Post-Game Talk: [GM 3] Vancouver Canucks @ Washington Capitals | 4 - 6 Loss (Pettersson, Horvat, Lazar, Miller)

[Vancouver_2010]

Or just prioritizing appreciating assets over depreciating assets.

The team has leaked so much value over these years that they have a cap structure and prospect pool of a team that is exiting from cup contention while managing to be one of the worst teams in the league this past decade.

I could swear some of the posters in here could have done a better job than Benning. At least most of us would not agree to trade for OEL, some of us would not sign Myers, that's 13 million cap already. Seriously, i simply cannot get over it.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I could swear some of the posters in here could have done a better job than Benning. At least most of us would not agree to trade for OEL, some of us would not sign Myers, that's 13 million cap already. Seriously, i simply cannot get over it.

Agree.

And now we have this new management that already has a accumulated a bit of a stink of their own. Sample size is small but the direction they are going is not at all what I hoped and expected.

 

[DonnyNucker]

Not panicking because it's early and we have assets to move. Hopefully this front office makes a bold move soon. We need defense and have a glut of top 6 wingers to trade from or even Horvat if it's for a legit top pairing defensive RHD.

Horvat isn’t getting a top pairing D. Neither are abundance of slow wingers

 

[IslandBeast]

A proper rebuild in my mind is the team would collect draft picks like lottery tickets, core players other than Hughes, Petterson and Demkos shouldn't even be on the roster after the trade deadline. Purposefully lose every game in order to bid for the number one overall pick.

And do what Chicago just did for Dickinson..

For 7 years of bottom feeding we didn't once, not ONCE weaponize any of our (what should of been) open cap space.. Instead of signing the Gagners, Schallers, Roussels, etc etc we could of eaten bad salaries on players similar to Dickinson, reclamation projects and get paid draft picks for doing it! What's the worst that could of happened, we finish bottom 5? lol we did that anyways while spending to the cap via fee agency and actually somehow trading away more picks than we brought in. Like wtf did we just endure the last 3/4 of a decade? Crazy stuff man, these are supposed to be professional sports/businessmen

 

[sandwichbird2023]

That was a fun game to watch...


This team looks scared as hell and every time they get scored on they spend the next few minutes in shock.


Ok.

So why is he doing that in your opinion then?

How am I supposed to know!? Maybe he is slightly dinged up, or having issues at home, or his dog is sick, or lost his pair of lucky socks?
All I am saying is that if the issue with him is JTM got signed before him and he felt slighted, that would be a pretty crappy reason to play like garbage and an awful look for a captain.

 

[Vancouver_2010]

And do what Chicago just did for Dickinson..

For 7 years of bottom feeding we didn't once, not ONCE weaponize any of our (what should of been) open cap space.. Instead of signing the Gagners, Schallers, Roussels, etc etc we could of eaten bad salaries on players similar to Dickinson, reclamation projects and get paid draft picks for doing it! What's the worst that could of happened, we finish bottom 5? lol we did that anyways while spending to the cap via fee agency and actually somehow trading away more picks than we brought in. Like wtf did we just endure the last 3/4 of a decade? Crazy stuff man, these are supposed to be professional sports/businessmen

We simply don't know what we are doing, we are always neither competing, nor are we tanking. Failed to compete and yet failed to tank, so we simply stay average forever.

 

[HockeyWooot]

PK is killing them. Also general focus and attention to detail is lacking they’ve been the better team in these three losses.

I think they can turn this around but need to do so quickly.

Miler hasn’t been sharp.

Boeser has been a passenger out there, can we move him for defensive help. Joshua so far hasn’t been the player we’d hope he’d be in terms of physicality etc

 

[HockeyWooot]

I would like to see the following line tried at some point for a look:

Miller- Horvat- Podkolzin/Garland

A heavy line used in a matchup role.

While bottom six can have a more conventional look.

Pearson Lazar Mikheyev
Joshua Aman Hoglander

 

[PuckMunchkin]

How am I supposed to know!? Maybe he is slightly dinged up, or having issues at home, or his dog is sick, or lost his pair of lucky socks?
All I am saying is that if the issue with him is JTM got signed before him and he felt slighted, that would be a pretty crappy reason to play like garbage and an awful look for a captain.

Ok.

I think it is understandable that when your future is up in the air and the team did a 180 and signed a player that was supposed to be traded before you that it might be a distraction.

But we disagree on that.

Boeser has been a passenger out there, can we move him for defensive help. Joshua so far hasn’t been the player we’d hope he’d be in terms of physicality etc

He is our only top line winger and his value is tanked currently.

 

[Hit the post]

Lol

For real, still the forever true believer crap? Man. This is like religious or something.

