Post-Game Talk: [GM 26] Vancouver Canucks defeat Montreal Canadiens | 7-6 | Garland, Mikheyev(2), Horvat, Studnicka, Kuzmenko, & Pettersson

[Vector]

No one sensible was arguing that letting Demko steal games was a sustainable way to win. Hell, Rutherford said as much a few times at the end of last season. Same as here. That’s why there’s such a focus on fixing the defence. So I’m a little confused why you keep bringing that up. The argument is that they’d be in a realistic shot of a playoff spot for this season if he was playing at last years incredible level (really, all that means is they’d have about two more wins). Not that it’s a good plan for this year or the defence shouldn’t be addressed. Better defense means he makes less desperation & difficult saves and Martin can be played more, ideally leading to healthy Demko that isn’t exhausted and beat up by the end of the season. Don’t think anyone you’re going at would dispute this.

To me it’s a vicious cycle between Demko being a little shaky to start the year but the defense also letting him down. Demko loses confidence and the defence starts to cheat leading to more boneheaded plays. The forwards, even with Miller being a terrible C for whatever reason, are pretty much identical to last season just different people.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

No one sensible was arguing that letting Demko steal games was a sustainable way to win. Hell, Rutherford said as much a few times at the end of last season. Same as here. That’s why there’s such a focus on fixing the defence. So I’m a little confused why you keep bringing that up. The argument is that they’d be in a realistic shot of a playoff spot for this season if he was playing at last years incredible level (really, all that means is they’d have about two more wins). Not that it’s a good plan for this year or the defence shouldn’t be addressed. Better defense means he makes less desperation & difficult saves and Martin can be played more, ideally leading to healthy Demko that isn’t exhausted and beat up by the end of the season. Don’t think anyone you’re going at would dispute this.

To me it’s a vicious cycle between Demko being a little shaky to start the year but the defense also letting him down. Demko loses confidence and the defence starts to cheat leading to more boneheaded plays. The forwards, even with Miller being a terrible C for whatever reason, are pretty much identical to last season just different people.

Ok.

MS seems to just be pushing this Demko thing out on full so maybe I value his input a bit too much.

I also dont think Demko was as bad as people here thought.

Also. I did not for a second believe we were as good as we looked last year. Even on average with the good and the bad.

To me you need to buy in to the last years Bruce bump to be of the opinnion that this team does not need to rebuild

But you might be right. Maybe I am arguing against a position nobody holds.

 

[Vector]

Ok.

MS seems to just be pushing this Demko thing out on full so maybe I value his input a bit too much.

I also dont think Demko was as bad as people here thought.

Also. I did not for a second believe we were as good as we looked last year. Even on average with the good and the bad.

To me you need to buy in to the last years Bruce bump to be of the opinnion that this team does not need to rebuild

But you might be right. Maybe I am arguing against a position nobody holds.

It kind of just looks like you’re each taking an extreme position because, hey it’s fun to argue on a message board!

MS has bagged on Myers and Stillman in every GDT. Not to speak for him but I’d hazard a guess to say he’d rank Demko as the bigger issue then the defence. You put the defense and forwards first. I kind of think goaltending and defense are equally culpable.

 

[Play]

regarding the Demko situation- I think the majority of us know his game will return.

if we were truly worried, there would be much more chaos and pessimism around Canucks media and fanbase.


I’m sure JR is waiting for a situation to occur in the NHL where a solid trade can be done to bring in a top 4 defender who’s not old. Of course we will pay the price for it and may have to “lose”. But balance is more important than trade value as a whole , no?

 

[PuckMunchkin]

It kind of just looks like you’re each taking an extreme position because, hey it’s fun to argue on a message board!

MS has bagged on Myers and Stillman in every GDT. Not to speak for him but I’d hazard a guess to say he’d rank Demko as the bigger issue then the defence. You put the defense and forwards first. I kind of think goaltending and defense are equally culpable.

To me goaltending is like a shooting%. Dont bet on it.

Demko masked how unable to sustainably win this team is.

 

[credulous]

demko has definitely been bad and the team probably has 2-3 more wins with him playing like he did last year but at the same time the team's performance at 5v5 has cratered:

47.34 vs 52.36 goals percentage
44.71 vs 49.09 xgoals percentage
47.31 vs 49.65 corsi percentage

miller has been almost unplayable even at wing and the 3rd and 4th lines have been dominated almost every single game. pettersson's performance has been offset by worse performances by almost every other canucks forward

 

[Vector]

The fourth line hasn’t been dominated. They’ve been on the ice for 24 goals for and 26 against at 5v5. That group of four (Lazar, Joshua, Aman, and Studnicka) have been fine.

