Post-Game Talk: WCQF GM02 | Vancouver Canucks lose to Nashville Predators | 4-1 (Zadorov) | Stars Can't Score

[Hodgy]

Also - don’t see how we can hang this on DeSmith. A complete fluke, an absolute goal scorer’s goal by Forsberg, and a good initial save with no D clearing up the rebound on the third. He didn’t have much to do, but those three weren’t exactly “OMG he sucks” goals. IMO.

Personally I roll with DeSmith again next game. Give him one more chance to write his story. If he falters again then it's Silovs ship to sink.

DeSmith was bad. He wasn’t tested much, so I do feel bad for him as he may have improved with more shots against, but he was bad based on the shots he received.

First goal wasn’t unlucky like the announcers suggested. It was actually a good tip by Beauvillier, and DeSmith utterly lost his net somehow tracking the shot so that he left 3/4 of the net open. Nerves probably got the best of him as it was early in the game and he overplayed the shot.

Second goal he but hard on. But Forsberg’s a lethal scorer so I won’t blame him there.

On the third goal, Petey made a horrific giveaway and then also failed to tie up his man in front of the net - and these two mistakes were the most egregious - but the initial shot hit DeSmith’s chance and had no business being rebounded out into the slot. This wasn’t a play where the shooter shot for the rebound by shooting low off the centre pad. This was a shot that shouldn’t have had a rebound.

"we need to shoot when we have a chance to shoot".

-Richard Tok (Canucks coach circa ~2024).

It’s not just about shooting more. In fact, we did shoot more tonight.

 

[ManVanFan]

What was their record post All Star Break? I don't take anything from the 1st half of the season into account right now, they aren't the same team.

8-7-1 on the road since the all star break

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

8-7-1 on the road since the all star break

There you go.

 

[Vector]

 

[ChuckFanForever]

What was their record post All Star Break? I don't take anything from the 1st half of the season into account right now, they aren't the same team.

If we're going by partial seasons:
The Nashville Predators have a 21-7-3 record since February 3, 2024.
The Vancouver Canucks have a 17-12-4 record since February 3, 2024.

So guess the Canucks should be lucky the series is tied, since they are technically the "underdogs" here.

(All stats taken from Trending Real-time | StatMuse)

 

[racerjoe]

Honestly... if we have Demko not worried at all.

This is the type of game where when your goalie lets in that first one, you grip the stick tighter knowing you have to do more. You try to be smarter, make that extra extra pass.

All 3 goalies I think demko swallows' up pretty easily too. We just need Demko... and that is scary... cause who knows what is going on with him.

 

[ManVanFan]

Casey DeSmith started 27 games this year. Had 12 starts vs playoff teams and in those games went 5-7.

 

[bossram]

DeSmith was bad. He wasn’t tested much, so I do feel bad for him as he may have improved with more shots against, but he was bad based on the shots he received.

First goal wasn’t unlucky like the announcers suggested. It was actually a good tip by Beauvillier, and DeSmith utterly lost his net somehow tracking the shot so that he left 3/4 of the net open. Nerves probably got the best of him as it was early in the game and he overplayed the shot.

Second goal he but hard on. But Forsberg’s a lethal scorer so I won’t blame him there.

On the third goal, Petey made a horrific giveaway and then also failed to tie up his man in front of the net - and these two mistakes were the most egregious - but the initial shot hit DeSmith’s chance and had no business being rebounded out into the slot. This wasn’t a play where the shooter shot for the rebound by shooting low off the centre pad. This was a shot that shouldn’t have had a rebound.

Yeah, I agree. It's not that anyone can really blame the loss on CDS (they scored one goal, they weren't winning with Demko either), but I wouldn't say Casey was good or even decent. Certainly didn't inspire confidence going forward.

Like you said, the initial goal, he was way overcommitted and lunging way out of the net to try and save a routine floater from the point. You have to be compact and able to adjust to tips/deflections (which a goalie should expect!) from weak point shots.

Agreed on the second goal. Juulsen is beat out of the corner, CDS goes into the positioning the goalie coach tells you to do on a goal line threat, just gets beat by an elite scorer. Not his fault.

3rd goal, not really his fault again. But you'd hope for better rebound control.

 

[M2Beezy]

Also - don’t see how we can hang this on DeSmith. A complete fluke, an absolute goal scorer’s goal by Forsberg, and a good initial save with no D clearing up the rebound on the third. He didn’t have much to do, but those three weren’t exactly “OMG he sucks” goals. IMO.

Yeah but end of the world, the sky is falling, season over, life is hell, dam you CdS, PBP and Alvin

 

[bossram]

It's driving the stat-watchers nuts because they keep scratching their head saying "well the Canucks dominated possession for large parts of the game and generated 37 shots in the third period" (only 6 hit the net, by the way). This has been the refrain since the all-star break, and it's now a large enough sample to theorize there is a larger problem with how they generate goals and execute offensively, versus some sort of "puck luck" that is going to revert to the mean at some point.

