The Unfortunate Realities Of Canucks Travelling and Conditioning

[Balls Mahoney]

I wanted to talk about this in last night's GDT but figured this topic was interesting enough for it's own thread. I am highly irritated that here we are yet again around the 60 game mark and here we yet again are watching the "Canucks Fade" begin like a Groundhog looking at it's shadow. The Vancouver Canucks fade and fall apart every season drastically around this team of year aside from the President Trophy-era under Gillis.

We're watching Pettersson, Horvat and our young guys look like chewed bubble gum and playing with reduced efficiency. There's been questions around Brock all season.

The defense historically (as it does every year since I can remember) has fallen apart due to injuries as we're reaching down to 9th and 10th defensemen in the organization. Which, no complaints here since Schenn and Saunter is better than a lot of what was here.

The Vancouver Canucks are in geographically the worst place in the league and have over 10,000+ more travel miles in a season than a lot of Eastern teams. The NHL tries to balance the schedule but being off in the most northwestern part of the continent presents significant challenges a team in New York or Chicago won't face. Imagine injuries on an airplane with all those extra hours in the air. Every away game is multiple hours in the air, dealing with customs and the joys of business travel while other teams have several games a year where they just drive across town. This impacts every aspect of this team's performance.

Through the course of a season these negative aspects of the Vancouver market along with other issues proceeds to grind this team to a pulp, year after year.

I will be an eternal die hard Mike Gillis fan because he was the first and really only person to even acknowledge let alone address these things. Yet here we are again with yet another Canucks fade.

The frightening thing is we're now deep in a losing culture which will swallow everything this organization touches until an ownership change happens unless things reverse immediately. The biggest thing I think is to acknowledge and address these pragmatic issues the Vancouver Canucks face which drastically effect literally everything this hockey club does.

Click to read more...

 

[Balls Mahoney]

Also why after a season does Brock look bulkier and slower? Why does our conditioning staff continually send guys home to bulk up and then they come back slower which makes them lose confidence turning into a frustrating season?

 

[theoriginalBCF]

This is a great post first off. It is a challenge, I do believe Willie D tried to do some of this as well. To me the problem presented is the style Travis wants to employ, which when executed is highly effective, still lends to fatigue and a drop off in play.

I am not sure what the solution is.

 

[Baby Pettersson]

Start a petition to move Vancouver!

 

[MS]

Some of it might be the travel but Green has absolutely ridden Pettersson/Boeser/Horvat into the ground to try and squeeze every last point out of this team.

 

[CRDragon]

Some of it might be the travel but Green has absolutely ridden Pettersson/Boeser/Horvat into the ground to try and squeeze every last point out of this team.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Pettersson and Boeser have to get used to these 82 game (+ playoffs eventually) playing high minutes as the stars of the team. They will need a couple of years to be conditioned to be more consistent night after night.

If they were any other player of the same caliber, Green would have done the same because they are the key to the offense.

 

[Cogburn]

Sleep specialists and advocates to the league for all teams to avoid multiple overnight 3000 mile trips for back to back games.

Conditioning has to be a priority.

Depth depth depth depth depth.

Even Aquilini's nephew (our next GM probably...) has to see that these things need to be done properly for a team in a continent wide league.

 

[I in the Eye]

I am not sure what the solution is.

To me, it's reinstate and improve upon what the previous regime started: (1) work and fight with the league re: schedule; (2) sleep doctor (if it works or if placebo effect, continue the science); (3) travel schedule built around doctor's orders in (2).

 

[Fire Benning]

I miss the days when we had compotent people running the team who actually cared about this type of thing.

Instead we just have Benning whining to the media about the team being crippled by injuries year after year after they lose 8 of 10.

 

[elwin316]

In this year's case it only made a bad team worse, but yea it's definitely a disadvantage. Not sure which team will get bumped from the Pacific Division for Seattle, but from the Canuck's travel perspective, hopefully it's Arizona. Traveling to Seattle instead of Arizona, at least twice, would shed ~ 4K from the travel. Better than nothing I guess.

