Post-Game Talk: GM 1 | Vancouver Canucks lost to Calgary Flames | 5-6 (OT) | Sprong, Boeser(2), Garland, & Miller | Not Good Enough

[Mr. Canucklehead]

First period, everyone was flying. It was awesome fun. Building was rocking and popping.

Second period was the complete opposite. Team went to sleep, couldn’t complete a pass, soft dumps to the corners with no one going for it.

Silovs, I love him, but that wasn’t a good game for him. Tough night.

Good to get a point from such a wildly inconsistent effort, but games like this against teams who shouldn’t be factoring into the playoff picture shouldn’t be given away.

Still shaking my head at how damn good they all looked in the first, vs how damn bad they looked after, outside of a shift or two.

Also, hope that Flame that got hurt was okay. Thought it was a clean hit, but holy shit, did he hit the boards hard. Also real stupid of Canuck fans to start chanting JT Miller while the guy was lying prone on the ice and they were yelling for the doctor.

But all in all - my boys and I had a fun night. I bought a Daniel Sprong used stick from the team store, and he promptly scored the first goal of the game. And the boys had a great time, especially in the first period. But we also lost our absolute crackers on the tying goal - what a play by Hughes and an absolute heat seeker from Miller.

Onto the next one. Guessing Lankinen will start and have an opportunity to stake a claim to the net.

 

[Blue and Green]

Yup. Demko had time to bake in the AHL before he was a backup here. Silovs needs a lot more AHL experience, but without Demko ready yet, he's going to have to learn under fire in the NHL. Thankfully, we have a vet in Lankinen to help with the load until Demko returns.

Demko became the #2 goalie just after his 23rd birthday; prior to that he had played in 112 AHL games and one NHL game. Silovs is 23 years, 7 months and has played in 91 AHL games and 20 NHL games.

 

[MS]

Demko became the #2 goalie just after his 23rd birthday; prior to that he had played in 112 AHL games and one NHL game. Silovs is 23 years, 7 months and has played in 91 AHL games and 20 NHL games.

Was just about to type the same thing.

This is put up/shut up time for Silovs.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Some other notes...

Silovs confounds me. I'd much rather a close cross-crease down-low play than a point shot on him. One of those is 1000 times easier than the other.

Myers with the Myersest opening shift. Wonder if he breaks the little trend he's got of good season, bad season.

Honestly, a lot of the team get D's for disappointing. Even Hughes looks like he needs a shot of CLR. And we still eked out a point. Find it interesting to hear coach's comments, I was wondering about that since a lot of players come in from summer with pond hockey brains.

Sprong I really liked in the 1st and then just plummeted. I'm not sure he figures it out, but he's still got plenty of utility with that contract with 4th line minutes considering he's a one-shot scorer.

 

[mossey3535]

I mean, Silovs is what he is really. He's a big athletic guy who didn't have a technical background until he got here, and he lost development time because of the pandemic.

I know people had these big expectations after the playoffs but I didn't really see it. He was a mediocre AHL starter who didn't even play a starter's load to date. A proper development curve was for him to play 50+ games in the AHL with sheltered 10-20 games at the NHL level. IMO he needed to show dominant AHL numbers and tread water at the NHL level.

It was asking a lot for him to be the full time backup this year and I argued that it might mess with his ceiling (see above and feel free to look at my post history). It was ludicrous for him to take on the #1 job this year, so thank god they signed Lankinen.

The hardest thing in the NHL is consistency and he wasn't even consistent in the playoffs to my eye. And he's shown that he can show up and rise to occasion in short tournament-type situations, but now this is the regular season where everyone will have a decent scouting report on him.

Anyways, these issues (tracking, fighting through screens) aren't really surprises to me. He's going to have to learn and adapt to this level. It's not surprising that he will have games like this and as long as he bounces back on a regular basis this is to be expected in his normal development curve. I'm still bullish on his potential overall.

 

[arttk]

Was just about to type the same thing.

This is put up/shut up time for Silovs.

Not sure NHL is the right environment for him to figure out puck tracking..
he’s not the same tier as Demko as a prospect, Lankinen needs to take over so Silovs can play a backup role.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Cue the Tank Thread!

