Post-Game Talk: Knights def. Canucks - 6-3 (Hughes x2, Hoglander) | I’m blind, I’m deaf, I wanna be a ref!

[sting101]

I don’t think you noticed but we just lost 6-3.

Obviously Lindholm at 2C helps when he’s back.

Team will be easy to defend if you put the lotto line back together and have 3 lines with 3 C's that have about 4 goals combined in the last half of the season.

If they were generally good C's just struggling maybe you could get away with it but were talking about 3 guys who have been abysmal in the 2nd half above 3rd line checker expectation with poor track records.

Suter and Blueger are awful right now not sure why anyone would want them to play more in a bigger role

 

[bossram]

Is it though? Coaches implement changes even midway through a playoff round if the situation dictates. You can continue to play a strong defensive game while adding wrinkles to your offensive zone play. Certainly the players we have are capable of playing a different way.

They can make tweaks for sure. But their style of play is what it is. They're a conservative, north-south, forecheck heavy team that has relied on an inordinate amount of tips/deflections for goals.

They're not going to be a team that does a lot of east-west rush play. They should still try to diversify their offense though (another point I mentioned earlier in the season).

 

[sting101]

probably not a bad idea to get Joshua Blueger Garland back together to see if you can recapture that before writing it off and him to a 4th line permanently but my word has Blueger and Suter turned into absolute pumpkins outside of killing the clock.

Blueger is like 40 games without a goal.. It's horrendous. Suter is Granlund 2.0. Alright for 1.6 in that he can fill spots in your top9 from time to time but such a nothing player especially apparent now that games are harder on pucks

 

[Tact]

Team will be easy to defend if you put the lotto line back together and have 3 lines with 3 C's that have about 4 goals combined in the last half of the season.

If they were generally good C's just struggling maybe you could get away with it but were talking about 3 guys who have been abysmal in the 2nd half above 3rd line checker expectation with poor track records.

Suter and Blueger are awful right now not sure why anyone would want them to play more in a bigger role

Yes I agree, but I would start off with this to see if it gets the team going.

Lotto line works and so does JBG line. Hoglander and Lafferty were a chemistry duo early in the year and keep the Russians together.

Once Lindholm is back, I really would like to try him with Miller and see if there’s anything there in terms of offence. Depending on how that works, my next moves would follow.

 

[1440]

that trio of C's is abysmal and will get eaten alive

Aman isn't very good, but Suter and Blueger? The guys that have a combined on ice goal differential of 69-43 and an on ice xGF% of 55% and 59% respectively?
Suter ranks 13th in the entire league in on ice goal differential.
Blueger ranks 24th in xGF%.

 

[sting101]

They can make tweaks for sure. But their style of play is what it is. They're a conservative, north-south, forecheck heavy team that has relied on an inordinate amount of tips/deflections for goals.

They're not going to be a team that does a lot of east-west rush play. They should still try to diversify their offense though (another point I mentioned earlier in the season).

are you implying coaching/telling players to take more risk if they can't get to the inside? I highly doubt they are being coached into a style of attack when they have possession.

The "style of play" is what it is because they don't have many guys who can turn or lean on a defender enough to force support and open up seams or lanes to the net. You can't just tell guys to do it without advising/encouraging a lot of low percentage plays that cause turnovers and odd man rushes the other way.

 

[sting101]

Aman isn't very good, but Suter and Blueger? The guys that have a combined on ice goal differential of 69-43 and an on ice xGF% of 55% and 59% respectively?
Suter ranks 13th in the entire league in on ice goal differential.
Blueger ranks 24th in xGF%.

Those are small samples

Blueger has struggled for 30 plus games beyond checking. Hands of stone. No goals in 40 games. Reality is he's a borderline 3C at the best of times if he's got 2 wingers doing great work as he did with Garland Joshua. Since that trio was split he's been what he was at the end of last year a depth player. 4C is fine anything above and he's a black hole offensively but responsible. I would try that trio again but unfortunately that ship probably has sailed.

Suter has mainly been a winger in a top6 with superior players playing a support role. At 15 minutes in soft track meet hockey he was ok. As a C being tasked to do some heavy lifting and asked to play more minutes in playoff hockey he will do what he has been doing..... suck

Amen is waiver fodder and get smacked around. Can play some minutes and is fast and resposible but he's not even a good NHL regular at this stage of his career

Your just asking for trouble. The only way it remotely works is if Lindholm can come back and play 2C. Given how he's played to date that is probably a tall ask given he hasn't clicked with anyone outside of the Swedish trio a bit and the 3C role with Garland.