I have read Tocchet's system focuses more on maintaining offensive zone time than generating high-danger chances, so I assume it's a combination of coaching and the players inability to execute on the relatively few high-danger chances they generate per game.

The combination has made them basically a bottom-tier NHL team offensively since the all-star break.

They've been a bottom-tier offensive team all season. It was masked by a PDO bender in the first six weeks. It was something you, me, and other smarter people pointed out all season long. They don't generate enough.

Tocchet's system of establishing the forecheck and then maintaining OZP is really more of a defensive scheme (stay out of your own end, which is why their defensive metrics looks good). But they don't create many chances, preferring to spam point shots.

PP has been broken most of the season too, though many continued to say they were "saving" the good plays for the playoffs. Tocc still refuses to use his best PP1 group.

They're going to need to get better fortune with the bounces than Nashville if they're going to win the series. That's just how it is.

 

[bossram]

This is generally my thoughts as well. Tochett how he is training there team to okay well in one goal games in the regular season so that this trait shines through in the playoffs. And that makes sense and there is utility there. And I think you saw that to a degree in the first game.

But the team seems to have also lost its ability to score in bunches and come back from multiple goal deficits like we saw earlier in the year. So I think there is a trade off. We may be better in one goal games as our defensive is tighter, but it’s at the expense of scoring chance generation, so when we get down more than one goal we struggle to come back.

How many times have we scored more than 3 goals (excluding empty netters) since the TDL?

With all that said, of course the Canucks didn’t get the puck luck tonight, and were obviously the better team. But I do think some are overrating the “shot attempt” stat. It’s one thing to have a great shot attempt that misses the net, but it’s another thing if a team is clogging up the middle of the ice, and you aren’t moving the puck laterally enough to open up shooting lanes, but are just continually whipping the puck at the net and they are getting blocked. Obviously not saying we were entirely the latter, but you get the point.

I think the point @TruGr1t and myself are making is that they never really had this ability. It was a mirage. Mostly good fortune. They've not been a strong offensive team all season.

Last night they just kept blasting perimeter shots right into Nashville shot blockers. Dumb offensive scheme.

I agree they didn't really get much in the way of good fortune on the bounces (*screams in Joshua chance*), but they're at the point now with CDS in net where they basically have to get luckier than NSH if they're going to win. That's not a great place to be.

 

[Hodgy]

Yeah but end of the world, the sky is falling, season over, life is hell, dam you CdS, PBP and Alvin

Using this as a jump off, but I'd go with Silovs for a few reasons:

1) DeSmith was bad last night. Again, he didn't see much action, so he may have improved, but he was confidence inspiring.

2) DeSmith wasn't good down the stretch when Demko went down, or at least, wasn't anywhere good enough for a team to go anywhere in the playoffs. I know he had the one good game against Edmonton, but that's ignoring all of the other games where he was anywhere from bad to average. And again, you don't win in the playoffs with bad or average goaltending, and certainly this team that is average offensively, with a crap powerplay, isn't going anywhere with bad or average goaltending. We are cooked, IMO, if that's the goaltending we get.

3) Silovs showed at the World Championship that he can get hot over a period of time in big games. He's done this before. He may never get to that level again, but at least we know its possible, and its more than you can say about DeSmith who, to his credit, otherwise has the better resume.

 

[Hodgy]

Where "puck luck" mostly comes into it, in my opinion, is the first 30 games or so. I don't think they've changed their style of play much over the season, but early in the year they had obscene conversion rates and every second shot seemed to be going into the net, which made this system look formidable. When you're not scoring at a high conversion rate on a lower volume of chances, the system gets you into the bottom of the league offensively.

That's not all bounces, though, because the execution offensively has also been bad since the all-star break. So some of it is on the players for "gripping sticks too hard" or whatever, but some of it is the system they play just doesn't generate a ton of high-quality scoring opportunities anyway.

I think the point @TruGr1t and myself are making is that they never really had this ability. It was a mirage. Mostly good fortune. They've not been a strong offensive team all season.

Last night they just kept blasting perimeter shots right into Nashville shot blockers. Dumb offensive scheme.

I agree they didn't really get much in the way of good fortune on the bounces (*screams in Joshua chance*), but they're at the point now with CDS in net where they basically have to get luckier than NSH if they're going to win. That's not a great place to be.

Ya, I agree that they were always going to regress to the mean, to some extent, on their shooting percentage. But as @TruGr1t pointed out, I think there is more than just regression in terms of shooting percentage as they also just haven't been able to execute offensively.

