Management Discussion | Just Have a Plan

[Peen]

No one here thinks we are as bad as Anaheim. The argument is that we will not be able to upgrade the roster within the timeline of our currently signed players + Horvat.

I can buy cap reallocation getting us to ~10th best in the league, but that’s for a short window of 4-5 years where we will also be dealing with an OEL buyout penalty among our no flexibility position.

It’s a low ceiling window because we are at a competitive disadvantage.

They have to be extremely creative. we have not seen a shred of creativity yet. I don’t know how you can have confidence that they will figure it out this summer, when they have not done a single thing, other than trade, locker room cancer, Travis, to Pierre McGuire.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

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.

It is every miserable bit as bad as it looks. Being Anaheim or Chicago is a vast improvement on being this wretched franchise.

 

[CanucksSayEh]

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.

Bo has gotten better nearly every year. Last season he scores 40 without his broken foot. He's had 2 newborns in the past 3 years, and looked slow to start the years where he did (like JT now)

I really don't believe he's been holding anything back until a new contract season. He's just a better player than he used to be, and now has the best linemates he's ever had.

 

[Jay26]

It is every miserable bit as bad as it looks. Being Anaheim or Chicago is a vast improvement on being this wretched franchise.

Aren't we just discussing on ice though? I mean sure, we'd all agree that Anaheim and Chicago as organizations are in preferable positions.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

Aren't we just discussing on ice though? I mean sure, we'd all agree that Anaheim and Chicago as organizations are in preferable positions.

Probably. I don’t know.

 

[carrotshirt]

We didn't tank and rebuild in the Benning years at all. We just sucked.

When you tank and rebuild you go all in. Trade vets for draft picks (ha!) take on onerous contracts with all the cap space you have (ha!) and INTEND to fall to the bottom of the league and draft as highly as possible, maximizing your chances of assembling a new core by accruing as many draft picks as you possibly can, and actually using them at the draft.

Spending all your assets to be an awful team that is trying desperately to win is NOT a tank and rebuild. We have no prospect pool to speak of precisely because we did not rebuild.

 

[gringo]

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 defensively 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 an extremely opportunistic scorer and not much else. (Im not making any judgment on his play, he isn't skating healthy)

I’d prefer either Russian to Brock Boeser

 

[Bubbles]

Can you provide any source for this "rumour"?

Obviously no journalist is going to outright say it, and Jones denies it. But the implication is there. It was no longer investigated after Tocchet took the fall.

Gretzky, wife address gambling ring allegations

The Newark Star-Ledger reported in Thursday's editions that there is no evidence that Gretzky placed bets, but investigators are looking into whether his wife placed them for him.

"At no time did I ever place a wager on my husband's behalf," Jones Gretzky said in a statement Thursday. "Other than the occasional horse race, my husband does not bet on any sports."

 

[MS]

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".

I've already explained to you earlier today that it's still pretty much just as bad when you adjust for year. 4th worst deviation from the average at .021, only ,002 worse than the absolute worst, over the past 23 years. This isn't something generated by league changes. It's legitimately horrific, full stop.

And it's not like it doesn't match up with the eye test and the circumstances. We had Demko - by everyone's admission - looking absolutely terrible relative to his normal play coming off an injury, and we've now had almost 30 starts from career AHL goalies. We've received AHL goaltending this year. Like, probably worse than the Abbotsford Canucks have received.

Moving our save % to league average removes 30 goals by itself. Giving a Demko bump is more than 30.

I'm not arguing our goaltending is unlucky. I'm arguing it's just f***ing bad, because we've been playing injured/AHL players. I'm focusing on one variable : what would this team look like with normal Demko? But nobody can seem to do that without trying to take away a ton of goals at the same time to adjust for luck on shooting, which isn't the same thing. And if we're going to start adjusting for that, why not start adjusting for the psychological effect on the team of having your goalies never be able to make a save to hold a lead? Holding everything else constant, this team would be a middling team with normal Demko.

 

[4Twenty]

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.

The team looks like it’s in the same tier as San Jose and Philly and that’s even worse.

 

[Nucker101]

No one here thinks we are as bad as Anaheim. The argument is that we will not be able to upgrade the roster within the timeline of our currently signed players + Horvat.

I can buy cap reallocation getting us to ~10th best in the league, but that’s for a short window of 4-5 years where we will also be dealing with an OEL buyout penalty among our no flexibility position.

It’s a low ceiling window because we are at a competitive disadvantage.

They have to be extremely creative. we have not seen a shred of creativity yet. I don’t know how you can have confidence that they will figure it out this summer, when they have not done a single thing, other than trade, locker room cancer, Travis, to Pierre McGuire.

Anaheim will surpass us soon enough. Their magic beans are looking pretty magical.

 

[MS]

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.

And nobody is denying that. We suck defensively. I'm just denying that this team is generationally bad defensively - like bottom-5 in the last 25 years.

Our 'bottom 10 defensive team' last year finished 8th in GAA with the 6th best goaltending numbers. If the 'bottom 3 defense' (which I don't necessarily agree with, for the record - bottom 5 maybe) caused us to drop to 13th or 15th in goaltending ... that argument makes sense.

It doesn't make sense that going from 24th to 30th or whatever defensively is causing our goaltending numbers to go from 6th to 32nd. That isn't how it works.

Our team save% is .879 because we've received really, really bad goaltending.