 

[Lawzy]

This just isn't really true. They had five high-danger chances in the 2nd and 3rd periods, trailing multiple goals. That is abysmal. From score effects alone, you'd expect them to be able generate more.​

I've been on this issue all season, but it was papered over with the huge goal totals in the first two months and people ignored it, but this is absolutely true: The team does not generate enough scoring chances.

The reffing was bad here, no doubt, but not why they lost. The game was already over before the major on Z. Desmith was also awful, true as well. But allowing 2-3 golden opportunities in the first minutes is not good.

This is what not shooting 20% looks like. Things can cascade negatively. Tocchet needs to dramatically turn around the offense.

I'm going to walk you off the ledge here because this current skid isn't quite as indicative of their play as you are making it out to be. Certainly closer to what would be expected compared to how much they were over-performing early, though.

The Canucks are 4th (12.75) in HDCF/60 5v5 since the All-Star break. Slightly up from 11.62 prior the All-Star (13th). A fairly obvious factor in their recent decline is that they are no longer converting at an absurd rate. I don't think even the biggest Canucks homers would have argued that would continue for the whole season. But I want to emphasize that is one of the factors, not the controlling factor.

Another factor is obviously their special teams. The PK was never fantastic but the unbelievable collapse of our PP has been detrimental to our success. Prior to the break the PK was rocking a middling 80.0% (15th) and since the break it's slightly, but not alarmingly, worse at 77.5% (20th). However, the PP went from 25.0% (8th) to 17.1% (25th) over that same timeframe. Not to mention the last few weeks have been even worse (last I checked they were 29th over this recent skid but the Anaheim + VGK game may have changed that).

But I cannot emphasize enough how difficult it is to win games when your goaltending simply isn't there. Look I think DeSmith has done every thing he's needed to do as a backup. But he simply isn't Demko and we should stop pretending that isn't a contributing factor. Take a look at our 5v5 stat pre- and post-break:

STAT (5v5)	BEFORE ALL STAR (49gp)	AFTER ALL STAR (26gp)
HDCF/60	11.62 (13th)	12.75 (4th)
HDGF/60	1.92 (1st)	1.41 (9th)
HDCA/60	11.08 (14th)	9.41 (9th)
HDGA/60	1.00 (2nd)	1.45 (23rd)
HDSH%	25.42 (1st)	19.33 (10th)
HDSV%	86.82 (2nd)	77.10 (29th)

Do you see a problem here?

To summarize: we are allowing less chances and producing more but the results are much worse. Yes, the team is scoring less. But they are still among the most efficient in the league at converting high damage chances. Do you know what they suddenly aren't elite at? Stopping pucks. This includes quite a few Demko games as well so it's not as if DeSmith alone is to blame but the goaltending just hasn't been there as of late.

Personally, I'd argue the biggest factors to our decline are (in order):
1) Goaltender
2) PP
3) Harder schedule
4) Inability to finish chances

Thank you for attending my TED talk.

 

[bossram]

are you implying coaching/telling players to take more risk if they can't get to the inside? I highly doubt they are being coached into a style of attack when they have possession.

The "style of play" is what it is because they don't have many guys who can turn or lean on a defender enough to force support and open up seams or lanes to the net. You can't just tell guys to do it without advising/encouraging a lot of low percentage plays that cause turnovers and odd man rushes the other way.

I agree with you. My post before that was literally saying that their style of play is what it is and can't meaningfully change, largely because of personnel. I wanted a roster addition at the deadline to introduce a different element. But yes, I do think their OZP is systematically oriented around being safe and settling for deflections/tips if they can't or don't want to force getting to the inside or a riskier East-West pass.

Like I'm saying they can't change much. There may be some tweaks to make, or perhaps they do what you mentioned and increase their risk profile (in both directions, making riskier players that could create better chances or lead to chances against).

This is what they are and I cautioned against it before. They're a low event team, and those kinds of teams are highly subject to variance and whims of the hockey gods.

