Post-Game Talk: Preds def. Canucks - 5-4 (SO) (Kuzmenko x2, Dries, Garland)

[MS]

Team (outside of one player) played a really good road game and probably deserved to win based on play and chances. Battled back well in the 3rd. Story of the game was basically two players : Tyler Myers and Andrei Kuzmenko.

- Tyler Myers played the single worst game of any Canuck non-goalie this year. Abysmal. On the ice for all 4 Nashville goals, partially or totally to blame for all 4 goals. Just a total mess, absolutely clueless in his positioning. Basically just giving up on trying to defend opposing players and trying to play goal instead. Can't transition the puck. Can't do anything. Advanced stats were just as bad as the eye test. This sort of play helps the tank but does not help the ability to move him this summer. Now 1 point and a -21 in his last 19 games.

- conversely, Kuzmenko is an absolute game-breaker and showed a ton of heart and will at the end of this game. Took over the game in the 3rd period and was the best player on the ice. People (including some clueless media) saying this player was a complimentary scorer or that Boeser was just as good should feel kind of embarrassed at such an awful take. Impact player.

- Miller, Pettersson, Garland were all quiet for the first 30 minutes but very good in the back half of the game.

- Boeser had that 4-point game and then is 5-0-2-2 -8 in the 5 games since. Slow. Listless. And it wasn't like he wasn't with players who were skating well.

- Beauvillier had probably his worst game. Wasn't actively bad but very quiet, contributed little.

- Di Giuseppe I thought was maybe our best skater in the first half of the game but was dropped down to promote Garland which was probably the correct call.

- lack of C depth is glaring - Tocchet clearly has no confidence in any of Studnicka/Aman/Dries and as a result the top 6 was pretty badly overplayed. And if you're a winger who isn't on the top 2 lines, it's hard to succeed - Podkolzin played 7 minutes tonight.

- Hughes-Bear pairing was excellent and tilted the ice.

- Christian Wolanin defied the boundaries of math by finishing with a 63% Corsi and 70% scoring chance share while being paired almost all night with Tyler Myers who was at 33% and 32%. Looks terrific with the puck on his stick - absolutely not overwhelmed by the pace at this level and looks more skilled and dynamic than the corpse of OEL that we're used to seeing out there.

 

[iceburg]

Tyler Myers has just been tragic in this game.

Our best player has been Phil Di Giuseppe..

Just catching up on all of this now. I was thinking exactly the same thing. I’m not sure, or at least I can’t remember, a worse performance by an NHL defenceman. Tragic is the right word. I actually feel for him.

 

[kanucks25]

My dogg, one more year of Myers or four of OEL?

OEL hasn't hurt me as much as Myers has, at least not yet.

In three years there's a good chance I'm more sick of OEL than I ever was of Myers but hard to say right now.

 

[logan5]

His D isnt going to pull him many and hes not playing in east which wont help him much either

His defensive zone work is well above average. Combine that with being a top 5 point producer should get him a good amount of votes.

 

[bbud]

His defensive zone work is well above average. Combine that with being a top 5 point producer should get him a good amount of votes.

Makar Hedman Fox Josi Mcavoy Slavin Heiskanen add Karlsson Dahlin to compete with honestly he gets a few votes but wont beat most of that lineup on the vote card

 

[orcatown]

So here we go. Team all in on picking up some more useless points. Happens every year and has caused us endless misses in the draft. Hockey Gods hate us. And we'll rush back Demko just to get some more draft destroying wins. And they'll play Hughes and Pettersson to death just to prove what?? Would have been far better to have let Boudreau play out the string than to bring in the gung-ho new coaching regime.

That all said, the players deserve kudos, who were out late and gave it their all to come back.

Good

Miller - was strong throughout and particularly in the last few minutes. Looks a lot like the player who put the team on his back at the end of last season. Can we find a way to rest him? there has been some trade talk.

Kuzmenko - wow. upper level talent is obvious. What's his ceiling. Great game

Hughes - crazy how much he was used. Don't know what Tocchet is thinking. Rutherford needs to explain a few things to him. Like how the draft works.

Garland - don't know why there isn't more interest in him going into the playoffs. Dangerous throughout and drove the late game rally

Bear - developing into a good NHL player. Showed good mobility and range in this game.

Di Guiseppe - continues to be a meaningful player in the time he is given. Get him a contract.

Not good

Myers - one of his worse games. Couldn't get a thing going from out of his end and seemingly lost around his net. Maybe playing hurt - if not then putting in an horrible effort. Looked totally inadequate.

Stillman - back to the form he showed earlier in the year. As sluggish as Nashville looked he was still not keeping up. Benched for much of the time.

Delia - main reason we didn't win outright. Was totally outplayed by Saros and if you switched goal tenders, Canucks would have won going away.

Others

Pettersson - less than his best, looked to be back to carrying the puck too much rather than moving it. Obviously targeted by Nashville and when that happens needs to move puck quicker.

Wolanin - better than some of the others on the back end. Showed off, again, some good offensive moves, but suspect around the front of his net.

