Speculation: How fast are the Canucks?

[demonic]

After hearing Rutherford mention that he'd like the team to be faster, I've been thinking about what "speed" actually means in hockey. It's a complicated metric and notoriously hard to quantify, but I wanted to take a crack at it and try to measure how fast the Canucks currently are, and where they could improve. I'm breaking it down into 5 attributes: Top Speed, Acceleration, Agility, Puck Skills, and Reaction. The first three are pretty self explanatory, but the other two are a little bit more arbitrary. Puck Skills covers stick handling at full speed, puck protection, ability to catch passes, etc. Reaction is more like mental speed, the ability to read the ice and make quick decisions, respond to changes, etc. I'm going to use a scale of 1-10 for each of these, with each number representing a percentile of active players (1 is bottom 0-10 percent, 10 is top 90-100 percent). So assuming 20 players times 32 teams, that means each percentile includes 64 players, and the median for each attribute is 5.5.

Here are my rough initial rankings for the Canucks roster, which puts them at 5.33 which would be slightly below league average. That is in line with my "eye test" intuition, but I'm sure not everyone will agree with how I break it down, so feedback is definitely appreciated.

Name	Top Speed	Acceleration	Agility	Puck Skills	Reaction	Total
Quinn Hughes	8	10	10	9	9	9.2
Elias Pettersson	9	7	9	10	10	9
Conor Garland	7	10	10	8	9	8.8
Nils Hoglander	7	9	10	8	6	8
JT Miller	7	8	7	8	8	7.6
Tyler Motte	9	10	8	5	4	7.2
Bo Horvat	8	7	6	7	6	6.8
Oliver Ekman-Larrson	7	6	6	6	7	6.4
Vasili Podkolzin	7	6	5	6	5	5.8
Tyler Myers	8	5	6	5	4	5.6
Brock Boeser	4	4	4	6	8	5.2
Brandon Sutter	7	5	5	4	3	4.8
Jason Dickinson	6	5	5	4	3	4.6
Matthew Highmore	6	6	5	3	2	4.4
Tanner Pearson	3	3	3	4	4	3.4
Juho Lammikko	4	4	3	3	1	3
Tucker Poolman	3	2	2	2	2	2.2
Travis Hamonic	2	2	2	2	2	2
Alex Chaisson	1	1	1	1	4	1.6
Luke Schenn	1	1	1	1	1	1
Average	5.7	5.55	5.4	5.1	4.9	5.33

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

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[Buresflyingelbow]

Looks like Rathbone will have a shot once healthy. I imagine speed will be what we look for as a main strength going forward when it comes to drafting as well. Interesting what you can pickup in a introductory press conference.

 

[Tables of Stats]

I don't think that most of that really makes a team play fast. Team speed is more about the quality of your breakout and how aggressive you are on pucks. Being able to skate quickly while carrying the puck makes a player fast, but if your linemates can't get in the zone and be ready for a pass the team is still slow.

 

[Dural]

Quinn is a great agile skater, but a 10 for acceleration? A 10 would be like Bure, and I don't see that burst from him at all. He also plays at a methodical pace, so the effective result is not a "fast" player, certainly not our #1 in terms of speed. Miller, Motte, and Garland all player "faster".

 

[demonic]

Based on my completely made up numbers here, I believe that replacing Chaisson and Schenn with Lockwood and Rathbone would bring the team to roughly league average. To become a "fast" team, they would also have to replace at least a couple of core guys. Maybe Pearson, Dickinson and Hamonic would be enough

I'm curious if anyone disagrees with me not having anyone in the top 10 percentile of the Top Speed category. I know that Pettersson has done well in speed skating competitions, but he hasn't really shown that separation speed lately, so I gave him a 9. I feel like the Avs have at least 4 guys that have better top speed than him, but I could be wrong

 

[demonic]

Quinn is a great agile skater, but a 10 for acceleration? A 10 would be like Bure, and I don't see that burst from him at all. He also plays at a methodical pace, so the effective result is not a "fast" player, certainly not our #1 in terms of speed. Miller, Motte, and Garland all player "faster".

I tried to break it down by percentile, so 10 means the top 10% of the league. I could be wrong, but I don't think there are 64 guys in the league right now that accelerate better than him

 

[m9]

Rutherford's comments about team speed were interesting. I definitely think over the next 12 months he will look to move on from 3-4 of the slower guys for some speed. Boeser, Pearson, Chiasson and one of Hamonic/Schenn are the obvious targets here.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Ummmm that chart is all over the place lol.

Canucks are a slow team. Just watch the games. We are the slower team 80% of the time.

 

[Dural]

Even on this team, I don't think he's top 10% in acceleration. In a skills competition over a short distance, maybe he would prove me wrong, but I don't see it in games.