 

[1440]

Those are small samples

Blueger has struggled for 30 plus games beyond checking. Hands of stone. No goals in 40 games. Reality is he's a borderline 3C at the best of times if he's got 2 wingers doing great work as he did with Garland Joshua. Since that trio was split he's been what he was at the end of last year a depth player. 4C is fine anything above and he's a black hole offensively but responsible. I would try that trio again but unfortunately that ship probably has sailed.

Suter has mainly been a winger in a top6 with superior players playing a support role. At 15 minutes in soft track meet hockey he was ok. As a C being tasked to do some heavy lifting and asked to play more minutes in playoff hockey he will do what he has been doing..... suck

Amen is waiver fodder and get smacked around. Can play some minutes and is fast and resposible but he's not even a good NHL regular at this stage of his career

Your just asking for trouble. The only way it remotely works is if Lindholm can come back and play 2C. Given how he's played to date that is probably a tall ask given he hasn't clicked with anyone outside of the Swedish trio a bit and the 3C role with Garland.

Amazing how high the standards are this season! Two of the league's best depth forwards and here we are disputing the minutia of their play.

Those are the opposite of small sample size... full season for players that have not been injured much and seen regular ice time.

Do you really expect Blueger to continue shooting 0%? His underlying offensive creation is still strong: 4th on the team with 5.2 iXg (NST) in the last 30 games where he has 0 goals.

I agree that having Lindholm gives the Canucks so many more configuration options because it allows Suter to move to the wing where he has been very good, but these are luxury ideas really.

The Canucks were the league's best team running Miller - Pettersson - Blueger - Aman/Lafferty/Suter down the middle and adding Lindholm over Kuzmenko is a huge improvement on that lineup.

If Lindholm isn't back, it is still essentially the same lineup. Podkolzin has been better in his time here than Kuzmenko was this season. No reason to expect them not to still be an elite team.

 

[bossram]

I'm going to walk you off the ledge here because this current skid isn't quite as indicative of their play as you are making it out to be. Certainly closer to what would be expected compared to how much they were over-performing early, though.

The Canucks are 4th (12.75) in HDCF/60 5v5 since the All-Star break. Slightly up from 11.62 prior the All-Star (13th). A fairly obvious factor in their recent decline is that they are no longer converting at an absurd rate. I don't think even the biggest Canucks homers would have argued that would continue for the whole season. But I want to emphasize that is one of the factors, not the controlling factor.

Thank you for attending my TED talk.

Not sure why you responded with most of this to me. I'm "not on the ledge". I'm just clear-eyed about this issue. You're mostly addressing things I wasn't arguing. Yeah, I know the goaltending is worse, especially with CDS. Yes, I know they're not finishing as much - they couldn't possibly keep converting at the rate they were earlier in the season and I literally said as much in the post you are replying to. I also never mentioned special teams, but again, yes, I know the PP has declined. It's an area I've been harping on for quite some time. I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.

The issue is, if they can't keep converting at an elevated rate (they never were going to sustain their first-half shooting percentage)....then they need to create more chances and diversify how they create chances.

I do have an issue with NST's HDC metric. I don't think it's actually that representative. They classify anything near the crease/low slot as a "high-danger" chance, even if it's jabbing a rebound into a pad. To me, that is not a high-danger chance (because it isn't one). The Canes were notorious for "juicing" these numbers because they take a ton of shots and jab at rebounds, but that style never really panned out for them.

NST also doesn't capture pre-shot movement. A private xG model, like SportLogic, tries to do that, as they have a lot more puck and player location data. Now, we don't have access to it, but JFresh compared xG models and found EH's most similar to SL:

Since the All-Star break, the Canucks are 21st in xGF/60 at 5v5. This is decidedly mediocre. They are not creating enough offense. Worse than that, how they generate offense is not varied. They rely a ton on forechecking, cycling to the point, and getting tips/deflections. The JFresh chart below summarizes this with some manually tracked data from Corey Sznajder:

Basically non-existent rush chance creation, or east-west passing plays. Their differentials are still solid because they've been good defensively. But when you are fundamentally a low-event team, as the Canucks are, you are very subject to the whims of variance (shooting percentage and save percentage, as you mentioned).

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Amazing how high the standards are this season! Two of the league's best depth forwards and here we are disputing the minutia of their play.

Those are the opposite of small sample size... full season for players that have not been injured much and seen regular ice time.

Do you really expect Blueger to continue shooting 0%? His underlying offensive creation is still strong: 4th on the team with 5.2 iXg (NST) in the last 30 games where he has 0 goals.