 

[Vector]

 

[TruGr1t]

I wonder how much of this is general defensive play, versus how much is Demko not playing well.

The Canucks save percentage was a huge outlier last year, and is due for some reversion ... but if Demko has a mediocre season it's over already. This team will never be good enough without top-tier goaltending.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

I mean, one of the top goalies in the NHL is at .847 and the PK is at 50% and the PP that was 9th in the NHL last year has allowed as many goals as it's scored. And 3 of the top 4 RD are currently hurt. And they've played only road games. It's clearly *not* what they are.

They've played overall reasonably well at ES and had some crazy unsustainable small sample size stuff happen, especially on special teams.

Coming up with hot takes before you're ~15 games into a season is a good way to end up looking dumb. Same as when people got super excited when several Benning teams started 3-0.

While I agree with your sentiment somewhat, there are some things to keep in mind.
1) Blowing leads because of horrible pking was a big problem last year as well. Our strategy for keeping leads can’t always be hope Demko stops everything.
2) 3/4 of our top 4 are healthy, and only Juulsen really doesn’t belong in the lineup. Injuries happen and losing Tyler Myers should should not be this big a deal to any team that wants to make the playoffs.
3) Lack of foot speed looks to be a serious problem, as is the state of our blue line. I also don’t like how many times I’ve heard “this is a fragile group” right now.

Yeah, this won’t last the whole season and we probably shouldn’t be panicking yet. However, there are still major red flags with this group that should not be ignored.

 

[Hit the post]

While I agree with your sentiment somewhat, there are some things to keep in mind.
1) Blowing leads because of horrible pking was a big problem last year as well. Our strategy for keeping leads can’t always be hope Demko stops everything.
2) 3/4 of our top 4 are healthy, and only Juulsen really doesn’t belong in the lineup. Injuries happen and losing Tyler Myers should should not be this big a deal to any team that wants to make the playoffs.
3) Lack of foot speed looks to be a serious problem, as is the state of our blue line. I also don’t like how many times I’ve heard “this is a fragile group” right now.

Yeah, this won’t last the whole season and we probably shouldn’t be panicking yet. However, there are still major red flags with this group that should not be ignored.

When 100% healthy, this team only does have 3 top 4 defensemen.

 

[Kshahdoo]

You all should look on the bright side: Leafs have already lost to Montreal and Arizona, pretty tough feats...

 

[4Twenty]

60 games samples while being eliminated from the running in November is not a real sample. It’s also strange to me that sample neglects the 150+ games preceding it.

 

[m9]

Obviously minor in the grand scheme of things, but I've liked some of what we've seen from Aman.

I feel like people throw around "good defensive forward" too often and don't really know what they're talking about. We used to hear it all the time about Eriksson and Drance often talks about Boeser being good defensively even though you can probably count the noteworthy defensive plays either guy has made in a Canucks jersey on one hand.

But with Aman, he's actually made a couple of noticeable defensive plays already. I think it was in last night's game where he had a nice backcheck on a Capital player coming into the zone and it led to a transition the other way. There have been a few other small things like that. These are the kind of things you see consistently from actual good defensive forwards like an active stick or backchecking to stop plays before they start.

Bringing it up now not only to highlight Aman, but also to say that I hope we see some of these things from Mikheyev now that it seems like he's back.

 

[Vector]

Obviously minor in the grand scheme of things, but I've liked some of what we've seen from Aman.

I feel like people throw around "good defensive forward" too often and don't really know what they're talking about. We used to hear it all the time about Eriksson and Drance often talks about Boeser being good defensively even though you can probably count the noteworthy defensive plays either guy has made in a Canucks jersey on one hand.

But with Aman, he's actually made a couple of noticeable defensive plays already. I think it was in last night's game where he had a nice backcheck on a Capital player coming into the zone and it led to a transition the other way. There have been a few other small things like that. These are the kind of things you see consistently from actual good defensive forwards like an active stick or backchecking to stop plays before they start.

Bringing it up now not only to highlight Aman, but also to say that I hope we see some of these things from Mikheyev now that it seems like he's back.

In the Flyers game, I felt he had an excellent PK shift. Was able to apply a lot of down-ice pressure and when the play was pushed back into the Canucks end of the neutral zone he was already back in position. Can't remember where I read it last night but Lazar has lost every one of his PK faceoffs and Miller is always the first man out there for PK duty. At this point, I'd throw Aman out there as the lead PK guy and see what he can do. Literally can't go any worse.

 

[MS]

While I agree with your sentiment somewhat, there are some things to keep in mind.
1) Blowing leads because of horrible pking was a big problem last year as well. Our strategy for keeping leads can’t always be hope Demko stops everything.
2) 3/4 of our top 4 are healthy, and only Juulsen really doesn’t belong in the lineup. Injuries happen and losing Tyler Myers should should not be this big a deal to any team that wants to make the playoffs.
3) Lack of foot speed looks to be a serious problem, as is the state of our blue line. I also don’t like how many times I’ve heard “this is a fragile group” right now.

