thecupismine
Registered User
- Apr 1, 2007
- 2,243
- 858
Just got back from the game - was an absolute blast. Lots of Canucks fans in the arena which was cool to see, including a couple fellow brown boys right in front of me who were also having a ton of fun. Was nice to get all the glares from the fans after the game after so many were shit-talking beforehand 
I used to go to a lot of games in Vancouver before the Benning years, but this was my first one in 4-5 years, so I used it as a chance to look at some things that are harder to catch on TV. Some quick things:
Team toughness: Tocchet came in with a mandate to make guys play hard & not be soft on pucks, and boy, has that ever happened. These guys fight all over the ice, both in the flow of play and out of it, for every inch out there. Specifically, I love the way they play in front of the net - it is absolute hell for the opposing team to get in position for rebounds and tap ins. Petey also has a bit of Bure's soul in him - this guy loves getting physical behind the play to kind of wake himself up a bit. Miller also ran into a few of our own guys behind the play, and proceeded to tell them to wake the f up and get into the run of play - was quite amusing to see.
While the forwards may lack in size, I don't think I'd describe any of them (outside of Kuzmenko) as soft.
Defensive positioning: I thought when the puck was in their end, almost everyone was in position, which limited the chances to the outside. Combined with the team toughness in front of the net, it made it hard for the Rangers to really get anything substantial going, and you could tell from the fans in the arena they were getting hella frustrated.
On the other side of things, the neutral zone play still needs work. Too often guys were standing around + not moving their feet, which opened up easy transition lanes against a team that is quite good on that front. This felt like it was atypical as the Canucks are usually great at preventing odd-man rushes, but unsure.
Kuzmenko: I wanted to pay special attention to him to see what the camera wasn't catching, and holy crap he drove me up the wall all game - it's really easy to see why Tocchet is annoyed with him. His line changes are slow + sloppy, he's consistently out of position in the neutral zone in the wrong lane, and is holding the puck a half second too long when he's not deep enough in the offensive zone to be doing that. Don't get me started on his dzone coverages.
Maybe he doesn't play Tocchet hockey, but Tocchet isn't some 06-08 version of Vigneault where we were trapping it like it was hot. This team is scoring the most goals per game in the league, and the gap between us and 5th is bigger than from 5th to 20th. This is a Kuzmenko problem at this point, and I'm not sure he's fit to play winning hockey at the highest level at the moment.
There's more I could write about the game, but I think everyone else covered what I wanted to quite well as it was very apparent on TV. Loving the lotto line & riding it while its hot, but the team could really use another top 6, play driving forward who can work with Petey for MU purposes come playoff time so we can abuse teams without 2 strong shutdown pairs.
I used to go to a lot of games in Vancouver before the Benning years, but this was my first one in 4-5 years, so I used it as a chance to look at some things that are harder to catch on TV. Some quick things:
Team toughness: Tocchet came in with a mandate to make guys play hard & not be soft on pucks, and boy, has that ever happened. These guys fight all over the ice, both in the flow of play and out of it, for every inch out there. Specifically, I love the way they play in front of the net - it is absolute hell for the opposing team to get in position for rebounds and tap ins. Petey also has a bit of Bure's soul in him - this guy loves getting physical behind the play to kind of wake himself up a bit. Miller also ran into a few of our own guys behind the play, and proceeded to tell them to wake the f up and get into the run of play - was quite amusing to see.
While the forwards may lack in size, I don't think I'd describe any of them (outside of Kuzmenko) as soft.
Defensive positioning: I thought when the puck was in their end, almost everyone was in position, which limited the chances to the outside. Combined with the team toughness in front of the net, it made it hard for the Rangers to really get anything substantial going, and you could tell from the fans in the arena they were getting hella frustrated.
On the other side of things, the neutral zone play still needs work. Too often guys were standing around + not moving their feet, which opened up easy transition lanes against a team that is quite good on that front. This felt like it was atypical as the Canucks are usually great at preventing odd-man rushes, but unsure.
Kuzmenko: I wanted to pay special attention to him to see what the camera wasn't catching, and holy crap he drove me up the wall all game - it's really easy to see why Tocchet is annoyed with him. His line changes are slow + sloppy, he's consistently out of position in the neutral zone in the wrong lane, and is holding the puck a half second too long when he's not deep enough in the offensive zone to be doing that. Don't get me started on his dzone coverages.
Maybe he doesn't play Tocchet hockey, but Tocchet isn't some 06-08 version of Vigneault where we were trapping it like it was hot. This team is scoring the most goals per game in the league, and the gap between us and 5th is bigger than from 5th to 20th. This is a Kuzmenko problem at this point, and I'm not sure he's fit to play winning hockey at the highest level at the moment.
There's more I could write about the game, but I think everyone else covered what I wanted to quite well as it was very apparent on TV. Loving the lotto line & riding it while its hot, but the team could really use another top 6, play driving forward who can work with Petey for MU purposes come playoff time so we can abuse teams without 2 strong shutdown pairs.