I agree that having Lindholm gives the Canucks so many more configuration options because it allows Suter to move to the wing where he has been very good, but these are luxury ideas really.

The Canucks were the league's best team running Miller - Pettersson - Blueger - Aman/Lafferty/Suter down the middle and adding Lindholm over Kuzmenko is a huge improvement on that lineup.

If Lindholm isn't back, it is still essentially the same lineup. Podkolzin has been better in his time here than Kuzmenko was this season. No reason to expect them not to still be an elite team.

I think depth players are supposed to be inconsistent offensively, otherwise they would've been top 6 players. The unfortunate fact is that almost ALL of our depth scoring dried up in the last 30ish games, whereas they were all over-producing in the first half of the season.

If you look at the expected production for the depth guys like Blueger, Suter, Lafferty, they are producing what they are supposed to be. Even Mikheyev is on a 35 points pace coming back from an ACL injury, that isn't horrible on paper. Hronek was leading the secondary scoring from the backend until February. As a result, the team was winning a lot of games, some even in blow outs. Unfortunately they have all gone quiet at the same time, and suddenly we have issue scoring now.

I wouldn't say Blueger and Suter are "2 of the league's best depth forward". Their advance stats might look good but you have to put it into perspective. Blueger was part of a very good line with Joshua and Garland, but it looks like he is more of a passenger on that line than the driver. Suter spent a significant amount of time with JTM and Boeser, that will skew his stats a bit.

 

[God]

This just isn't really true. They had five high-danger chances in the 2nd and 3rd periods, trailing multiple goals. That is abysmal. From score effects alone, you'd expect them to be able generate more.

I've been on this issue all season, but it was papered over with the huge goal totals in the first two months and people ignored it, but this is absolutely true: The team does not generate enough scoring chances.

The reffing was bad here, no doubt, but not why they lost. The game was already over before the major on Z. Desmith was also awful, true as well. But allowing 2-3 golden opportunities in the first minutes is not good.

This is what not shooting 20% looks like. Things can cascade negatively. Tocchet needs to dramatically turn around the offense.

I think this is just a semantics thing with "good pushback". They controlled the play in the back half of the game, and outchanced Vegas 5 to 2... that's a tough assignment.

No, it's not enough, but it's a huge psychological drain to have:
- your backup knock the puck right to another player for the opening goal
- score a goal, then have your rookie forward lose his assignment leading to an odd-man rush against
- get a phantom high sticking call that Vegas scores on
- an overreaction major on Zadorov after the Vegas high sticking double minor

Even after all of this, it was an uphill climb and they did well to control play leading up to the 3-5 goal... only to brainfart another odd-man rush against (I don't even remember what happened other than people 'blaming' Myers for it when there wasn't much he could do).

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Not sure why you responded with most of this to me. I'm "not on the ledge". I'm just clear-eyed about this issue. You're mostly addressing things I wasn't arguing. Yeah, I know the goaltending is worse, especially with CDS. Yes, I know they're not finishing as much - they couldn't possibly keep converting at the rate they were earlier in the season and I literally said as much in the post you are replying to. I also never mentioned special teams, but again, yes, I know the PP has declined. It's an area I've been harping on for quite some time. I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.

The issue is, if they can't keep converting at an elevated rate (they never were going to sustain their first-half shooting percentage)....then they need to create more chances and diversify how they create chances.

I do have an issue with NST's HDC metric. I don't think it's actually that representative. They classify anything near the crease/low slot as a "high-danger" chance, even if it's jabbing a rebound into a pad. To me, that is not a high-danger chance (because it isn't one). The Canes were notorious for "juicing" these numbers because they take a ton of shots and jab at rebounds, but that style never really panned out for them.

NST also doesn't capture pre-shot movement. A private xG model, like SportLogic, tries to do that, as they have a lot more puck and player location data. Now, we don't have access to it, but JFresh compared xG models and found EH's most similar to SL:
View attachment 845565

Since the All-Star break, the Canucks are 21st in xGF/60 at 5v5. This is decidedly mediocre. They are not creating enough offense. Worse than that, how they generate offense is not varied. They rely a ton on forechecking, cycling to the point, and getting tips/deflections. The JFresh chart below summarizes this with some manually tracked data from Corey Sznajder:

View attachment 845567
Basically non-existent rush chance creation, or east-west passing plays. Their differentials are still solid because they've been good defensively. But when you are fundamentally a low-event team, as the Canucks are, you are very subject to the whims of variance (shooting percentage and save percentage, as you mentioned).