Boeser - I would say no longer an offensive threat. Just isn't there.

Thought Nashville was listless and without Forsberg they haven't got much. Sure glad we didn't take Glass. Worry is St Louis is going to be just as effortless next game and the Canucks, of course, will be pushing ever harder to win. Just our lot. Team with little past and determined always to wreck any future. And nothing can be done about it.

 

[sting101]

I wonder if they'd take Myers to help their tank. For the low, low price of a 2027 7th.

Throw in OEL and Garland

 

[VanJack]

It's soo bad the Delia era in the Canuck crease is winding down......he might have singlehandedly led the Canucks to the promised land of Connor Bedard.

 

[RutherPlan]

Beau with another point which makes it 7 points in 8. At this point I would rather have 4.1 million dollar Beauviller than 8.5 million dollar Horvat. The byproduct of Horvat leaving is Miller taking his game to another level.

 

[Hoglander]

Just thought I'd stop in for a quick shout out to Myers' tanking prowess. He should literally be embarrassed at how awful he is playing, but we need to keep giving him quality minutes until the season ends. Get the best pick possible, then, for the love of Gawd, get him the f*** away from this team. Never seen a dman drive a tank with the kind of authority that Myers does. It's next-level.

 

[mossey3535]

Wolanin was good despite having to play with Myers. I still get the feeling that Woo-Wolanin would be better than any pair we have currently without Hughes on it, and that's with Woo basically being only on the verge of not being a total bust right now.

Case in point, Burroughs-Wolanin got stronger as the game went along. They actually moved the puck as well.

Stillman horrible game, basically caused the end of period goal (even though Myers sealed the deal) by pinching like a moron into the neutral zone with 10 seconds left in a period. You can see why they acquired him, and it looked like he was at least settling down in the previous few games but here you saw that at his worst he is basically Myers 2.0 - just questionable decision making in all three zones.

Hughes is Hughes. Could be better on defence sometimes but at least he tried this game and what he brings transitioning the puck and on the opposing zone isn't replaceable or even replicable by any other d-man on this team.

Bear looks lost to me. Again just lacking that consistency and awareness he needs. Missed several passes in the Nashville zone because he wasn't expecting them - even though he was the only one open. Lots of weak clears and I don't think he wins enough battles. At least has the wheels and stick to compensate...sometimes. I feel like he and and Hughes are not a great pair because they are too similar - both too small and Bear can't anchor the pair defensively once the play is in their own zone. Be better to spread what little puck distribution we have by splitting them up IMO.

 

[Hit the post]

OEL hasn't hurt me as much as Myers has, at least not yet.

In three years there's a good chance I'm more sick of OEL than I ever was of Myers but hard to say right now.

We got Myers for "free" (free agent signing). OEL *cost* us a 1st round pick.

IMHO, from my POV the choice is clear as to who is more vomit inducing.

 

[mossey3535]

Delia actually not that bad. Made some good saves on wide open chances.

Goal #1 - Makes the first three stops, I don't know what else you can ask for. Myers being useless behind him again, pretending to play goalie but making no actual physical move to save it. I mean besides the fact he shouldn't be there in the first place.

Goal #2 - A bit unlucky, Myers can't stop the net drive and then the puck ramps off Delia's stick and hits him in the glove arm before going in.

Goal #3 - Again, Stillman pinches into the neutral zone like a moron which creates the zone entry. Delia still makes the first save, but Stillman chases behind the net instead of closing the passing lane. This creates the dogpile in front where Myers has decided to play goalie - unfortunately if he had played his position he could have cut off Niderreiter's cross-crease drive.

Goal #4 - I mean forget about Myers giving the puck away. Again Delia makes the first two saves. The second is a deflection through traffic and Stillman decides to puck watch instead of playing the netfront so Granlund just walks in and pots the rebound.

I only watched the SIlovs highlights but from what I can tell from those and this game, team ES defence has progressively gotten better. Sure there are the catastrophic breakdowns but those were there before and I would argue that they've gotten less common. In this game if either Stillman or Myers eliminates complete bonehead plays we win this one outright.

Basically in the last two games they've played well enough defensively to give a rookie goalie and a guy who sucked just a week ago excellent chances at winning games. Both against the basement dwelling Flyers and the bubble Preds.

Sadly I think the consistent incremental (TINY INCREMENTS LOL) improvement of the defence means that within the next 5 games we're not going to be able to count on the team suckage generating automatic tank (lack of) points. This hurts to say as someone who is firmly on Team Tank.

I think they can beat STL easily based on these two results. We have to hope that the run of BOS, DAL, MIN, and TOR breaks their spirit or something. Still, you can always count on the Canucks to play inexplicably well against teams they shouldn't have a prayer against, and vice versa. After those 6 games I think the team will start to cement some of this defensive play and they will have good chances against a lot of the weaker teams after that.

Unpopular opinion probably but that's how I read the trends right now.