The third? Absolutely. Dries, Boeser, and Pearson have been ventilated. Miller and Hoglander have also not faired well but not bleeding goals like the other three.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

The fourth line hasn’t been dominated. They’ve been on the ice for 24 goals for and 26 against at 5v5. That group of four (Lazar, Joshua, Aman, and Studnicka) have been fine.

The third? Absolutely. Dries, Boeser, and Pearson have been ventilated. Miller and Hoglander have also not faired well but not bleeding goals like the other three.

You can add Bo to that.

Its only the EP line that is a net positive scoring chance wise 5on5.

 

[Vector]

You can add Bo to that.

Its only the EP line that is a net positive scoring chance wise 5on5.

In just raw GF vs GA, Bo is the only other forward in the top-9 with a positive goal differential, with +3. Bo is at least out scoring any defensive issues he’s having. That’s bound to regress though.

Hell, there are five forwards on the whole team with a positive 5v5 goal differential: Pettersson, Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Horvat, and Joshua.

 

[credulous]

The fourth line hasn’t been dominated. They’ve been on the ice for 24 goals for and 26 against at 5v5. That group of four (Lazar, Joshua, Aman, and Studnicka) have been fine.

The third? Absolutely. Dries, Boeser, and Pearson have been ventilated. Miller and Hoglander have also not faired well but not bleeding goals like the other three.

the 4th has been pretty lucky. they are underwater in shots, fenwick and corsi pretty substantially. they're not dries/boeser/garland bad but they are close. aman, studnicka and joshua have been better than aman, joshua and lazar though. not quite break even but not far off. small sample size though

 

[PuckMunchkin]

In just raw GF vs GA, Bo is the only other forward in the top-9 with a positive goal differential, with +3. Bo is at least out scoring any defensive issues he’s having. That’s bound to regress though.

Hell, there are five forwards on the whole team with a positive 5v5 goal differential: Pettersson, Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Horvat, and Joshua.

I dont really like raw GF vs GA.

There is 1 line that is able to control play and its EP and who ever you put on his wings.

 

[4Twenty]

The fourth line hasn’t been dominated. They’ve been on the ice for 24 goals for and 26 against at 5v5. That group of four (Lazar, Joshua, Aman, and Studnicka) have been fine.

The third? Absolutely. Dries, Boeser, and Pearson have been ventilated. Miller and Hoglander have also not faired well but not bleeding goals like the other three.

It’s weird to me you want to use raw goals data here but when we do it for a huge pro scouting win, with Ethan Bear, he looks as bad as Stillman.

 

[Vector]

It’s weird to me you want to use raw goals data here but when we do it for a huge pro scouting win, with Ethan Bear, he looks as bad as Stillman.

I mean, it's because I was laying in bed at 12:46am and grabbed the quickest thing my tired brain could latch on to.

With Bear and Stillman, Bear is -5 in 273 minutes played at 5v5 while Stillman is -6 through 191 minutes. Stillman is on the ice for easier minutes against lesser competition for less time. So, no Bear doesn't look as bad as Stillman. If you go by xGA then they are similar except Bear has a far superior xGF. His xGF and xGA are pretty much the same which gives him the best xG% of all regular Canucks defenceman.

 

[4Twenty]

I mean, it's because I was laying in bed at 12:46am and grabbed the quickest thing my tired brain could latch on to.

With Bear and Stillman, Bear is -5 in 273 minutes played at 5v5 while Stillman is -6 through 191 minutes. Stillman is on the ice for easier minutes against lesser competition for less time. So, no Bear doesn't look as bad as Stillman. If you go by xGA then they are similar except Bear has a far superior xGF. His xGF and xGA are pretty much the same which gives him the best xG% of all regular Canucks defenceman.

Those aren’t raw totals bud.


Stillman GF: 10 GA: 16
Bear GF: 9 GA: 14

Ratio is within ~2%

The whole point was pointing to raw totals for line 4, while not accounting for what you just did for Bear vs Stollman is inconsistent.

