Management Discussion | Just Have a Plan

[MS]

And it was unsustainable. Elevated on ice shooting% and insane IPP.
And I said it was unsustainable.
And now he has show it is unsustainable.

You don't give 30 year old wingers retirement contracts. Especially when your team is capped out and has made the f***in playoffs once in a decade...

I'm not saying I'd do it again with the knowledge we have now. I'm saying it was defendable at the time - and it was. He performed at a very high level as a C last year. He probably will again under a new coach.

Everyone knew that 100 points probably wasn't sustainable. If Miller was scoring 80-85 points right now with the commitment level he showed in 19-20 or 21-22, that contract would be fine.

 

[MS]

I disagree.

This is as bad or worse as the 2 teams before.

The public models don't capture how bad the team is in the dzone.


Yes. Our goaltending has declined. Not to the extent you are trying to use as an excuse for the shit show on ice, not even close. Our goaltending was expected to decline.

Kuzmenko is a lot of things, but he is quite an adventure for most of this season... Mikheyev has also not been as advertised... Instead of a PK ace and a defensive stalwart he has been a extremely opportunistic scorer and not much else. (Im not making any judgment on his play, he isn't skating healthy)

No, you're going completely over the top on how bad this team is defensively. They are bad. They are probably a bottom-5 team in the league defensively. They are not generationally terrible or worse than the worst tanking teams of the last 25 years. And their defensive play - with virtually the same roster - does not explain going from .912 to .879.

 

[Peen]

No, you're going completely over the top on how bad this team is defensively. They are bad. They are probably a bottom-5 team in the league defensively. They are not generationally terrible or worse than the worst tanking teams of the last 25 years. And their defensive play - with virtually the same roster - does not explain going from .912 to .879.

Please man, you're putting way too much of this on goaltending.

The entire blueline looks worse than they did last season, both individually and collectively. Hughes is playing worse. Schenn's game recently has deteriorated a bit - which is totally expected from a guy who ideally should be leading a bottom pair. Myers-OEL both have fallen off a cliff relative to the first 50 or so games last year where they generated plus results. I mentioned this in the offseason, but letting go of Hunt was noticeable because he was actually quite good and generated positive results on the bottom pair. The revolving door of Stillman/Burroughs on that 3LD spot have been consistently destroyed.

None of that is goaltending. Is it also coaching and roster construction? Yes.

The entire forward group looks less engaged defensively than they did last year. Miller's inability to play well at center this season has led to us having virtually no line. While I blame management for assessing him as a center, he's individually playing worse.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

No, you're going completely over the top on how bad this team is defensively. They are bad. They are probably a bottom-5 team in the league defensively. They are not generationally terrible or worse than the worst tanking teams of the last 25 years. And their defensive play - with virtually the same roster - does not explain going from .912 to .879.

Sorry. I cant help you.

 

[MS]

Please man, you're putting way too much of this on goaltending.

The entire blueline looks worse than they did last season, both individually and collectively. Hughes is playing worse. Schenn's game recently has deteriorated a bit - which is totally expected from a guy who ideally should be leading a bottom pair. Myers-OEL both have fallen off a cliff relative to the first 50 or so games last year where they generated plus results. I mentioned this in the offseason, but letting go of Hunt was noticeable because he was actually quite good and generated positive results on the bottom pair. The revolving door of Stillman/Burroughs on that 3LD spot have been consistently destroyed.

None of that is goaltending. Is it also coaching and roster construction? Yes.

The entire forward group looks less engaged defensively than they did last year. Miller's inability to play well at center this season has led to us having virtually no line. While I blame management for assessing him as a center, he's individually playing worse.

Again :

Obviously this is a poor defensive team.

We knew that going into the season, and they've been worse than expected. Especially recently - the first 20-odd games were not this bad.

The goaltending has been utterly horrific. It's some of the worst the NHL has seen in the last 25 years. A recovering-from-injury Demko couldn't stop a beachball and two career AHLers have now started almost 70% of our games and looked every bit AHL goalies.