Yeah, this won’t last the whole season and we probably shouldn’t be panicking yet. However, there are still major red flags with this group that should not be ignored.

The PK issues were pretty isolated to the terrible start. We were pretty much league average under Boudreau. And middle-of-the-pack in 19-20 and 20-21.

Like I said, I want to see bigger sample sizes.

We're also without our leading PK minute guy on the blueline from last year and our newly acquired top PK forward, and that's forced other guys into bigger minutes.

Blueline issues are no secret. I thought we looked faster last night by switching the winger groups but certainly there are issues there. Absolutely there are points of concern. All I'm saying is that I don't think the team has played that terribly and should be 1-2 or 1-1-1, and we're 0-3 due to small sample size weirdness in terms of goaltending/PK/reffing breaks.

 

[rypper]

 

[Hit the post]

The PK issues were pretty isolated to the terrible start. We were pretty much league average under Boudreau. And middle-of-the-pack in 19-20 and 20-21.

Like I said, I want to see bigger sample sizes.

We're also without our leading PK minute guy on the blueline from last year and our newly acquired top PK forward, and that's forced other guys into bigger minutes.

Blueline issues are no secret. I thought we looked faster last night by switching the winger groups but certainly there are issues there. Absolutely there are points of concern. All I'm saying is that I don't think the team has played that terribly and should be 1-2 or 1-1-1, and we're 0-3 due to small sample size weirdness in terms of goaltending/PK/reffing breaks.

When was the last time we had a winger that excelled defensively? Even just to the level of Higgins (maybe Pearson at times but that's really it? There's a reason why the Sedin line wasn't a liability defensively (and you weren't afraid of matchups against it). Burrows.

 

[MS]

When was the last time we had a winger that excelled defensively? Even just to the level of Higgins (maybe Pearson at times but that's really it? There's a reason why the Sedin line wasn't a liability defensively (and you weren't afraid of matchups against it). Burrows.

Mikheyev is certainly supposed to be that player, both in terms of being an elite defensive/PK winger and adding to the overall team speed.

Would be nice if we can finally see him in the lineup tonight.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

The PK issues were pretty isolated to the terrible start. We were pretty much league average under Boudreau. And middle-of-the-pack in 19-20 and 20-21.

Like I said, I want to see bigger sample sizes.

We're also without our leading PK minute guy on the blueline from last year and our newly acquired top PK forward, and that's forced other guys into bigger minutes.

Blueline issues are no secret. I thought we looked faster last night by switching the winger groups but certainly there are issues there. Absolutely there are points of concern. All I'm saying is that I don't think the team has played that terribly and should be 1-2 or 1-1-1, and we're 0-3 due to small sample size weirdness in terms of goaltending/PK/reffing breaks.

I agree with you here. PK/goalies struggles/calls is something that is going to balance out over a season. Hopefully.

Something that I have found really interesting is that Thatcher Demko is one of the best goalies in the league at 5v5. 2nd highest gsaa last year at 5v5. But terrible on the PK. 4th last in GSAA last year, and is struggling again this year. @mossey3535 might be able to explain this, but its weird. Something to keep an eye on.

 

[4Twenty]

The PK issues were pretty isolated to the terrible start. We were pretty much league average under Boudreau. And middle-of-the-pack in 19-20 and 20-21.

Like I said, I want to see bigger sample sizes.

We're also without our leading PK minute guy on the blueline from last year and our newly acquired top PK forward, and that's forced other guys into bigger minutes.

Blueline issues are no secret. I thought we looked faster last night by switching the winger groups but certainly there are issues there. Absolutely there are points of concern. All I'm saying is that I don't think the team has played that terribly and should be 1-2 or 1-1-1, and we're 0-3 due to small sample size weirdness in terms of goaltending/PK/reffing breaks.

Do you see no issue in using a sample where they literally had nothing on the line?

Dead team. New coach bounce. Any time the games got close to mattering they cratered. Even under Bruce there starts sucked.

I get it’s 60 games but largely the same exact lineup had 150+ games of mediocrity at best.

Also did you really think they played well in the first last night? If so, I think you’ve gone way too far in this “just wanna cheer” thing you’re doing.

They’re 0-3 because they can’t hold a lead and the opposition can turn a switch and win….going on about samples and breaks is weird to me.

That missing the #5 Dman from the bubble season crippled this team is not a positive imo.

 

[Bertuzzzi44]

Boeser might have the worst defensive awareness of any player in the NHL.

JT Miller says hi