 

[credulous]

no one stat tells the whole story. in the case of aman/lazar/joshua/lazar they look pretty decent in raw goals but bad in corsi, fenwick and shots (and xg, but i don't think xg is a very good stat in small sample sizes particulary). if you look at their pdo their shooting percentage is about what you would expect but they're getting elite goaltending behind them. part of that is probably that they play conservatively and protect the front of the net well but a lot of it is luck. this mostly aligns with what i see from them on the ice. decent forechecking but inability to really string together extended offensive zone sequences and very conservative defensive performances where they spend a lot of time protecting the slot and trying to force shots to the outside but little ability to challenge the puck and change the flow of play. at some point i want to sit down and aggregate cam charron's game tracking data and when i do i suspect what i'll find is that they have few exit attempts and few entry attempts. i'd bet most plays involving them end in their own zone

that's not to say they are terrible but the narrative that the canucks have a good 4th line is wrong in my observation. they're not a disaster like some iterations of the 4th in vancouver have been but they are (as a group -- i like a lot of what joshua does individually) not very good if you compare them league wide

in bear's case i think the numbers indicate that he's done a good job of controlling play and moving the puck and that the ice is slightly tilted in the canucks favour when he is on the ice but his pairings either give up a frightening number of high quality chances or have been very unlucky with goaltending. given his partner is oel and oel has demonstrably struggled to defend in his own end (particularly against passes to the middle of the ice) i'm inclined to mostly give bear a pass but given his turnover problems he might be a bigger factor here than i think. we really need to see bear get an extended look with another partner to get a better understanding of his value

 

[MS]

If this but that….

It’s incredible how you no longer seem to give a shit that they’re bottom 5/10 in the stats.

How many less goals would they have if they were not on a shooting percentage spike?

This teams is bottom 10 in xG and has scored 17 more goals than expected.


The goaltending sucks but it’s chicken vs egg. It’s not “basically just goaltending”.

You cant have league average goaltending when you give the chances we give.

Why is this your new campaign?

I'm not sure what you're actually arguing here.

A graph was presented showing that we were 'worse defensively' than last year.

We aren't worse defensively than last year.

Last year we were a bad defensive team with excellent goaltending.

This year we are a bad defensive team with f***ing terrible 31st place goaltending.

The big thing that has happened this year relative to any preseason projections is that the goaltending has totally (and unexpectedly) collapsed. People knew this was a team that was bad defensively (correct) but would score quite a few goals (also correct). It's just that the expected goaltending has totally shat the bed.

 

[m9]

in bear's case i think the numbers indicate that he's done a good job of controlling play and moving the puck and that the ice is slightly tilted in the canucks favour when he is on the ice but his pairings either give up a frightening number of high quality chances or have been very unlucky with goaltending. given his partner is oel and oel has demonstrably struggled to defend in his own end (particularly against passes to the middle of the ice) i'm inclined to mostly give bear a pass but given his turnover problems he might be a bigger factor here than i think. we really need to see bear get an extended look with another partner to get a better understanding of his value

Not sure why Bear would get a pass because he's paired with OEL while Stillman is with Myers.

I really like Bear in the offensive zone and in transition, but he's been below-average defensively and he's had long stretches where he's been pretty awful back there.

 

[mossey3535]

For me:

1. The Defence regressing
2. Miller becoming unplayable as a center
3. Goaltending

Why I push back so hard against this idea is that the defence regressing should have been expected. Myers and OEL went from crap to a legit shut down pairing overnight. AND. Expecting you goalie to be year in year out monster is not a plan at all. There is 1 goalie like that in the league and he plays for Tampa. Shesterkin looks like a mere mortal this year, Juuse Saros has been hot and cold, Hellebuyck went through a tough year last season and is now back in form.

So if we are talking about what the management should reasonably expect from our team, compared to last year it should be two things. The D wont be as good and Demko wont be as good. If they entered this season not thinking that (like it seems MS entered this season not thinking that and is now trying to explain that away by putting it all on Demko) its on them.

Now I dont think anybody saw the decline coming that Miller has experienced this year. That I am not blaming them for. But resigning him looks horrific now.



I went through the first 6 or 7 games to watch all the goals Demko let in and honestly, there were mostly weird bounces and horrific defence. I think 2 or 3 I would actually call BAD goals that I would genuinely blame Demko on and they were bad reads. The rest.. tip ins in close, back door tap ins, weird bounces off of players asses, 2nd or 3rd chances off of rebounds.

From there his play deteriorated, he started questioning him self, learned the bad habit to cheat to try to make the save on the cross seam pass instead of playing the shooter..

To be honest, I'm not sure. I could be totally off. There are smarter people then me on (every thing really, but especially) goalies. @mossey3535 @Bad Goalie etc

Demko has been bad. I don't think we should expect too much more than what Martin showed us last night before getting pulled now that he's the starter.

I think your point about the defence is both right and was extremely predictable. At BEST the team would be the same, realistically with more injuries (which have gone back to Canuck-normal) it was going to be worse. We would have been lucky to have ONE of OEL/Myers to saw off last year, IMO it was much more likely that they would both be at least marginally worse.

 

[Nucker101]

Not sure why Bear would get a pass because he's paired with OEL while Stillman is with Myers.

