MarkusNaslund19
Registered User
- Dec 28, 2005
- 5,471
- 7,832
Hey Wild fans,
This is purely for enjoyment and improving my knowledge of the league. If you don't enjoy this thread, I hope you'll skip on and stay positive.
This is a long read. But I put some thought and some time into it. If you have the time to read it and reply, I'll read everyone of them.
Canucks' fan here in peace. I wrote this post as a response to a thread on the main board. However, I realized that the responses I would be most interested to hear would be from the fans who know the Wild the best. I would be curious to know whether you feel I deploy the Canucks in an intelligent manner against your team. I'd also be happy to hear how you would line-match/strategize against the Canucks.
Match-Up: Canucks vs. Wild
Now this becomes highly highly speculative given the Canucks' seemingly drastic (and still somewhat mysterious) sweeping regime change. We'll know a lot more about philosophies, lines, deployment, etc after the first period of the first game of the year.
That said, here's what I would do:
I would expect the Wild lines to be something like
1. Parise-Granlund-Pominville
2. Vanek-Koivu-Coyle
3. Cooke-Haula-Niederreiter
4. Zucker-Brodziak-Fontaine
Defense could be something like
Suter-Brodin
Scandella-Spurgeon
Blum-Folin (or Ballard).
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Now, these are my lines for the Canucks. I'm sure not everything would work out, and they would change during the season, but sight unseen, here they are.
1. D. Sedin-H.Sedin-Vrbata
2. Burrows-Bonino-Kassian
3. Higgins-Vey-Hansen
4. Matthias-Richardson-Dorsett
Defense
1. Hamhuis-Bieksa
2. Edler-Tanev
3. Stanton Sbisa
Miller
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Defense
Now, I would pay some attention to forward line match-ups, but in this case my primary concern would be getting the right defense-pairing match-ups.
I want Hamhuis with Bieksa because we rocked that pairing in our run to the finals and, IMO, it never stopped working, we just stopped going to it for some reason.
The Hamhuis-Bieksa pairing goes against Parise-Granlund-Pominville.
This is because Hamhuis has the most hockey sense of all of our defense (though Tanev is nearly his equal, and may well be by the end of the year). I definitely want a player with high-calibre hockey sense against a player with the hockey genius of Granlund setting up a shot like Pominville's and the tenacity and smarts of Parise.
Bieksa would be playing opposite Parise. I find that Bieksa plays his best when he feels he's being personally challenged. Parise is a fantastic player for that. Parise wants to win (and often does win) battles he has no business winning on sheer hustle and smarts. He'll keep Bieksa on his toes and at his anticipatory best. Playing with an elite safety-valve like Hamhuis will allow Bieksa to truly trust his instincts.
The second D-Pairing of Edler and Tanev would play against the 2nd line of the Wild of Vanek-Koivu-Coyle.
This is because I feel like Edler's struggled with speedy players in the last couple of years (maybe he's still struggling with that back-injury). He would do well against Koivu and Coyle who both kind of use their size, strength, and reach to keep the puck outside and confuse D-men with quick passes. Edler's fantastic strength would help keep them on the outside. Tanev, meanwhile, is quick and smart enough to counter Vanek's unpredictability.
The Third D-pairing of Stanton and Sbisa (if he works out on the right, which may or may not happen), would play mostly against the 4th line, as well as the 2nd line on offensive zone draws when necessary.
I have Sbisa and Stanton together because from what I've read Sbisa has somewhat questionable hockey sense and plays impulsively. Stanton was really good for Bieksa last season who is an impulsive player as well and can be exposed with the wrong partner (Edler being a prime example).
I don't want Sbisa and Stanton against the first line for obvious reasons. I would prefer to keep them away from the third line as well because I feel like their limitations would be exploited by the speed of Haula. Further, I feel like Neiderreiter can be rushed into making poor decisions, but this d-pairing would give him the time to make a few good plays. He's a confidence based player thus far, so if he has a few good early shifts suddenly the Wild have a 2nd line quality player on their 3rd line that night.
Strategy wise, I feel like the Wild are a quick pass, beautiful cycle, swarm team offensively. I think the best strategy against them is to really protect the box (basically the home plate area in front of your yet running to the face off dots and the top of the circles). They're the type of team that draws you out of position and then makes a quick pass and strikes that open area. I would be hesitant to rush at them too frequently.
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I'm curious to hear if people agree or disagree with my thoughts.
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This is fun to think about, but also a little bit time-consuming. I need to hit the hay, but I'll write about what I think the Canucks would do with their offense in a couple of days if anyone expresses interest.
-Cheers.