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Yea I don't really see how we are among the top teams in HDCF. I don't really watch a game and come away thinking "wow we just got 'goalie-d'". The HDCF stats doesn't really jive with the eye-test.

I guess the Oilers fans were right afterall, PDO will, and have, caught up to us in the end.

 

[Lawzy]

Not sure why you responded with most of this to me. I'm "not on the ledge". I'm just clear-eyed about this issue. You're mostly addressing things I wasn't arguing. Yeah, I know the goaltending is worse, especially with CDS. Yes, I know they're not finishing as much - they couldn't possibly keep converting at the rate they were earlier in the season and I literally said as much in the post you are replying to. I also never mentioned special teams, but again, yes, I know the PP has declined. It's an area I've been harping on for quite some time. I'm not sure what you're arguing against here.

Sorry, you're right about this. I was not intending to address my post at you despite quoting you directly. I agree with almost all of the arguments you have made in this forum and I was mostly using your comment as a jumping off point to talk about the general doom and gloom I'm seeing here (and other places) lately about the Canucks. Your posts usually get good traction because the analysis is fairly nuanced so I'm basically trying to steal your audience. Again, apologies if my post seemed targeted.

The issue is, if they can't keep converting at an elevated rate (they never were going to sustain their first-half shooting percentage)....then they need to create more chances and diversify how they create chances.

Agreed. I'm especially worried about their lack of a "playbook", if you will. A team this skilled shouldn't be so one-dimensional. It's extremely obvious on the PP but I'd argue they are pretty predictable 5v5 as well. I do wonder if shuffling the lines as of late is a way of trying to build chemistry throughout the team and perhaps incentivize creative play but Tocchet doesn't particular strike me as that kind of coach. He wouldn't have ostracized Kuzmenko if that were the case. He likes low event hockey.

I do have an issue with NST's HDC metric. I don't think it's actually that representative. They classify anything near the crease/low slot as a "high-danger" chance, even if it's jabbing a rebound into a pad. To me, that is not a high-danger chance (because it isn't one). The Canes were notorious for "juicing" these numbers because they take a ton of shots and jab at rebounds, but that style never really panned out for them.

I think we'll probably just have to disagree on this point. I would consider these high-damage chances or, at least, I'd argue they are a step above a simple scoring chances. Garbage goals have their place in hockey and I think there's probably a line in the sand that differentiates these from high-damage but starts to get into the weeds of data creation. I definitely agree these do tend to inflate high-damage numbers from NST though and Carolina is a good example of this.

NST also doesn't capture pre-shot movement. A private xG model, like SportLogic, tries to do that, as they have a lot more puck and player location data. Now, we don't have access to it, but JFresh compared xG models and found EH's most similar to SL:
View attachment 845565

My biggest argument for NST is the open nature of their data. I have a hard time trusting private models but completely understand why companies do this. IIRC SL is AI-powered so it would be a black box even if we had the data. I'm not well-versed in SL's model but, from what I've seen, I have been impressed.

Since the All-Star break, the Canucks are 21st in xGF/60 at 5v5. This is decidedly mediocre. They are not creating enough offense. Worse than that, how they generate offense is not varied. They rely a ton on forechecking, cycling to the point, and getting tips/deflections. The JFresh chart below summarizes this with some manually tracked data from Corey Sznajder:


View attachment 845567

While I'm not familiar much with AllThreeZones, I believe the Canucks perform poorly on xGF in nearly every model. Honestly, I cannot argue much beyond my belief that the Canucks perform better on the eye test than in models. Keep in mind, I don't think they are elite offensively. I just think they aren't this poor either.

If anything, I think this is a fault with Tocchet's system. Perhaps fault isn't the correct word. Low event hockey prioritizes defense and we've done a fairly good job at that this season. I suspect Tocchet has correctly identified that this team lives or dies by Demko and thinks pure skill alone can take us over the hump on offense. As a unit, I don't think this is the case. Sure, guys like Miller, Pettersson, and especially Hughes, are gamebreakers that will provide offense even in low event hockey but the vast majority of this roster would forecheck until they are blue in the face without ever producing a scoring chance.