I'm not saying this team is good, or good defensively. I'm saying that without the absolutely stunning reversal in goaltending fortunes from a position where we were expected to be excellent, this team would be far higher in the standings than they are. And that using an obviously unsustainable and unlikely goaltending result to make rash judgements that this is the WORST TEAM EVER and that we should be selling stars for magic beans is not logical thinking.

 

[Canucker]

Please man, you're putting way too much of this on goaltending.

The entire blueline looks worse than they did last season, both individually and collectively. Hughes is playing worse. Schenn's game recently has deteriorated a bit - which is totally expected from a guy who ideally should be leading a bottom pair. Myers-OEL both have fallen off a cliff relative to the first 50 or so games last year where they generated plus results. I mentioned this in the offseason, but letting go of Hunt was noticeable because he was actually quite good and generated positive results on the bottom pair. The revolving door of Stillman/Burroughs on that 3LD spot have been consistently destroyed.

None of that is goaltending. Is it also coaching and roster construction? Yes.

The entire forward group looks less engaged defensively than they did last year. Miller's inability to play well at center this season has led to us having virtually no line. While I blame management for assessing him as a center, he's individually playing worse.

The goaltending hasn't been "elite", like it has been in the past, it hasn't even been good to average, I'd say its been "sub-par" overall, but I don't buy that it's the single main reason why we're near the bottom of the standings...the fact that the goaltending numbers don't change from goalie to goalie just tells me that this goes well beyond bad goaltending...just watching these guys perform nightly I don't get the feeling "well there goes another game blown by our goalies!", but watching the shoddy defense, lackadaisical effort from the forwards and inability to kill penalties...I have a pretty good understanding of why we're at where we're at.

 

[iceburg]

I'll put this in the a management thread because it relates to contracts and who to trade...

Full disclosure, I am a big Horvat fan but have clearly stated in other threads that he needs to be traded, for the reasons others have stated repeatedly. That said, it kinda irks me that he picks this year to go on a heater. Some guys (I don't know why Alex Mogilny comes to mind) one expects to have a great offensive year in their contract year. For others, like Horvat, one expects (maybe hopes) that they will be in 100% try mode every year. While it's fun to watch Horvat score, part of me is disappointed that his level up year is a contract year. Is it simply a coincidence that it's a contract year. Maybe but highly unlikely.

Do I blame him if he's extra motivated to cash in? Reluctantly I say, not really. Ultimately it's just human nature (and prudent career management) to make as much for as long as possible. But it does send a message to other younger players that it's more about the individual than the team. And it takes a little bit of the shine off of Horvat's warrior image.

 

[Jay26]

I'm with MS here. Guys, take a look at some goalie analytics. The Canucks probably have the worst goaltending in the league this season. It's really bad. Martin and Demko have a combined -25 goals saved above expected (or in other words 25 goals saved under expected I guess). Only the Sharks goaltending is worse (Reimer and Kahkonen with a combined -28.3).

 

[credulous]

i don't think anyone is arguing that the goaltending isn't league bottom three at best. people just disagree that the canucks would be in a significantly better position with better goaltending. i think maybe you can spot the canucks 8-15 points for goaltending over the season. they still finish well out of the playoffs

 

[iFan]

delete

 

[Jay26]

i don't think anyone is arguing that the goaltending isn't league bottom three at best. people just disagree that the canucks would be in a significantly better position with better goaltending. i think maybe you can spot the canucks 8-15 points for goaltending over the season. they still finish well out of the playoffs

Oh no question. That sounds about right to me.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I'm with MS here. Guys, take a look at some goalie analytics. The Canucks probably have the worst goaltending in the league this season. It's really bad. Martin and Demko have a combined -25 goals saved above expected (or in other words 25 goals saved under expected I guess). Only the Sharks goaltending is worse (Reimer and Kahkonen with a combined -28.3).