Before the trade deadline, or so, Tochett had them playing a fairly aggressive offensive system in the neutral zone, and we saw some excellent break out passes, and generally excellent passes off the rush. Lot of tape to tape, east-west passes, that were really opening up the opposition. We were generating a lot of offense with great passing plays, and the conversion rate was high. Part of it being high was likely just unsustainable PDO, but part of it was also because we were getting really high quality scoring chances off these great scoring chances. So, if we could have sustained that style of play, I would have expected us to have a higher PDO than average.

But as we all know, around the trade deadline or so, the Canucks stopped playing as aggressively. Whether it was because they couldn't sustain a high execution rate on their passes, or because of coaching directive (i.e., focus more on safer plays, north-south, etc.). I tend to think it was the latter as I think Tochett didn't like some of those high scoring games earlier in the year and wanted to establish a style of play that would win in the playoffs. And he we are now, in the playoffs. And again, I think Tochett has us playing well in one goal games, but I also think we've lost our lethal scoring. And I think you kind of need both in the playoffs.

 

[brock hughes007]

Wtf Demko,,rub some mud on it and get back in net.

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Pettersson, WTF was that?

They have to do hard decision. CDS or Silovs.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

At this point, DeSmith has proven that he can't give the team a chance to win.

His -1.61 goals saved above average says otherwise. Not good, not playoff goaltending performance worthy. Just average and he was below that.

You did not watch the game.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

DeSmith was bad. He wasn’t tested much, so I do feel bad for him as he may have improved with more shots against, but he was bad based on the shots he received.

First goal wasn’t unlucky like the announcers suggested. It was actually a good tip by Beauvillier, and DeSmith utterly lost his net somehow tracking the shot so that he left 3/4 of the net open. Nerves probably got the best of him as it was early in the game and he overplayed the shot.

Second goal he but hard on. But Forsberg’s a lethal scorer so I won’t blame him there.

On the third goal, Petey made a horrific giveaway and then also failed to tie up his man in front of the net - and these two mistakes were the most egregious - but the initial shot hit DeSmith’s chance and had no business being rebounded out into the slot. This wasn’t a play where the shooter shot for the rebound by shooting low off the centre pad. This was a shot that shouldn’t have had a rebound.




It’s not just about shooting more. In fact, we did shoot more tonight.

@Bad Goalie @mossey3535


What are your takes on DeSmiths goaltending?

 

[Svencouver]

I would broaden this statement ... if you think the team is going to fix the overall offensive problems it's had since the all-star break you're living on a hope and a prayer, at this point. Offensively, I think they ranked 25-27th in five-on-five shot rate post All-Star Game and ranked in the bottom 10 among all NHL teams on the season.

PP is just one major symptom of a larger problem.

They've been a bottom-tier offensive team all season. It was masked by a PDO bender in the first six weeks. It was something you, me, and other smarter people pointed out all season long. They don't generate enough.

Tocchet's system of establishing the forecheck and then maintaining OZP is really more of a defensive scheme (stay out of your own end, which is why their defensive metrics looks good). But they don't create many chances, preferring to spam point shots.

PP has been broken most of the season too, though many continued to say they were "saving" the good plays for the playoffs. Tocc still refuses to use his best PP1 group.

They're going to need to get better fortune with the bounces than Nashville if they're going to win the series. That's just how it is.

As much as I love Tocchet (and I do), this was a problem his teams in Arizona had, too. I think people were hoping that:
1. He would have improved as a coach with experience (I think he has), and learned how to increase offensive production while maintaining OZ time and maintaining defensive structure
2. This teams increased offensive talent throughout the lineup would have made them a naturally higher production team than the coyotes
As it stands, it seems as if we actually still do have the same problems the Tocchet Coyotes had. I still do like Tocchet, and I think we should stick with him - but we need some kind of offensive coordinator and distinct PP coach to make up for his deficiencies in this area. Our zone entries are mediocre, our cycle is poor, and our set plays and passing on the PP and even on 5 on 5 pale in comparison to a team like Tampa or Edmonton. I don't think improvements in this area preclude what Tocchet wants to do in the neutral zone and in transition, maximizing zone time and possession, and, if anything, should complement it.

 

[bossram]

As much as I love Tocchet (and I do), this was a problem his teams in Arizona had, too. I think people were hoping that:
1. He would have improved as a coach with experience (I think he has), and learned how to increase offensive production while maintaining OZ time and maintaining defensive structure
2. This teams increased offensive talent throughout the lineup would have made them a naturally higher production team than the coyotes
As it stands, it seems as if we actually still do have the same problems the Tocchet Coyotes had. I still do like Tocchet, and I think we should stick with him - but we need some kind of offensive coordinator and distinct PP coach to make up for his deficiencies in this area. Our zone entries are mediocre, our cycle is poor, and our set plays and passing on the PP and even on 5 on 5 pale in comparison to a team like Tampa or Edmonton. I don't think improvements in this area preclude what Tocchet wants to do in the neutral zone and in transition, maximizing zone time and possession, and, if anything, should complement it.