Copy/paste from Wikipedia, just assuming it's right...
Season structure of the NHL - Wikipedia

Division	Schedule	Total Games
Within Division	4 games × 6 opponents + 5 games × 1 opponent	29
Within Conference, Non-divisional	3 games × 7 opponents	21
Inter-conference	2 games × 16 opponents	32

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Balls Mahoney]

Bo Horvat is 10th overall among centers averaging 21:03 ATOI per game.

Elias Pettersson is 40th overall among centers averaging 18:27 ATOI per game.

Brock Boeser is 19th overall among wingers averaging 19:17 ATOI per game.

https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/stats...sort=8&time=0&pos=6&team=0&qual=1&sortOrder=0

 

[MS]

Bo Horvat is 10th overall among centers averaging 21:03 ATOI per game.

Elias Pettersson is 40th overall among centers averaging 18:27 ATOI per game.

Brock Boeser is 19th overall among wingers averaging 19:17 ATOI per game.

https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/stats?season=2018&category=ICE TIME&group=1&sort=8&time=0&pos=6&team=0&qual=1&sortOrder=0

Those are heavy minutes for young players and have ramped up considerably over the course of the season.

 

[passive voice]

Canucks' travel can't be much worse than San Jose, Calgary, or Edmonton, can it?

Update: Vancouver doesn't have it great, but like...most of the conference is in the ballpark. The Panthers oughta be pissed.
NHL Travel Miles: The 2017-18 Super Schedule!

 

[Balls Mahoney]

I was looking at those pages too but I think the difference is Eastern Teams do West Coast swings where it's a marathon week or two and then back to the east coast. Where every Canucks game is at least a two hour plane ride both ways.

Vancouver Canucks' GM Mike Gillis talks about fatigue and travel schedules - Fatigue Science Public Website

His longer-term goal was to turn Vancouver into a destination for NHL players—not easy for a team with an onerous travel schedule and a spotty playoff history. As an agent, though, he understood exactly what players wanted and valued. Sleep experts from the U.S. Air Force were consulted on ways to minimize the effects of the taxing travel demands. Chefs and nutritionists were engaged to prepare optimal diets for players whose default choice was McDonald’s. Psychologists were made available to deal with personal and professional stresses. The dressing room was reconfigured into a circle. The idea, says Gillis, was “to make Vancouver a place where players tell their agent they want to play.”

Last year, of course, the Canucks finished first overall in the regular season, and are seen around the league as a team that’s built to last. Off the ice, too, they’re considered a model organization. The franchise once ridiculed for hiring Gillis now sets the standard for money management, player development, and cultural transformation. The support the Canucks gave to the troubled Rick Rypien, and the way it handled the untimely deaths of Luc Bourdon (motorcycle accident), Rypien (suicide), and Pavol Demitra (plane crash), was exemplary. Their circular dressing room so impressed Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff during the 2010 Olympics that the Sabres have reconfigured their own room, and the progressive approach to diet, mental health, and travel is also being emulated by other teams. As Gillis intended, Vancouver has gone from being a franchise that players avoided to a place where they want to play. A new culture pervades the organization from top to bottom: first-rate people (and players), a tight-knit, clique-free group, and an ongoing commitment to get better. To that end, a rumour circulates after the Olympics that Gillis has his sights set on Nashville defenceman Shea Weber (a close friend of Dan Hamhuis), who’ll become a free agent in the summer.

Inside the Mind of Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis - Vancouver Magazine

 

[StreetHawk]

Sleep specialists and advocates to the league for all teams to avoid multiple overnight 3000 mile trips for back to back games.

Conditioning has to be a priority.

Depth depth depth depth depth.

Even Aquilini's nephew (our next GM probably...) has to see that these things need to be done properly for a team in a continent wide league.

Travel is a product of when your home schedule is free.
So, long as the travel is logistically logical there’s not much you can do about it.

When the Canucks travel east, you just hope that they are not going east then west then back east again. For this season in terms of destinations it’s been pretty good.

But I do wonder if the NHL has setup a table of the travel time needed to go from arena to hotel for each city. Like what is the time it takes for the team bus to get to The airport from the arena. Add in checking in at airport, flight time, departing the plane and bus ride to next hotel. Along with a time zone change. There should be a maximum time to allow for a back to back situation. Like does back to back actually make sense between Vancouver and a California team?

