Why can't this team score in the playoffs?

[mossey3535]

The way the Sedins play, they are easily eliminated by borderline illegal plays because they don't rely on speed, strength or stick handling.

The officials already let a lot of **** go in the regular seasons against the Sedins, so when they do this in extremely physical games such as the playoffs, the Sedins get absolutely murdered and are rendered useless at times.

It's sad really.

Yes, which does happen to a lot team's stars. That's why you see lesser lights shine so brightly (and briefly) during the playoffs.

I think the problem is that the rest of the team is just as deterred by the same tactics. If we played the game with more speed and sprinkled in some puck carrying into the offensive zone, it might back the opposing defenders just enough to maybe give the twins some space. But naw, that's too logical. Better ot just play chip and chase with all the speedy finesse guys we have. THey're good at that sort of grinding thing.

 

[Henrik To Daniel]

Stop trying to be cute with the puck and throw everything on net. Even low percentage shots from the blueline. At least then you'd be making the goalie work.

 

[David71]

its time to bring back that offensive juggarnanut from 2011. back. some of their dman are capable of springing the forwards off the rush. corrado/bieska/garry/edler. they've done it before. they are too passive agressive.

 

[AlexandreBurrows]

We have 16 goals in the last 14 playoff games.

 

[vancityluongo]

Too busy trying to play a "playoff game" rather than a hockey game. The point of the latter being to try and outscore the opposition.

The playoffs aren't a different sport. There are simply better teams, and officiating allows for certain things to go, which emphasizes a hitting game.

That's all fine and dandy, but the Canucks seem to literally not try as hard to score and just play a gritty game which they aren't capable of. I think the best way I saw it put was that the whole team is playing like a bunch of Phaneufs.

It's like asking Marc-Andre Bergeron to be anything more than a PP specialist. Start asking him to hit guys and you're nowhere. Ask him to score goals while being a defensive liability? He'll notch 14 while being directly responsible for 11.

Ask Henrik Sedin to play a gritty style? He'll have 3 hits and 2 assists in a 5 game series loss. Tell Henrik to focus on creating offense and nothing else like he does normally in the regular season. 1 hit and 6 assists in a 6 game series win. Which is better? Because the Canucks seem to be headed towards the former right now.

 

[mossey3535]

Again, I find it funny how nobody finds it weird that the Canucks come out and put up more hits (and let's face it, we got lucky with some, there were some borderline ones) in two PERIODS than they put up in literally 2-3 GAMES in the regular season.

Maybe if we had played that type of hockey all year I could buy that but I think now after three years of this it's apparent that it isn't entirely to our benefit to radically change styles. Plus, it's also unreasonable to ask that kind of physical play from the team when they haven't essentially been 'practicing' for it the entire regular season.

 

[BoHorvatFan]

We have a lot of flawed players.

Raymond has great speed but never gets to the net and is a bad passer. We get weak perimeter shots from him over and over.

Kassian can protect the puck along the boards but then what... nothing comes from it.

I like Higgins but he's an outside player, not fast, not great hands, doesn't beat guys and isn't hard to play against.

Sedins, live along the perimeter of the rink.

Bottom 6 is just grinders there's barely any offence down there.

We all knew this would happen, Gillis hasn't fixed this problem.

 

[mossey3535]

We have a lot of flawed players.

Raymond has great speed but never gets to the net and is a bad passer. We get weak perimeter shots from him over and over.

Kassian can protect the puck along the boards but then what... nothing comes from it.

I like Higgins but he's an outside player, not fast, not great hands, doesn't beat guys and isn't hard to play against.

Sedins, live along the perimeter of the rink.

Bottom 6 is just grinders there's barely any offence down there.

We all knew this would happen, Gillis hasn't fixed this problem.

Problem is, teams around the league have worse players with worse flaws, and they still manage to generate more offense than us.

Put it this way - in the 2011 SCF run, we were outscored by EVERYONE. That means we were outscored by the like of the Habs, Yotes, Preds and Sabres.

Last year, FLORIDA outscored us by 50%.

There's a problem here and it isn't just on personnel. Yes, GMMG has some explaining to do but when I see teams with less talent score more goals AND play better team defence than us for the last two years, you have to admit there's some real issues with the coaching.