OC-type position is an interesting idea I think more teams should explore. Creating offense in the NHL is tough. And yeah, I don't know why Tocc is directly handling the PP. Should be a PP coach.

I've said this several time over the season, but the Canucks needed more diversity on offense, beyond forecheck turnovers and tips/deflections off perimeter shots. They have zero rush offense and create very few chances with East-West passing.

 

[Svencouver]

OC-type position is an interesting idea I think more teams should explore. Creating offense in the NHL is tough. And yeah, I don't know why Tocc is directly handling the PP. Should be a PP coach.

I've said this several time over the season, but the Canucks needed more diversity on offense, beyond forecheck turnovers and tips/deflections off perimeter shots. They have zero rush offense and create very few chances with East-West passing.

I think Pettersson and Boeser in particular are better off the rush, too. Garland and Joshua have been effective on the forecheck, as has Lindholm, but even then, earlier in the season we saw a lot of rush offense being created by Garland-Blueger-Joshua. A grinding, forecheck based style should certainly be employed to create turnovers and start OZ possessions (especially with any line with Miller/Garland/Joshua/etc., and our 4th line) but especially with how talented Hughes and Pettersson are at skill plays, stickhandling, and making plays in transition with stretch passes and speed through the neutral zone, I think we're sort of neutering our most talented players with the current offensive scheme. As much criticism Pettersson gets and rightfully deserves, I think he's just confounded by how Tocchet wants him to play, to some degree.

 

[bossram]

I think Pettersson and Boeser in particular are better off the rush, too. Garland and Joshua have been effective on the forecheck, as has Lindholm, but even then, earlier in the season we saw a lot of rush offense being created by Garland-Blueger-Joshua. A grinding, forecheck based style should certainly be employed to create turnovers and start OZ possessions (especially with any line with Miller/Garland/Joshua/etc., and our 4th line) but especially with how talented Hughes and Pettersson are at skill plays, stickhandling, and making plays in transition with stretch passes and speed through the neutral zone, I think we're sort of neutering our most talented players with the current offensive scheme. As much criticism Pettersson gets and rightfully deserves, I think he's just confounded by how Tocchet wants him to play, to some degree.

I don't really recall Joshua-Garland-Blueger getting that many rush chances. They were able to create a lot of turnovers on the forecheck though.

By sources like SportLogiq and manually tracked stats from Corey Snazdjer, the Canucks are near or at the very bottom of the league in various rush chance types.

I've said elsewhere, Tocchet's offensive scheme is really more of a defensive strategy: Establish the forecheck, gain OZP, and hold it in the OZ. Staying 200 feet from their end for stretches is how they drastically improved their defensive metrics. Seems Tocc prefers this to trading chances both ways.

 

[WTG]

I don't buy this whole narrative of being bad the second half of the season. If anything, the Canucks were much better in the second half of the season vs the first.

Since the All-Star break, the Canucks were 17-12-4. Canucks were 4th in the league in expected goals for, 5th in shot attempts for, 7th in unblocked shot attempts for, 4th in high danger shot attempts per 60, and 10th in shots for.

Before the All-Star break, the Canucks were 14th in expected goals for, 19th in shot attempts for, 19th in unblocked shot attempts for, 13th in high danger shot attempts per 60, and 21st in shots for.

The Canucks were a MUCH MUCH better team in the second half of the season compared to the first half of the season. Before the All-Star break their record flattered them because they were relying on a PDO hot streak, post All-Star break they were a legit top end team. I don't buy the whole "we were better early in the season." I think that's just objectively false.

Nashville also was right there with the Canucks in all of these metrics to end the second half of the season. During the begining of the season, everything is loose and you can get away with a lot more. There is a lot more space, players still haven't gotten into the swing of playing. This is why young teams often do pretty well at the beginning of the season; they have talent but no composure. The Canucks needed to adapt in the second half of the season. They did, and now they are a better team.

 

[ManVanFan]

You did not watch the game.

Take the blinders off buddy.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Take the blinders off buddy.

You did watch the game?

 

[TruKnyte]

OC-type position is an interesting idea I think more teams should explore. Creating offense in the NHL is tough. And yeah, I don't know why Tocc is directly handling the PP. Should be a PP coach.

I've said this several time over the season, but the Canucks needed more diversity on offense, beyond forecheck turnovers and tips/deflections off perimeter shots. They have zero rush offense and create very few chances with East-West passing.

Agreed, good leaders surround themselves with good people who fill in their own weak areas. Would love to see a PP coach brought in who also helps with drawing up o-zone plays that go beyond point shots and deflection attempts. Don't often see them creating opportunities off of an extended cycle or even on the rush.