That Arizona game was tough earlier in the week because the Avs game was a later start and it went through OT and a SO. Pepsi Center from what I hear is 1 hour from the airport. So they must have gotten into AZ pretty late. As comfortable as the bus or airplane can be. It’s the staying up or getting woken up to move around the airport and bus that is the hard part of the travel.

 

[Balls Mahoney]

https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/story/canucks-plan-travel-to-boston-very-carefully-97355103-060511

Minimizing the effects of a tough travel schedule is very
important to the Canucks, who left the Pacific time zone 15 times
this season. They often had trips that took them through several
clock changes, and then they endured long flights to Chicago and
Nashville during the first two rounds of the playoffs.
”We’re so far away, one of the worst travel teams in the
league,” said forward Chris Higgins, who was acquired from Florida
on Feb. 28 and was soon asked to wear a sleep monitor bracelet on
the road. ”I got here late but it’s certainly something guys were
talking about. They track when you fall asleep, if you wake in the
middle of the night, how long it takes you to fall asleep.
”With our travel, the fatigue adds up, so the more you take
care of it, the better.”
The Canucks have to travel as far east as Minnesota, south to
Colorado and north to Edmonton – and that’s just to play their
rivals inside the expansive Northwest Division. The Bruins play
most of their games in the Northeast, and the division only goes as
far west as Toronto.
So that leaves them a little less accustomed to the kind of trip
created by the quick turnaround between Games 2 and 3. To acclimate
to the time change, the Bruins left their Vancouver hotel at 7 a.m.
for an 8 a.m. flight, arriving in Boston around 4 p.m. Sunday.
”We’re not going to hide the fact that we don’t travel as much
as they do,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said on Sunday. ”They’re
probably used to this more than we are. So I think it was important
for us to really look at it in a way where we had to make it the
best possible way for us. Our travel was planned accordingly. We
wanted to get back on Eastern Standard Time as quickly as we
could.”
The Bruins left the Eastern time zone only four times all
season, and have only been on Pacific Time just five times in three
years. The start of the finals was their third trip out West this
season, and the Bruins didn’t arrive in Vancouver until late
Monday, just over 48 hours before the puck dropped for Game 1.
Boston hopes to head back to Vancouver at least one more time in
the series. They will have to win at least one game there to
capture the Cup and become the fifth team to overcome an 0-2 start
in the finals.
”It definitely takes some time getting used to with your body
and the different times zones,” Bruins forward Nathan Horton said.
”We’re not so used to it playing in Boston.”
The Canucks won’t pretend they are used to playing in Boston, as
they are making just their third visit there in six years.

 

[VanJack]

There's little doubt the Canucks do leave some points on the table because of their ridiculous travel schedule. This year had two six game roadies in the first six weeks of the season, and predictably the injuries pile up and they swooned in late November.

But I think a bigger part of the problem is a simple lack of depth. Tired teams, particularly teams with awful possession stats like the Canucks, just get more injuries. And unfortunately when guys like Edler, Tanev, Horvat or Pettersson go down, this team just craters.

They need a deeper roster and guys they can call up from Utica who do more than just sit in the pressbox eating popcorn. Even then, the Canucks travel schedule will continue to exact a toll.....but it doesn't have to be as debilitating as it's been the last few seasons.

 

[ErrantShepherd]

Canucks' travel can't be much worse than San Jose, Calgary, or Edmonton, can it?

Update: Vancouver doesn't have it great, but like...most of the conference is in the ballpark. The Panthers oughta be pissed.
NHL Travel Miles: The 2017-18 Super Schedule!

How far are the Panthers from Tampa Bay?

The other 3 listed, Edmonton, Calgary and San Jose all have road games that they can bus to. Alberta teams vs each other, San Jose vs the California teams.

I am curious how teams like Phoenix and Dallas compare to us though. Any other major comparables or teams that can only travel via flight and regularly must cross multiple time zones?

 

[StreetHawk]

How far are the Panthers from Tampa Bay?

The other 3 listed, Edmonton, Calgary and San Jose all have road games that they can bus to. Alberta teams vs each other, San Jose vs the California teams.