 

[David71]

My biggest problem with Fobort is he was just given the third pairing job. And if the plan was to play Desharnais and Fobort together all along we should have seen them a lot more in the preseason.

should have never signed him in the first place. we all knew if he was penciled in alongside deharnais it was gonna be dogshit and awful. blame pro scouting.

 

[wonton15]

My eyes were bleeding watching the Forbort-Desharnais pair turn every single puck over

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Here comes Johnny Canucker from the top rope

Nah. I’m gonna try to be patient. I will say tho… I would have preferred to lose 3-0 rather than giving up two , 3-goal leads to an absolute shit opponent. This one stings.

 

[Canuckle1970]

Demko became the #2 goalie just after his 23rd birthday; prior to that he had played in 112 AHL games and one NHL game. Silovs is 23 years, 7 months and has played in 91 AHL games and 20 NHL games.

I appreciate the facts given here, but Demko was/is the superior talent to begin with. Silovs needs more time in the AHL.

 

[Russian_fanatic]

Forbort is a #7/#8 defenseman, I held off on criticism until the first game. He is a guy you sign when you have a set top 4 who can handle heavy minutes. Desharnais is a bottom pairing #6 defenseman. He is a guy who can play with a guy who can carry a bottom pairing... COUGH COUGH Ian Cole. For me it was a must to resign Cole after loosing Zadorov. You essentially replaced two #5 defensemen with a #6 and a #7. Devastating IMO. I would honestly go with Friedman over Forbort. Loosing Demko really hurts, because he really does mask how horrible our defense is, Silovs isn't ready for that burden just yet.

The defense lost this game, which should have been an emphasis considering the Demko injury. I love Allvin, but accruing cap space doesn't mean shit if your team starts off horribly/isn't in the spot to make the playoffs. This is a real possibility. Last season was a season to build off of and here we are accruing capspace while rolling out Forbort and Desharnais?

Reality is no team is a threat that has BOTH Forbort and Desharnais. You either go out and grab two more #5 defensemen, or you grab a legitimate top 4 defenseman and move Soucy down.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

^ Honestly. And I think his problem is so fixable, and the Lankinen signing...not too worried about it but it's like...very Lack-esque. Very athletic, but hockey sense is ehhhhhh....

 

[Johnny Canucker]

My eyes were bleeding watching the Forbort-Desharnais pair turn every single puck over

Doesn’t get better with Friedman, Juulsen etc etc. we are short an actual NHL defensman.

 

[Jyrki]

Imho player I am most concerned about individually was Pettersson. Not just that he may have some rust on him, but that he was looking just as disjointed and tentative as he was earlier in the year. So many times there was a good transition then the play instantly dies on his stick for a variety of reasons - pass into a shinpad, double clutching the puck with little pressure, not wanting to shoot on a decent look 5v5. If his play was isolated and the other team put on Oilers or Preds jerseys instead of Flames ones you'd be convinced it was footage from last playoffs.

Granted we were pisspoor at getting the puck out of the zone and there was some really sloppy coverage going on, but Silovs is the other one I'm worried about - from the second goal on, it's like the Flames just followed a book on him. Get some traffic, go high, and it's going to go in. Really concerning how he seems to lose the puck even when there isn't a screen near the crease, his main flaw appears to still need a lot of work.

Just one game but it does suck to see some of the things that drove us nuts last season immediately show up in spades.

 

[arttk]

Forbort is a #7/#8 defenseman, I held off on criticism until the first game. He is a guy you sign when you have a set top 4 who can handle heavy minutes. Desharnais is a bottom pairing #6 defenseman. He is a guy who can play with a guy who can carry a bottom pairing... COUGH COUGH Ian Cole. For me it was a must to resign Cole after loosing Zadorov. You essentially replaced two #5 defensemen with a #6 and a #7. Devastating IMO. I would honestly go with Friedman over Forbort. Loosing Demko really hurts, because he really does mask how horrible our defense is, Silovs isn't ready for that burden just yet.

The defense lost this game, which should have been an emphasis considering the Demko injury.

Good thing this happened in the 1st game.

 

[wonton15]

Doesn’t get better with Friedman, Juulsen etc etc. we are short an actual NHL defensman.