If anything, I think opening up the system a bit and relying on Demko a bit more could be beneficial. The difference between Demko and the average goalie is much larger than the difference between our rosters offensive capabilities and a league average roster. Lean into it.

Basically non-existent rush chance creation, or east-west passing plays. Their differentials are still solid because they've been good defensively. But when you are fundamentally a low-event team, as the Canucks are, you are very subject to the whims of variance (shooting percentage and save percentage, as you mentioned).

I don't want to harp on a single player but I've noticed Pettersson in particular has stopped making east-west plays. I can't quite tell if I think this is a system problem or a Pettersson problem. It might even be a personel problem. Sticking him with north-south players (e.g. Lindholm, Hoglander, Mikheyev) certainly doesn't do him any favours. With the addition of Lindholm, I think you could fragment our lineup such that certain lines favour certain playstyles. You load up the lotto line and let them play east-west possession hockey and let Lindholm grind in north-south style. I don't expect Lindholm to put up numbers anyways, you may as well use him in his best form.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I enjoyed it.

 

[bossram]

I think this is just a semantics thing with "good pushback". They controlled the play in the back half of the game, and outchanced Vegas 5 to 2... that's a tough assignment.

No, it's not enough, but it's a huge psychological drain to have:
- your backup knock the puck right to another player for the opening goal
- score a goal, then have your rookie forward lose his assignment leading to an odd-man rush against
- get a phantom high sticking call that Vegas scores on
- an overreaction major on Zadorov after the Vegas high sticking double minor

Even after all of this, it was an uphill climb and they did well to control play leading up to the 3-5 goal... only to brainfart another odd-man rush against (I don't even remember what happened other than people 'blaming' Myers for it when there wasn't much he could do).

Getting only 5 chances while trailing multiple goals for two periods is abysmal. I'm sorry, it is. That is exactly what Vegas wants while leading: A super low event game.

Yes, there was goaltending and bad reffing and missed assignments. But yesterday was symbolic of a very apparent trend: they do not create enough chances.

 

[sting101]

I think depth players are supposed to be inconsistent offensively, otherwise they would've been top 6 players. The unfortunate fact is that almost ALL of our depth scoring dried up in the last 30ish games, whereas they were all over-producing in the first half of the season.

If you look at the expected production for the depth guys like Blueger, Suter, Lafferty, they are producing what they are supposed to be. Even Mikheyev is on a 35 points pace coming back from an ACL injury, that isn't horrible on paper. Hronek was leading the secondary scoring from the backend until February. As a result, the team was winning a lot of games, some even in blow outs. Unfortunately they have all gone quiet at the same time, and suddenly we have issue scoring now.

I wouldn't say Blueger and Suter are "2 of the league's best depth forward". Their advance stats might look good but you have to put it into perspective. Blueger was part of a very good line with Joshua and Garland, but it looks like he is more of a passenger on that line than the driver. Suter spent a significant amount of time with JTM and Boeser, that will skew his stats a bit.

good post

The issue is that the team became reliant/fluffed on them overproducing and playing above their typical abilities. Suter Hronek Mikhayev have shown that they don't really have as much success once the game becomes more puck battle oriented vs free flowing.

It's not an indictment against them just an acknowledgment that there was going to be a correction at some point and that we need a couple more players higher in our order that can help either insulate them or replace them going forward as we try to become better.

Obviously being in first a lot has been done and went right. Were just seeing some pain as the reality of becoming a contender stares down the playoffs and this current struggle.

 

[God]

Getting only 5 chances while trailing multiple goals for two periods is abysmal. I'm sorry, it is. That is exactly what Vegas wants while leading: A super low event game.

Yes, there was goaltending and bad reffing and missed assignments. But yesterday was symbolic of a very apparent trend: they do not create enough chances.

Yeah, the volume of chances isn't good enough. Like I said, you and I agree on that, but have different definitions of "good pushback", so it's... semantics. I think it's good that they controlled possession for the back half of the game, and I liked that they tried to set the stone early in the 3rd by scoring to make it a 2 goal game.

 

[sting101]

Amazing how high the standards are this season! Two of the league's best depth forwards and here we are disputing the minutia of their play.

Those are the opposite of small sample size... full season for players that have not been injured much and seen regular ice time.

Do you really expect Blueger to continue shooting 0%? His underlying offensive creation is still strong: 4th on the team with 5.2 iXg (NST) in the last 30 games where he has 0 goals.

