to determine who to pursue.

 

[B-rock]

Sure. But trade or retire, they're still going to need replacing!

Getting ahead of ourselves here aren't we? Sedins are showing that they are still great players and we'll deal with this problem when the time comes. No point in fretting about something you can't do anything about.

Does Detroit know what they'll do when Datsyuk and Zetterberg retire? No. Did they have an answer for Lidstroms retirement? No.

 

[B-rock]

I'm not sure why people blame pro scouting for everything. Every offseason the Canucks are choosing from what's available, which is never all that much. It's not like they said "We want Keith Ballard!" and then Gillis assembled a monster package to get him at any price. If anything, Tallon probably shopped Ballard around as a salary dump, the Canucks figured they could use another defenseman, and made an offer while the opportunity was there. It's not like the pro scouts told Gillis to take him over some amazingly better option.

And moreover, the role of pro scouts is surely overstated here. Seemingly everyone here has a strong opinion about pretty much every NHL player. The decision to go after veteran players probably doesn't need much insider knowledge from scouts. These players aren't such unknown commodities that we're depending on soothsayers and oracles to determine who to pursue.

Good post. Good point about choosing from what's available. It seems some people think you can just pick and choose who you want on your team at will - maybe too many video games, I don't know. Gillis perpetually talks about how difficult it is to acquire players which is probably why he took the risk on guys like Ballard and Booth. Teams don't just trade away perfect top4 top 6 NHL players. They have their warts and Gillis took a chance on them.

 

[Royal Canuck]

Cmon, we all know Gaunce and Jensen will combine to be our 1st line punch once they're ready.

 

[Tiranis]

Good post. Good point about choosing from what's available. It seems some people think you can just pick and choose who you want on your team at will - maybe too many video games, I don't know. Gillis perpetually talks about how difficult it is to acquire players which is probably why he took the risk on guys like Ballard and Booth. Teams don't just trade away perfect top4 top 6 NHL players. They have their warts and Gillis took a chance on them.

Trading is hard. Look at how many deals happen where the GM is looking for particular pieces from a particular team (Neal for Goligoski, Staal for Sutter, Phaneuf to Toronto, Hodgson for Kassian, etc.).

It's not enough to just have good assets, they have to be assets that the other GM likes the best of all the available offers and sometimes reasons for liking it are not solely based on hockey merits or logical reasoning.

And look how many deals that seem like they should have little risk to them, back-fire. Heatley?

 

[deckercky]

Agree on the other points (btw you wrote Edler in place of Ehrhoff), but on Ballard - has been a trainwreck since day 1.

Completely useless acquisition, negative when cap value considered. Was IMO a factor in not re-signing Ehrhoff, which in hindsight was a big mistake. And I am not a huge Ehrhoff fan. Gillis should have cut his losses after 2011.

To me, shows that pro-scouting has been a problem for the past 2 years here.

That's fine....but trading for Ballard was the right move at the time of the trade. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a gamble worth taking. The team would have a good but not elite team if they'd missed out on both Hamhuis and Ballard.

 

[Snatcher Demko]

That's fine....but trading for Ballard was the right move at the time of the trade. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a gamble worth taking. The team would have a good but not elite team if they'd missed out on both Hamhuis and Ballard.

Sure, I know, hindsight is 20/20, but competent pro-scouting should be able to tell you that maybe a guy like Ballard, though he skates well, doesn't see the ice nearly as well as would be necessary in AV's system. There's no sugar coating that he's been a disaster.

It's like AV and Gillis didn't communicate what was needed.

Pro-scouting should have told Gillis that Sturm was garbage. That was a $2MM head scratcher.

Can't justify the Ballard trade, he's been a terrible waste of cap room. Rome was a better fit.

 

[monster_bertuzzi]

Sure. But trade or retire, they're still going to need replacing!

Well, hopefully not for another 5 years.

 

[Shareefruck]

It's so disingenuous to look at that team compared to this one and treat it like the style change was the biggest problem.

Look at our health issues for crying out loud. And look at how certain players are performing.

I do think that we missed Ehrhoff a LOT, but that team wouldn't have survived a season-long Kesler injury, injuries to Samuelsson, and Torres, no Malhotra/beast mode Lapierre-level 3rd line center, weaker goaltending outings, and overall poor execution (especially comparing Hamhuis-Bieksa/Edler, who are essentially still playing the same style) as well.

In my opinion, in a hypothetical world where we didn't make the run that year and Malhotra/Kesler didn't suffer those injuries, and everyone's at the same level of health/sharpness as that year, but we still made the same trades and changes in playing style,

Sedin - Sedin - Burrows
Higgins - Kesler - Booth
Raymond - Malhotra - Hansen
Weise - Lapierre - Kassian

Hamhuis - Bieksa
Edler - Tanev
Garrison - Ballard

Schneider
Luongo

Would probably have been able to do comparable damage, even with a different style, IMO.

It's an unfortunate situation the team's in right now, but this is pretty ridiculous, IMO.

I personally prefer the personnel, everyone's just either injured or playing with their head up their ass. If they played with the sharpness/health/effort that that team played with, there would be no dropoff, IMO.

 

[AlexandreBurrows]

Fluke injuries screwed us vs. Boston too. I'd like to see a rematch with healthy Kess and Hamhuis.