 

[Gormo]

Because AV is a cement head.

He somehow thinks the priority of a forward is to prevent goals, not score them.

 

[vanuck]

Our only goal tonight is a perfect example of just throwing it on net and banging away at it, yet we stray away from doing it on a regular basis. The players say that's what they need to do, never do it, then say post-game they need to crash the net and bang away rebounds, and never do it the next game again. Frustrating.

Indeed. I've felt that way about what they said many times.

The way the Sedins play, they are easily eliminated by borderline illegal plays because they don't rely on speed, strength or stick handling.

The officials already let a lot of **** go in the regular seasons against the Sedins, so when they do this in extremely physical games such as the playoffs, the Sedins get absolutely murdered and are rendered useless at times.

It's sad really.

Exactly this.

 

[Hammer79]

The problem became magnified during the Bruins series, but I think a lot of that had to do with injuries on the back-end torpedoing the transition play. The Kings series, Canucks just ran into a team that bought into a team defense system. Without Daniel, shutting down the top line was an easy task, and Kesler nowhere near 100% neutralized their secondary scoring threat. When Daniel came back, there was an uptick but the Sedins can't carry the team alone.

This playoff is only one game old, I'm not ready to write off the offense yet. Most playoff teams can shut down a top line for a game. When that happens the 2nd, 3rd lines and D need to chip in offense, and the PP needs to capitalize on their opportunities.

 

[vanuck]

Number one reason - we're not trying to score goals. We're trying not to make mistakes. This is only exacerbated by AV's even more conservative playoff mentality.

The ironic thing is that as much as this team tries to play 'defensively' or 'carefully', the worse they play. Despite all this emphasis on 'safe' hockey, they give up more shots and prime scoring opportunities than that style of team should be.

Gillis deserves some blame here because although I think he's put some good players on this team, he's saddled them with a coach who has sneakily made this team more and more 'defensive' year after year - and then he stuck by said coach when he should have been fired last year.

This team is at their best when they're playing up-tempo, aggressive and with speed. One only has to look at the roster itself to see how they're built to play. That 2nd period was a good example of us doing it but we have to bring it consistently to stand a chance in the playoffs against teams like SJS, LA and STL who like to grind it out on the cycle and dominate the boards with their size (particularly the latter two). Otherwise you're willingly negating your own strengths and just making it easier for the other side by taking away the one big advantage we have over them - speed.

And it's not enough to just use that speed on the rush either - the forecheck has to be a lot more aggressive, all the time. With the number of speedy two-way players we have up front there really should be no issue having a guy catch up on the backcheck anyway, assuming the D keep a tight gap - and that's if your forecheck didn't work. You could see it in Game 1 between the Blues and Kings where STL had 3 forwards pressuring and still managed to have a forward back through the neutral zone by the time the Kings moved it out of their end. It all depends on if your forecheck is effective.

When we're tentative and play not to lose, we end up doing worse than if we're constantly pressing the attack and keeping the puck in their end, even when up one. Championship teams like CHI (2010) and LA (2012) didn't let up when they had a 1-goal lead, and certainly not when it was tied.

 

[King of the ES*]

I'm beginning to think that one of the issues is a lack of size.

I mean, what kind of diet is prescribed to this team? Lettuce and green tea? I was surprised at how scrawny they looked last night in comparison to the Sharks. Even Kassian, who's supposedly this "raging bull" beast-type, looks like a beanpole teenager next to a guy like Patrick Marleau. I don't think it was a great idea to have Zack lose 20 pounds last off-season.

It was pretty stunning to me to see how thin our group looked, relative to the Sharks, especially the forwards.

 

[Lundface*]

It's amusing seeing how little people know about this sport. The problem they have is coaching, and it should be no secret to anyone anymore.

I won't make this an essay which I was going to at first, but I'd be wasting my time.

A few points that need clarifying:

1) In 2011 we played a much different style, with similar players ( worse forwards actually). Expecting these players to put up points playing this style is setting yourself up to be disappointed. Van had issues scoring in the regular season this year too and the twins were below ppg players.