 

[Tables of Stats]

I tried to break it down by percentile, so 10 means the top 10% of the league. I could be wrong, but I don't think there are 64 guys in the league right now that accelerate better than him

The issue is that your idea of speed, isn't at all what makes a team fast. McDavid skates fast, but even with him on the ice, the Oilers are still a slower team than Tampa or Colorado.

If you want a fast team, look at controlled zone entrances and exits and time in the offensive zone versus the defensive zone. Those are what make a team feel fast.

 

[Nomobo]

Your rating of Podkolzin jumped out at me especially his playmaking or “reaction”. I think his vision is underrated.

 

[demonic]

The issue is that your idea of speed, isn't at all what makes a team fast. McDavid skates fast, but even with him on the ice, the Oilers are still a slower team than Tampa or Colorado.

If you want a fast team, look at controlled zone entrances and exits and time in the offensive zone versus the defensive zone. Those are what make a team feel fast.

Even with McDavid as a perfect 10, I think the Oilers would be below average by these metrics. And Tampa and Colorado both have an above average number of elite skaters. I agree with you that the system is a huge factor in team speed, but you also need to have the players that are capable of playing at that pace, and I'm trying to figure out how far away from that the Canucks are right now.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Even with McDavid as a perfect 10, I think the Oilers would be below average by these metrics. And Tampa and Colorado both have an above average number of elite skaters. I agree with you that the system is a huge factor in team speed, but you also need to have the players that are capable of playing at that pace, and I'm trying to figure out how far away from that the Canucks are right now.

I'm not sure that you do. Outside of Kesler and Raymond who were the speedsters on the 2011 Canucks? That team was a very uptempo team that utilized the stretch pass to lethal effect but didn't have many players with amazing mitts or excellent foot speed.

 

[Dural]

Burrows, Hansen, Lapierre and Ehrhoff were all pretty quick, iirc. Hamhuis was certainly mobile, although probably not fast in any respect.

 

[demonic]

Also I would consider the 2011 Canucks more of a strong possession team than a traditionally "fast" team. Nobody is trying to suggest that you have to be fast to be good.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Burrows, Hansen, Lapierre and Ehrhoff were all pretty quick, iirc. Hamhuis was certainly mobile, although probably not fast in any respect.

The Sedins, Edler, Higgins, Bieksa, et al. weren't that quick though and, Erhoff aside, most of those quicker players were used as outlets for a pass or as puck recovery men to get the puck up to the playmakers.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Also I would consider the 2011 Canucks more of a strong possession team than a traditionally "fast" team. Nobody is trying to suggest that you have to be fast to be good.

I see fast purely in terms of how quickly you can go from your own zone to possession in the other team's zone. How a team does that and what they do after that stage really doesn't mean much. Nobody outskates a hard pass or a quick shot anyway.

 

[Dural]

I agree, the 2011 team wasn't especially fast.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

I view speed as I view size. It's great to have, but it's not more important than effectiveness. Jake Virtanen is a prime example. It doesn't matter how fast you are if you don't have a high motor, can't think the game, make quick decisions, or pass.

I'd like too see some time under Boudreau. There are certainly players on this team that are capable of playing fast, and some that aren't. You've done a good job for the most part of identifying these players.

That being said, if you are so slow that you can't keep up with the play at either end then you are probably a detriment.

Luke Schenn must be Neo because he is the one.

 

[vanarchy]

2 fast

 

[demonic]

I view speed as I view size. It's great to have, but it's not more important than effectiveness. Jake Virtanen is a prime example. It doesn't matter how fast you are if you don't have a high motor, can't think the game, make quick decisions, or pass.

I'd like too see some time under Boudreau. There are certainly players on this team that are capable of playing fast, and some that aren't. You've done a good job for the most part of identifying these players.

That being said, if you are so slow that you can't keep up with the play at either end then you are probably a detriment.

Luke Schenn must be Neo because he is the one.

Thanks. I actually had Virtanen in mind when I was thinking about that "Reaction" attribute, because top speed doesn't mean much if you can't make good decisions quickly. Just for fun, I would probably have given Jake 10-8-7-4-1.

 

[elitepete]

The Sedins, Edler, Higgins, Bieksa, et al. weren't that quick though and, Erhoff aside, most of those quicker players were used as outlets for a pass or as puck recovery men to get the puck up to the playmakers.

Higgins was actually pretty fast. Torres as well.

Kesler, Burrows, Raymond, Hansen had elite speed.

 

[arttk]

I agree, the 2011 team wasn't especially fast.

The fastest Canucks was when we played the blues back in 2010. That team was fast.

 

[Gstank]

Straight line speed probably average. but laterally speed we have to be in the upper half of the league

 

[Nomobo]

The older I get…the faster I was.