I agree that having Lindholm gives the Canucks so many more configuration options because it allows Suter to move to the wing where he has been very good, but these are luxury ideas really.

The Canucks were the league's best team running Miller - Pettersson - Blueger - Aman/Lafferty/Suter down the middle and adding Lindholm over Kuzmenko is a huge improvement on that lineup.

If Lindholm isn't back, it is still essentially the same lineup. Podkolzin has been better in his time here than Kuzmenko was this season. No reason to expect them not to still be an elite team.

The issue i had was using them as 2C 3C and Amen at 4C?

They are good depth players i agree but asking Blueger Suter Amen to match up against good teams best 3 C's after the lotto line vs oppositions top checking line is horrendous.

If they were playing well it would be a tall order. With the way they are playing and struggling it would be a recipe for disaster and putting them in a position to fail

 

[bossram]

Sorry, you're right about this. I was not intending to address my post at you despite quoting you directly. I agree with almost all of the arguments you have made in this forum and I was mostly using your comment as a jumping off point to talk about the general doom and gloom I'm seeing here (and other places) lately about the Canucks. Your posts usually get good traction because the analysis is fairly nuanced so I'm basically trying to steal your audience. Again, apologies if my post seemed targeted.

Agreed. I'm especially worried about their lack of a "playbook", if you will. A team this skilled shouldn't be so one-dimensional. It's extremely obvious on the PP but I'd argue they are pretty predictable 5v5 as well. I do wonder if shuffling the lines as of late is a way of trying to build chemistry throughout the team and perhaps incentivize creative play but Tocchet doesn't particular strike me as that kind of coach. He wouldn't have ostracized Kuzmenko if that were the case. He likes low event hockey.

I think we'll probably just have to disagree on this point. I would consider these high-damage chances or, at least, I'd argue they are a step above a simple scoring chances. Garbage goals have their place in hockey and I think there's probably a line in the sand that differentiates these from high-damage but starts to get into the weeds of data creation. I definitely agree these do tend to inflate high-damage numbers from NST though and Carolina is a good example of this.

My biggest argument for NST is the open nature of their data. I have a hard time trusting private models but completely understand why companies do this. IIRC SL is AI-powered so it would be a black box even if we had the data. I'm not well-versed in SL's model but, from what I've seen, I have been impressed.



While I'm not familiar much with AllThreeZones, I believe the Canucks perform poorly on xGF in nearly every model. Honestly, I cannot argue much beyond my belief that the Canucks perform better on the eye test than in models. Keep in mind, I don't think they are elite offensively. I just think they aren't this poor either.

If anything, I think this is a fault with Tocchet's system. Perhaps fault isn't the correct word. Low event hockey prioritizes defense and we've done a fairly good job at that this season. I suspect Tocchet has correctly identified that this team lives or dies by Demko and thinks pure skill alone can take us over the hump on offense. As a unit, I don't think this is the case. Sure, guys like Miller, Pettersson, and especially Hughes, are gamebreakers that will provide offense even in low event hockey but the vast majority of this roster would forecheck until they are blue in the face without ever producing a scoring chance.

If anything, I think opening up the system a bit and relying on Demko a bit more could be beneficial. The difference between Demko and the average goalie is much larger than the difference between our rosters offensive capabilities and a league average roster. Lean into it.



I don't want to harp on a single player but I've noticed Pettersson in particular has stopped making east-west plays. I can't quite tell if I think this is a system problem or a Pettersson problem. It might even be a personel problem. Sticking him with north-south players (e.g. Lindholm, Hoglander, Mikheyev) certainly doesn't do him any favours. With the addition of Lindholm, I think you could fragment our lineup such that certain lines favour certain playstyles. You load up the lotto line and let them play east-west possession hockey and let Lindholm grind in north-south style. I don't expect Lindholm to put up numbers anyways, you may as well use him in his best form.



I enjoyed it.

I appreciate the intelligent back and forth here, I hope I didn't come off too smarmy either. Not the intention. I think we're pretty much on the same wavelength on most of these issues. I absolutely agree on the "playbook" issue you mentioned. Watching the team, I don't think they create enough "high-danger" chances and their offense is very one-dimensional. They either create a chance off the forecheck, and if they regain possession it's just funneling shots for tips/deflections. Not many cross-seam attempts, few slot shots, and basically a non-existent rush offense.