I am curious how teams like Phoenix and Dallas compare to us though. Any other major comparables or teams that can only travel via flight and regularly must cross multiple time zones?

SJ is not busing to LA or Ana. It’s close to 6 hours to drive there vs 50 minutes to fly.

 

[I am toxic]

I miss the days when we had compotent people running the team who actually cared about this type of thing.

Instead we just have Benning whining to the media about the team being crippled by injuries year after year after they lose 8 of 10.

Injuries! Who could have known!



Cap space doesn't matter!

Signing are hard! Trades too!

Fewer picks means you can draft a better player!

BUT GILLIS!

 

[krutovsdonut]

I wanted to talk about this in last night's GDT but figured this topic was interesting enough for it's own thread. I am highly irritated that here we are yet again around the 60 game mark and here we yet again are watching the "Canucks Fade" begin like a Groundhog looking at it's shadow. The Vancouver Canucks fade and fall apart every season drastically around this team of year aside from the President Trophy-era under Gillis.

We're watching Pettersson, Horvat and our young guys look like chewed bubble gum and playing with reduced efficiency. There's been questions around Brock all season.

The defense historically (as it does every year since I can remember) has fallen apart due to injuries as we're reaching down to 9th and 10th defensemen in the organization. Which, no complaints here since Schenn and Saunter is better than a lot of what was here.

The Vancouver Canucks are in geographically the worst place in the league and have over 10,000+ more travel miles in a season than a lot of Eastern teams. The NHL tries to balance the schedule but being off in the most northwestern part of the continent presents significant challenges a team in New York or Chicago won't face. Imagine injuries on an airplane with all those extra hours in the air. Every away game is multiple hours in the air, dealing with customs and the joys of business travel while other teams have several games a year where they just drive across town. This impacts every aspect of this team's performance.

Through the course of a season these negative aspects of the Vancouver market along with other issues proceeds to grind this team to a pulp, year after year.

I will be an eternal die hard Mike Gillis fan because he was the first and really only person to even acknowledge let alone address these things. Yet here we are again with yet another Canucks fade.

The frightening thing is we're now deep in a losing culture which will swallow everything this organization touches until an ownership change happens unless things reverse immediately. The biggest thing I think is to acknowledge and address these pragmatic issues the Vancouver Canucks face which drastically effect literally everything this hockey club does.

i get where you are coming from. this is something that has been issue for the entire history of the franchise.

pat quinn fought about the travel and schedule all the time and did what he could. before that the griffiths got the team a dedicated air canuck jet for the season to address it back when that was not a normal thing. here it is in 1985.

then there was a whole thing in the late 80s where the canucks increased the oxygen level in the plane cabin and then they got a hyperbaric chamber in vancouver to try and address injuries.

Mending under Pressure

 

[BROCK HUGHES]

I don't by the whole travel issue thing.
There are other teams in the west who have to go thru the same thing...all the canuck flight videos I've.seen they are either resting or playing poker and they seem relaxed.. I don't by it..Conditioning and injures,,maybe we should not be signing guys who are injury riddled or holding onto them.

 

[krutovsdonut]

i had a buddy years ago who was convinced that athletes who travel on the road from east-west had an advantage over athletes travelling west-east due to easier time zone adjustment. he wanted the canucks to start all their road trips on the east coast, rest a full day before the first game, then work their way west no more than one time zone at a time.

 

[I am toxic]

i had a buddy years ago who was convinced that athletes who travel on the road from east-west had an advantage over athletes travelling west-east due to easier time zone adjustment. he wanted the canucks to start all their road trips on the east coast, rest a full day before the first game, then work their way west no more than one time zone at a time.

Same experience as your buddy. Flying out to Asia, Australia or Hawaii, no issues. Coming back, like death.

I don't know why, but so true for me.

 

[ErrantShepherd]

SJ is not busing to LA or Ana. It’s close to 6 hours to drive there vs 50 minutes to fly.

Ah my mistake, thanks for clarifying that.

So, about 50 minute flight for San Jose to California vs 1hr 20 to 1hr 30min for Vancouver to Alberta?