Friedman is legitimately better than Forbort. I’d rather play Friedman on his off hand than see more of Forbort.

 

[AzNightmare]

Silovs still has weakness of tracking shots from the point.
He's also overcommitting to a side and taking himself out of the play.

Hopefully he can manage to correct this and his playoff performance isn't an anamoly.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Forbort is a #7/#8 defenseman, I held off on criticism until the first game. He is a guy you sign when you have a set top 4 who can handle heavy minutes. Desharnais is a bottom pairing #6 defenseman. He is a guy who can play with a guy who can carry a bottom pairing... COUGH COUGH Ian Cole. For me it was a must to resign Cole after loosing Zadorov. You essentially replaced two #5 defensemen with a #6 and a #7. Devastating IMO. I would honestly go with Friedman over Forbort. Loosing Demko really hurts, because he really does mask how horrible our defense is, Silovs isn't ready for that burden just yet.

The defense lost this game, which should have been an emphasis considering the Demko injury.

Forbort I definitely like as a um 2nd 7th d-man lol, aka #8. He's a very long player, and that's like it for him as a player.

Desharnais will be playable at the end of the season and will have playoff utility. I'd like him better as a #7 right now, but we've got what we've got. He'll need a much more mobile partner, though.

And when we signed those players I kind of figured the beginning of the season would be rough. Desharnais is an investment, Forbort is a misused stopgap.

 

[LordBacon]

Aight guys.
Time for overreacting is over,
onto the next.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Everything people were worried about:

EP
Goaltending
3rd pairing D

All bit this team in the ass tonight.

Tocch can change up the D and Goaltending.

But if EP continues to drag ass, this team goes nowhere.

 

[Wry n Ginger]

Not blaming Silovs but the team needs to go with Lankenin for a while. Settle things down after the extra pressure of opening night.

Switch Friedman for Frobert for a few games to let Fro watch the games at full speed from the box.

Sprong looks amazing when he is pressuring. Looked lost when under pressure. Swap him out for Sherwood when team needs lock down D. As an aside, some time with a mental conditioning coach to help his mindset when conditions suddenly change on the ice might be good.

New lines, new D, new goalie and new style of play...no complaints so far but Nucks better have more dialed in by game 10.

Everybody smile !!!!

Cup favourite lost 6-0 tonight...I expect we will see a turnaround, Oilers hmm...maybe?

 

[Russian_fanatic]

Forbort I definitely like as a um 2nd 7th d-man lol, aka #8. He's a very long player, and that's like it for him as a player.

Desharnais will be playable at the end of the season and will have playoff utility. I'd like him better as a #7 right now, but we've got what we've got. He'll need a much more mobile partner, though.

And when we signed those players I kind of figured the beginning of the season would be rough. Desharnais is an investment, Forbort is a misused stopgap.

Desharnais is fine. He's big and mobile, but he needs to play with someone who can make things happen.

If management is hell bent on accruing cap space Hughes/Hronek need to be split up.

Hughes-Desharnais
Soucy-Hronek
Forbort-Myers

This is going to hurt the offense big time however. A legitimate puck handler on the left side is needed.

Last season we got by because Soucy/Zadorov on either night, one of them stepped up and played that #4 role on the left side(They're both #5 defenseman... Guys who can sporadically play top 4 minutes). You're really expecting Forbort to replace that?

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Also, just an aside - but holy smokes, the DJ in Rogers Arena is awful. House / trance / remix music really isn’t my thing, but just some truly batshit musical choices that seemed like anti pump up songs. And then they had this country singer who they kept going back to singing sleepy lounge music - I know bro dude country is pretty vogue right now, but it just sucked the energy out of the building every time. Some really, really weird decisions in there.

 

[LordBacon]

Also, just an aside - but holy smokes, the DJ in Rogers Arena is awful. House / trance / remix music really isn’t my thing, but just some truly batshit musical choices that seemed like anti pump up songs. And then they had this country singer who they kept going back to singing sleepy lounge music - I know bro dude country is pretty vogue right now, but it just sucked the energy out of the building every time. Some really, really weird decisions in there.

Brandon Sutter would like to have a word with you.