I do think this is partly coached/intentional, and partly personnel related. You mentioned the lack of creativity with Petey and I think much of it is due to linemates (lesser linemates, who want to stick to Tocchet's style). Hoglander is a nice player for sure, but he's not really additive to a guy like Petey because he can't really make plays off of Petey. He'll get all his chances the same way, by getting to the greasy areas. He can do that whether he's on the 2nd line or the 4th line. That's a good thing, but doesn't really maximize Petey. Same with Lafferty, Mikheyev, et al. It is why I wanted a forward upgrade at the deadline who would ideally provide a rush element. I previously mentioned Duclair as a cheaper add in this mold.

I get what you're saying about the xG models and NST high-danger chances. Just personally, I don't think these super in-tight rebound/jam/deflection chances should be weighed as heavily, because we've seen over time teams (like the Canes) that lean into that style underperform what they're expected. Carolina's actually made a concerted effort to diversify their offense this season with more passing and rush-based attacks - their TDL acquisitions of Guentzel and Kuznetsov were also clearly intended to address that.

 

[Lawzy]

I appreciate the intelligent back and forth here, I hope I didn't come off too smarmy either. Not the intention. I think we're pretty much on the same wavelength on most of these issues. I absolutely agree on the "playbook" issue you mentioned. Watching the team, I don't think they create enough "high-danger" chances and their offense is very one-dimensional. They either create a chance off the forecheck, and if they regain possession it's just funneling shots for tips/deflections. Not many cross-seam attempts, few slot shots, and basically a non-existent rush offense.

I do think this is partly coached/intentional, and partly personnel related. You mentioned the lack of creativity with Petey and I think much of it is due to linemates (lesser linemates, who want to stick to Tocchet's style). Hoglander is a nice player for sure, but he's not really additive to a guy like Petey because he can't really make plays off of Petey. He'll get all his chances the same way, by getting to the greasy areas. He can do that whether he's on the 2nd line or the 4th line. That's a good thing, but doesn't really maximize Petey. Same with Lafferty, Mikheyev, et al. It is why I wanted a forward upgrade at the deadline who would ideally provide a rush element. I previously mentioned Duclair as a cheaper add in this mold.

I get what you're saying about the xG models and NST high-danger chances. Just personally, I don't think these super in-tight rebound/jam/deflection chances should be weighed as heavily, because we've seen over time teams (like the Canes) that lean into that style underperform what they're expected. Carolina's actually made a concerted effort to diversify their offense this season with more passing and rush-based attacks - their TDL acquisitions of Guentzel and Kuznetsov were also clearly intended to address that.

Ditto on the bolded. You didn't come off as smarmy so no worries there.

I worry the reason they went after Lindholm is because he fits the "playoff" mold and not because he fits the team. I don't disagree that playoff games are often won by the nitty gritty but it's counter to what makes our team successful. By all means, fill the bottom 6 with north south players but don't bet the bank on someone who doesn't even fit into our top 6. I agree Duclair would have been a much better and cheaper choice.

RE: NST high-danger chance

I think we're mostly in agreement here too. I think the happy medium is probably weighting those in-tight chances to be worth less than a true high-damage scoring chance and more than a simple scoring chance but that fundamentally shifts the definition of HDCF so I could see some hesitation there.

 

[bossram]

Ditto on the bolded. You didn't come off as smarmy so no worries there.

I worry the reason they went after Lindholm is because he fits the "playoff" mold and not because he fits the team. I don't disagree that playoff games are often won by the nitty gritty but it's counter to what makes our team successful. By all means, fill the bottom 6 with north south players but don't bet the bank on someone who doesn't even fit into our top 6. I agree Duclair would have been a much better and cheaper choice.

RE: NST high-danger chance

I think we're mostly in agreement here too. I think the happy medium is probably weighting those in-tight chances to be worth less than a true high-damage scoring chance and more than a simple scoring chance but that fundamentally shifts the definition of HDCF so I could see some hesitation there.

I would like your comments but I have too many warning points...

Yeah. I think your read on why Lindholm was the target for management is correct. Two-way "playoff" player. I actually didn't mind the trade as a rental, and Lindholm getting immediately injured upon arriving in Vancouver is peak Canucks, so it's hard to judge as of now. Really all that matters for this deal are the playoffs, so we'll have to find out then.