2) The style they play now with a long stretch pass and chip in is useless for every single line except the 4th. You can see guys like Weise thriving playing this style, taking runs at opposing defencemen. Where AV is a moron is expecting his skilled players to be able to supply any offence doing this. Even if they get the puck the odd time the gap between the forwards and d is too big and consequently its hard for the d to get involved.

3) There is no rule that the twins need to be kept together. In fact Henrik has shown to play a much simpler, direct game when Daniel is out. This is a coaching issue not something against them. If we had someone like Babcock (not saying he's amazing) he would have split them up several times by now. Their chemistry is a known entity and can be relied upon whenever you want it. If the coach had a lick of offensive creativity he would split them up even in game and throw other teams off. The best part is Henrik can produce playing with complete scrubs so AV has no excuse. I'd seriously try something like this IN GAME: (should have tried it several times in the regular season anyways)

Daniel Kesler Hansen
Burrows Henrik Kassian
Higgins Roy Raymond

Might look silly to you now since it's never been tried, but it will do a few things. Daniel is struggling mightily trying to score, but he can still dish the puck with the best of them so this gives Kesler a legitimate playmaker. Henrik was a monster last year with Burrows and Lapierre, I would think Kassian would do even better than Lappy did. Higgins-Roy seem to do well together whenever they get a chance not sure why they don't play together

 

[StringerBell]

In a word: coaching.

 

[jigsaw99]

I'm beginning to think that one of the issues is a lack of size.

I mean, what kind of diet is prescribed to this team? Lettuce and green tea? I was surprised at how scrawny they looked last night in comparison to the Sharks. Even Kassian, who's supposedly this "raging bull" beast-type, looks like a beanpole teenager next to a guy like Patrick Marleau. I don't think it was a great idea to have Zack lose 20 pounds last off-season.

It was pretty stunning to me to see how thin our group looked, relative to the Sharks, especially the forwards.

um.. no
size is not why we are not scoring goals and Zack is bigger than Marleau i dunno what you are talking about. Kassian is much better in shape than last year than that extra 20 pounds of fat. Thornton and Burns are huge but they were pretty much useless this game and didn't provide scoring. It's skilled snipers such as Couture that we need. We didn't look very scrawny when we out hit them all game.

 

[Vankiller Whale]

Stop trying to be cute with the puck and throw everything on net. Even low percentage shots from the blueline. At least then you'd be making the goalie work.

This x infinity

 

[J Canuck]

They're always looking for the perfect pass to the wide open player for the perfect shot into the wide open net.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Problem is, teams around the league have worse players with worse flaws, and they still manage to generate more offense than us.

Put it this way - in the 2011 SCF run, we were outscored by EVERYONE. That means we were outscored by the like of the Habs, Yotes, Preds and Sabres.

Last year, FLORIDA outscored us by 50%.

There's a problem here and it isn't just on personnel. Yes, GMMG has some explaining to do but when I see teams with less talent score more goals AND play better team defence than us for the last two years, you have to admit there's some real issues with the coaching.

Just to emphasis this analysis, let's look at this season. Guys like Vanek, Ladd and Kadri outscored (or came close) to the Sedins. Not even their own fanbases would say the are better players. This team is not build for the New York Rangers approach to hockey, yet AV insists we play that defensive shell of a system. With the personnel at our disposal, we should be unleashing them in similar fashion to the Hawks and Pens, not restraining them to grinding shifts and tight defensive plays.

 

[King of the ES*]

It's amusing seeing how little people know about this sport. The problem they have is coaching, and it should be no secret to anyone anymore.

That's outrageous. You're not honestly suggesting that if Mike Babcock was behind the bench, instead, this team would suddenly be able to score at will, are you?

Style of play may have changed since 2011, but that's because the personnel has. Gillis chose to let Ehrhoff walk, and the team hasn't been the same. I would suggest that letting Salo walk was also a big mistake, as Garrison's not nearly the consistent threat that Salo was back there (and Salo has infinitely more poise).

So the makeup of the team's not the same. Core has gotten older, and they just don't really seem to care that much. They've been to the dance, got close, and the reality is that that's probably good enough for most of them. Mike Gillis simply has not adequately developed this roster since the 2010-11 breakout.