I really like Bear in the offensive zone and in transition, but he's been below-average defensively and he's had long stretches where he's been pretty awful back there.

Bear on a good team is a #5 guy who can anchor your 3rd pairing and fill top 4 minutes when an injury hits. But sadly on this team, he's a clear top 4 guy. Canucks are just loaded with guys who shouldn't be full time top 4 nhl dmen

 

[mossey3535]

It kind of just looks like you’re each taking an extreme position because, hey it’s fun to argue on a message board!

MS has bagged on Myers and Stillman in every GDT. Not to speak for him but I’d hazard a guess to say he’d rank Demko as the bigger issue then the defence. You put the defense and forwards first. I kind of think goaltending and defense are equally culpable.

If this team had more of a defensive philosophy across the board, they could cover for both defence and goaltending. The issue I have with Bruce right now is that he doesn't seem to be able to either gameplan OR motivate that from the team.

 

[Bad Goalie]

For me:

1. The Defence regressing
2. Miller becoming unplayable as a center
3. Goaltending

Why I push back so hard against this idea is that the defence regressing should have been expected. Myers and OEL went from crap to a legit shut down pairing overnight. AND. Expecting you goalie to be year in year out monster is not a plan at all. There is 1 goalie like that in the league and he plays for Tampa. Shesterkin looks like a mere mortal this year, Juuse Saros has been hot and cold, Hellebuyck went through a tough year last season and is now back in form.

So if we are talking about what the management should reasonably expect from our team, compared to last year it should be two things. The D wont be as good and Demko wont be as good. If they entered this season not thinking that (like it seems MS entered this season not thinking that and is now trying to explain that away by putting it all on Demko) its on them.

Now I dont think anybody saw the decline coming that Miller has experienced this year. That I am not blaming them for. But resigning him looks horrific now.



I went through the first 6 or 7 games to watch all the goals Demko let in and honestly, there were mostly weird bounces and horrific defence. I think 2 or 3 I would actually call BAD goals that I would genuinely blame Demko on and they were bad reads. The rest.. tip ins in close, back door tap ins, weird bounces off of players asses, 2nd or 3rd chances off of rebounds.

From there his play deteriorated, he started questioning him self, learned the bad habit to cheat to try to make the save on the cross seam pass instead of playing the shooter..

To be honest, I'm not sure. I could be totally off. There are smarter people then me on (every thing really, but especially) goalies. @mossey3535 @Bad Goalie etc

I have not been following the Canucks game by game and day by day since the Canucks pulled the AHL franchise out of Utica. The Comets have been the AHL farm team of the New Jersey Devils the past 2 seasons and I have been following the Devils like I used to follow Vancouver. Last year was similar to following Vancouver. This season has been a surrealistic journey.

I check into the Vancouver threads every once in a while to see how my old poster friends are holding up, but I don't feel qualified to wade into this issue since I haven't watched the games. However, I have always been skeptical of fan bases blaming goalies for their misery. They become an easy scapegoat for much bigger team related reasons. Thatcher has been the only reason Vancouver has had any success the past few years and now that he has become a little more human while playing behind what is in all actuality the worst defense in the NHL, seems ludicrous.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I'm not sure what you're actually arguing here.

A graph was presented showing that we were 'worse defensively' than last year.

We aren't worse defensively than last year.

Last year we were a bad defensive team with excellent goaltending.

This year we are a bad defensive team with f***ing terrible 31st place goaltending.

The big thing that has happened this year relative to any preseason projections is that the goaltending has totally (and unexpectedly) collapsed. People knew this was a team that was bad defensively (correct) but would score quite a few goals (also correct). It's just that the expected goaltending has totally shat the bed.

We've gotten 31st place stats from our goaltenders. We do not have the 2nd worst goaltending.

The defence has been far worse than last year. How could it not when our shutdown pair just evaporates and our last years best performing C can no longer be played at C. The result is that we now ice 1 line that controls play.

Expecting Demko to keep playing like prime Hasek was not realistic. (Miller's decline I would argue is far more unexpected than Demko's)

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

We've gotten 31st place stats from our goaltenders. We do not have the 2nd worst goaltending.

The defence has been far worse than last year. How could it not when our shutdown pair just evaporates and our last years best performing C can no longer be played at C. The result is that we now ice 1 line that controls play.

Expecting Demko to keep playing like prime Hasek was not realistic. (Miller's decline I would argue is far more unexpected than Demko's)

The D hasn't been great this season..but no one was expecting Demko to be one of the worst goalies in the NHL this season.

Demko didnt even need to be Hasek...He just had to to average.

You need to get your eyes checked out..If they have Costco in Finland, they might do it for free.