How accurate is the expected goals projection going into the season, though? Does it factor in non-quantifiable factors like losing Shaw as assistant coach in charge of our defensive structure? Or injuries like Poolman being done for the year and Dermott missing alot of time, OEL taking a step back due to regression, etc.?

 

[4Twenty]

Well league wide sv% has dropped considerably. Pretty sure the average is almost down .015 Points. The top team other then the Bruins is at .916.

Also Vancouver is at .879 the Kings are .882

The Canucks stopped picks at .900 on the Canadian division season.

I think people probably overrated Demko.


Also the Canucks xGA this season would’ve been the worst (or bottom 2) last season.

Bad defence with a style that cheats for offence.

 

[Jay26]

How accurate is the expected goals projection going into the season, though? Does it factor in non-quantifiable factors like losing Shaw as assistant coach in charge of our defensive structure? Or injuries like Poolman being done for the year and Dermott missing alot of time, OEL taking a step back due to regression, etc.?

I mean, you could do this for every kind of metric. There's no point in even consulting advanced stats in this case.

 

[Jay26]

And make no mistake, I'm not arguing that our defence isn't a problem. Not even close. It's got to be a bottom 5 group. I'm just emphasizing how bad the goaltending is.

In terms of sheer defence, nobody is even close to Anaheim. All of their regular D's are in the bottom 31 in CA/60. That is really something. Chicago and Columbus' D are probably also worse than ours. But really none of this changes the argument so I guess I'm just throwing stuff out there for the sake of it. Bottom 5 defence. Bottom 2 goaltending - that's the picture here.

 

[Breakers]

Ahh yes it’s goaltending

Meanwhile this idiot coach injured Demko with work load last season.
Of course it was unsustainable
And that unsustainable when they didn’t make the playoffs.

 

[Peen]

Again :

Obviously this is a poor defensive team.

We knew that going into the season, and they've been worse than expected. Especially recently - the first 20-odd games were not this bad.

The goaltending has been utterly horrific. It's some of the worst the NHL has seen in the last 25 years. A recovering-from-injury Demko couldn't stop a beachball and two career AHLers have now started almost 70% of our games and looked every bit AHL goalies.

I'm not saying this team is good, or good defensively. I'm saying that without the absolutely stunning reversal in goaltending fortunes from a position where we were expected to be excellent, this team would be far higher in the standings than they are. And that using an obviously unsustainable and unlikely goaltending result to make rash judgements that this is the WORST TEAM EVER and that we should be selling stars for magic beans is not logical thinking.

You can't be making exaggerations that ignore the context but then being like haha look at you clowns who can't acknowledge the bad save percentage.

No one is blind to it. It's been some of the worst goaltending in the league this season.

Can you acknowledge the following?

1. League wide save percentage has tanked. It's pretty in line with the late 90's, early 00's by save percentage. This is the 4th worst season in the past 25.
2. You do not have access to stats for GSAA for the past 25 years. Even if you want to go by your own memory, I'd really question whether or not this would even be in the top 50 worst goaltending seasons in the past 25 years when you account for what would be expected given the quality of chances we give up - which is unbelievably high.

We did not know how bad the defense was going to be. It was not obvious. Don't act like this was predictable. Obviously it wasn't as predictable as our goaltending being bad, but the defense wasn't predicted to be so far and away in the bottom two with Anaheim. Every single defender is playing worse than expected outside of Schenn who's met expectations.

You're also doing some weird strawmen where you're suggesting that everyone's reason for wanting to rebuild or go more invested in a retool (e.g. trade horvat, miller) is rooted purely in bad goaltending. It isn't. It's unfair to those posters to suggest this.

Even if we want to build your hypothetical world where we don't have shitty luck (canucks were middle of the pack the previous two seasons in overall goals differential relative to expectation), they're still shit because we do not control play.

NHL Team Stats

Stats and Graphs For All NHL Teams

moneypuck.com

Right now we have given up 20 goals more than expected (2nd worst). Let's add in another 10 because of Demko which would place us around 10th best in goaltending. So -30 goals from our total.