 

[krutovsdonut]

pdg early in the game and wolanin all through the game had stuff happening and are kind of interesting. there's also generally a lot of ahl guys on this team right now just playing nhl hockey. kudos to tochett for that. both the previou coaches tended to handle ahl guys like hand grenades. makes me wonder what tochett might do with rathbone.

both boeser and myers have different variations of the yips. boeser looks possibly curable but touch and go. myers is in a complete death spiral. i feel for the guy. he might not play again after this season the way he is falling apart. boeser will get more chances but i am beginning to doubt we can move him even with salary retained and with no return. he's just so mentally frail right now who wants the project.

i wish there was a state on when a player takes a shot, does not score, and his team loses possession. jt miller must lead the league.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Useless point. We honestly need to lose outright games. No more loser points. A point here and a point there is going to cost a draft spot.

 

[BoHorvat 53]

Useless point. We honestly need to lose outright games. No more loser points. A point here and a point there is going to cost a draft spot.

We need to learn to count our blessings, without Myers it would've been 2 tonight so I'll just take 1 and move on to the next game, which is going to be one of the biggest showdowns of the season against the Blues who we must stop at any cost.

 

[tantalum]

I'm not going to complain about the coaches and players playing to win on the night. Nothing wrong with that. Hughes played a lot (30 minutes) but that should be expected given the next best D-man on the team right now is Bear who should really be a 5/6. Schenn was scratched for trade protection and he's a 6/7 on a decent team. The rest are all AHL caliber players either all the time or in their current play. I'm not mad to see Hughes out there.

Really no different than other team in a similar position. The Blues for example continue to lean on Faulk and Parayko on D and Schenn/Thomas up front very heavily.

 

[Zippgunn]

Like im getting marks here really i just dgaf

It's not that I agree or disagree with you, I simply can't understand you.

 

[Zippgunn]

Wow!!!!!!

This is special
Tyler Myers just had one of the worst underlying games of any player in the league this year relative to his team

I’m speechless somebody can be the is franking horrible

Like words cannot describe how bad this guy is.

...and yet apparently some teams are "interested" in him. Do they even watch the games?

 

[iceburg]

To me, Myers has always come across as very professional. He hasn't come close to living up to his contract but he has been a leader on the team. That said, I wonder how much recent events, losses, the Horvat trade and consequent leadership shift, have impacted his play. He just seems to be playing his worst stretch as a Canuck. Clearly he isn't in their plans beyond this season. He's a professional but he's also human. It must be having an impact on his psyche.

 

[Svencouver]

I mean this is probably the best way to tank right? Have one or two guys that can single-handedly lose games while the rest of the team improves. Loving what I'm seeing with our best players getting better, team defense improving, and guys like PDG, Wolanin, and Beauvillier taking opportunities. Myers and Goaltending netting us losses every night in spite of that is just immaculate execution on the tanking front

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Probably Myers worst game as a Canuck...Once Schenn is gone, things are going to look awfully thin on that right side.

Kuzmenko continues to pull new things out of the box. he's definitely building on his game as the season progresses.

Have to give the team credit for not quitting at the end of the game, and overcoming a two goal deficit.

 

[Hit the post]

To me, Myers has always come across as very professional. He hasn't come close to living up to his contract but he has been a leader on the team. That said, I wonder how much recent events, losses, the Horvat trade and consequent leadership shift, have impacted his play. He just seems to be playing his worst stretch as a Canuck. Clearly he isn't in their plans beyond this season. He's a professional but he's also human. It must be having an impact on his psyche.

He's Jim Benning's "Keith Ballard".

 

[Regress2TheMeme]

I have a feeling Kuzmenko is going to become a Tocchet favorite. Kuz really upped his intensity since being challenged and made some very nice plays off the wall to get the puck moving up the ice with control. Seeing that kind of change must be very gratifying for a coach that's trying to get a team to fix their bad habits.

 

[Izzy Goodenough]

Tankist Perspective:

Everyone here knows the Canucks have to be bad, to someday be good, rIght?
(Looking at you iMAC)

Last night's game review:

VERY BAD:

"Miller - was strong throughout and particularly in the last few minutes. Looks a lot like the player who put the team on his back at the end of last season. Can we find a way to rest him? there has been some trade talk.

Kuzmenko - wow. upper level talent is obvious. What's his ceiling. Great game

Hughes - crazy how much he was used. Don't know what Tocchet is thinking. Rutherford needs to explain a few things to him. Like how the draft works.

Garland - don't know why there isn't more interest in him going into the playoffs. Dangerous throughout and drove the late game rally

Bear - developing into a good NHL player. Showed good mobility and range in this game.

Di Guiseppe - continues to be a meaningful player in the time he is given. Get him a contract."

SUPERB:

"Myers - one of his worse games. Couldn't get a thing going from out of his end and seemingly lost around his net. Maybe playing hurt - if not then putting in an horrible effort. Looked totally inadequate.

Stillman - back to the form he showed earlier in the year. As sluggish as Nashville looked he was still not keeping up. Benched for much of the time.

Delia - main reason we didn't win outright. Was totally outplayed by Saros and if you switched goal tenders, Canucks would have won going away. "