I am surprised at the sheer level of indifference that the Canucks showed last night, but plugging in Scott Arniel, Scott Bowman, Barry Melrose, or even Phil Jackson isn't going to change much of anything. The problem is absolutely one of personnel.

 

[dc]

No creativity as far as an offensive system goes. Boring to watch, and easy to play against. You can see why the team gets deflated every time they allow a goal. They have no push back because they aren't capable of it playing the way they play.

 

[y2kcanucks]

The answer is very simple: our players aren't that good. We can sit here and overrate the Sedins, we can assume Kesler will be healthy, we can assume Burrows will somehow become consistent, we can assume Higgins and Raymond will start scoring, but it just won't happen. Now I know some people are going to point to the regular season scoring stats and say "but but but they were top 180 so they're top 6 forwards." Fine, I really don't care what they can do in the regular season against non-playoff teams. We dominate non-playoff teams. Happy? When it comes to playoff teams in the playoffs our personnel just isn't that good and we are on our way to a third straight playoff failure due to it.

I called it before the season even started. This team would struggle to score in the playoffs and I was right. A lot of people thought Marcel Goc was the answer to our problems somehow...we went out and acquired someone even better and we are still struggling. I said at the deadline we wasted assets on Roy because that was the ONLY move we made, we needed a lot more help than just Derek Roy.

I also think that given our current personnel we aren't even using them right. Higgins-Roy-Kesler on our second line would be a lot better and might give us two goals in a game as opposed to just one. Still not good enough but better.

The Sedins are who I said they were. Two very good regular season players who, when it comes to the playoffs, cannot be relied on to carry the load offensively.

 

[Jyrki21]

They had some trouble scoring in the regular season this year, so I don't know that the premise of the thread is entirely relevant for this year's playoffs.

That said, no question their scoring has gone down in the playoffs the last couple of years, but at least consider that:

(1) scoring goes down for everyone in the playoffs (the weakest defensive teams tend to miss the playoffs), in part because...

(2) NHL officiating is moronic, and offers us the world's only sports league where the rules change for the tournament aspect of the season, almost in a conscious effort to render the regular season meaningless. "Let the players play" is just code for "let the teams who play a certain way do better than they ought to".

So I don't think the Canucks are alone in having their offensive players stifled a lot of the time. This is a common fan complaint about skilled players who are suddenly unable to play their game through no fault of their own. (Building a team "for the playoffs" from the get-go just leads to excruciatingly boring hockey, injured players and -- roughly half the time -- missing the playoffs anyway). The Sharks themselves didn't actually generate all that much last night, and I didn't particularly notice Thornton or Marleau.

But for the issues that are indeed team-specific, my own impression is that Vancityluongo is onto something that they seem to adjust the way they play in anticipation of (1) and (2) above. Which would be fine if it worked, but for the most part it doesn't, and to the extent that the Canucks have had some success (in 2011), I think a lot of that was in spite of changing their style. We all know the SJ series was different that year, and it appears to be largely because adapting to the Sharks' style of game led to Vancouver playing something much closer to what made it successful in the regular season.

Like everyone else here, I don't get why the Canucks always seem to mimic their opponent rather than vice versa, but I'm not convinced it's entirely coaching -- I think it is structurally easier in all sports to make a skilled team play boring than force a defensive team to open up. Destruction is easier than creation. (And coaches discovered this in 1993-94 when Anaheim and Florida were far better expansion teams than Ottawa and Tampa, and never really looked back).

 

[m9]

The talent on paper is good enough to score goals. The skill level is there and is as good as most top teams.

So it's either the players are underperforming themselves, or the coach isn't putting them in a position to succeed.

 

[Jack Tripper]

this used to be a good possession team when they could win faceoffs and transition faster than any team in the league

other teams have taken away that transition game which means we've been relegated to a simple dump and chase game that cycles down low and throws the puck back to the point for blocked/wide shots...that may work for the sedins but it's not the way that the kesler and roy lines should be playing, especially when you've got creative playmakers mucking around the boards instead of using available space above the dots

and there's this guy named jason garrison who might work pretty well on the 1st pp but what do i know