Let's revert our goals scored above expected from 2nd best where we have scored 19 goals above expected to around 10th best, which would pull us to only 3 above expected. So, -16 from our total.

That overall differential would be 10th in the league. Keep in mind this would still have us as a positive PDO team which we agreed upon being a likely outcome if this team is healthy given the way the roster is built, although i don't know if i buy into top ten.

That would put us at like 133F, 140A. We would probably be like three spots higher at 9th or 10th in the west, 22nd or something overall in the league. We do not control play enough to just "but goaltending".

 

[credulous]

We do not control play enough to just "but goaltending".

the canucks are 8th worst, 7th worst and 7th worst in shot percentage, fenwick percentage and corsi percentage respectively. no one is denying goaltending is A problem but it's far from the worst problem with this team

 

[Jay26]

The league wide save% thing is irrelevant when Canucks goalies are still relatively among the worst lol. It's not about the raw numbers necessarily.

Anyway, we all know the D is a big problem too. I think what some of us are trying to note is that goaltending is more of a problem relatively than it has been in the past. We're saying it's a big enough problem not to wave it off as an afterthought. It deserves to be in the discussion along with the horrid D.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Or Bruce can no longer make chicken salad out of the chicken shit line up that was given to him.

We are far from just goal tending and coaching, I'm sorry that's f***ing laughable, our blue line is amongst the worst in the league and were paying heavily for it.

We have no prospect pool to speak of.

We are capped out across the board.

We won't make any significant trades that will help any of this either, it will be the same old same old, trading for useless reclamation projects, signing redundant players and spending to the cap, all while not being bad enough to get a top 5 pick and not being good enough to make the playoffs.

Those are just a few things.

Like to minimize this to goal tending and coaching, I mean wow. It is absolutely as catastrophic as it looks. We are doomed to fail and our owner/gm/agm, or whoever is making the decisions here is more set on insanity than logic.

You're responding with emotion and it's clouding your judgment (and I get it, we're all pissed off).

I never said it's just goaltending and coaching, nor did I say that with good goaltending and coaching we would be a contender.

But it's not as bad as it looks. It is bad, but it looks like we're close to the tier of Chicago or Anaheim. We're not. We're being cratered by goaltending and coaching to go from being a mediocre capped out team with no prospects to looking like a dire team that's capped out with no prospects.

 

[m9]

Kevin Woodley references Clear Sight Analytics and multiple times he has described the Canucks defensive play as "a bottom 10 team last year which has regressed to a bottom 3 team this year".

That pretty much describes exactly how I feel from the eye test - a bad defensive team which has regressed to very bad.

 

[Jay26]

You're responding with emotion and it's clouding your judgment (and I get it, we're all pissed off).

I never said it's just goaltending and coaching, nor did I say that with good goaltending and coaching we would be a contender.

But it's not as bad as it looks. It is bad, but it looks like we're close to the tier of Chicago or Anaheim. We're not. We're being cratered by goaltending and coaching to go from being a mediocre capped out team with no prospects to looking like a dire team that's capped out with no prospects.

Bang on.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I mean, you could do this for every kind of metric. There's no point in even consulting advanced stats in this case.

I wasn’t trying to dismiss it. I’d be curious how accurate the goals expected estimates are when comparing the end result for previous seasons.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

Thank goodness for this year’s goaltending. Francesco may be sitting pretty, all cozy in his ninth odd year as the POHO had we been a little higher in the standings. Instead, people all over the country and hockey world are laughing their bags off at us and it’s completely warranted. The crime would be Fatquilini continuing to get away with it unscathed.

 

[Jay26]

Kevin Woodley references Clear Sight Analytics and multiple times he has described the Canucks defensive play as "a bottom 10 team last year which has regressed to a bottom 3 team this year".

That pretty much describes exactly how I feel from the eye test - a bad defensive team which has regressed to very bad.

We have a bottom 5 D corps in my mind but I do wonder if we are dead last in terms of defence from the forwards. I would put money on that.