 

[iceburg]

Bo has gotten better nearly every year. Last season he scores 40 without his broken foot. He's had 2 newborns in the past 3 years, and looked slow to start the years where he did (like JT now)

I really don't believe he's been holding anything back until a new contract season. He's just a better player than he used to be, and now has the best linemates he's ever had.

As I said, possible but highly unlikely. I guess you have more faith in human nature than I do.

 

[canucksfan]

It's looking like Horvat is gone for next year so who replaces him at center? Miller?

 

[carrotshirt]

$20 can buy many peanuts

 

[bossram]

When you account for quality of chances, any public or hinted at private model has the canucks significantly outperforming their expected goals.

Sure I can agree that with the way this team is built, when healthy, will have a positive PDO.

But you’ve been taking it to extremes. We are not some ridiculously unlucky team that is the unluckiest in 20+ years.

Yeah, this isn't some uniquely unlucky team. It's not that the goaltending is failing the team. It is much more that the team is failing the goalies and creating a horrific defensive environment.

The recent game against PIT was literally the worst defensive performance of any NHL team this year, per NST. Worse than even any ANA or CHI game. Like, this team is putrid. They're 4th worst in high-danger chances against at 5v5, per NST. We all know how bad the PK is. CSA is private, but in public appearances from Kevin Woodley, he readily admits how awful defensively they are.

The team's results are deserved. They are not close to any semblance of being a contender. There is no use trying to resuscitate this roster.

 

[pitseleh]

And nobody is denying that. We suck defensively. I'm just denying that this team is generationally bad defensively - like bottom-5 in the last 25 years.

Our 'bottom 10 defensive team' last year finished 8th in GAA with the 6th best goaltending numbers. If the 'bottom 3 defense' (which I don't necessarily agree with, for the record - bottom 5 maybe) caused us to drop to 13th or 15th in goaltending ... that argument makes sense.

It doesn't make sense that going from 24th to 30th or whatever defensively is causing our goaltending numbers to go from 6th to 32nd. That isn't how it works.

Our team save% is .879 because we've received really, really bad goaltending.

By my math about 1/3rd of the drop in SV% can be attributed to the team’s drop in expected goals. Maybe another bit can be explained by the league-wide drop on SV% to the extent caused by an increase in shooting talent. Goalie performance is probably at least half of the change and maybe more.

 

[m9]

And nobody is denying that. We suck defensively. I'm just denying that this team is generationally bad defensively - like bottom-5 in the last 25 years.

Our 'bottom 10 defensive team' last year finished 8th in GAA with the 6th best goaltending numbers. If the 'bottom 3 defense' (which I don't necessarily agree with, for the record - bottom 5 maybe) caused us to drop to 13th or 15th in goaltending ... that argument makes sense.

It doesn't make sense that going from 24th to 30th or whatever defensively is causing our goaltending numbers to go from 6th to 32nd. That isn't how it works.

Our team save% is .879 because we've received really, really bad goaltending.

We have received really bad goaltending. We have also given up extremely dangerous chances that are going to be difficult for any goaltender to stop and that has caved our save %. It's not some weird coincidence that our two goalies who were very good to great last year have both been terrible. I think you are understating the impact of the defensive play.

The goaltending and defense have both been very bad. Nobody should be arguing otherwise. Unfortunately now we are just at a "confirmation bias" standstill because people are firmly planted that their pre-season prediction was correct and if it's incorrect it can be explained away.

I will say this: I don't think this team is good. The roster is flawed and I've said it since the off-season, as have many others. That being said, this team is better than they were last year on paper and are worse in the standings - and the goaltending is a big part of why they are where they are. But my honest opinion is this is the worst defense I've seen them play in many, many years. The quality of the chances given up just seems insane to me and maybe the analytics don't fully back that up.. but that's what I'm seeing.

 

[Orr4Norris]

We already know the answer to the question ‘where would this team be with elite goaltending?’. Still not a playoff team. So why bother even arguing about goaltending??

I thought a very interesting comment from Rutherford that no one is talking about was on the culture of the team. Not really committed to playing winning hockey. Not playing as a team. Bruce has echoed these comments occasionally as well.

Nothing will change until they figure out that room.

 

[Peen]

I've already explained to you earlier today that it's still pretty much just as bad when you adjust for year. 4th worst deviation from the average at .021, only ,002 worse than the absolute worst, over the past 23 years. This isn't something generated by league changes. It's legitimately horrific, full stop.

And it's not like it doesn't match up with the eye test and the circumstances. We had Demko - by everyone's admission - looking absolutely terrible relative to his normal play coming off an injury, and we've now had almost 30 starts from career AHL goalies. We've received AHL goaltending this year. Like, probably worse than the Abbotsford Canucks have received.

Moving our save % to league average removes 30 goals by itself. Giving a Demko bump is more than 30.

I'm not arguing our goaltending is unlucky. I'm arguing it's just f***ing bad, because we've been playing injured/AHL players. I'm focusing on one variable : what would this team look like with normal Demko? But nobody can seem to do that without trying to take away a ton of goals at the same time to adjust for luck on shooting, which isn't the same thing. And if we're going to start adjusting for that, why not start adjusting for the psychological effect on the team of having your goalies never be able to make a save to hold a lead? Holding everything else constant, this team would be a middling team with normal Demko.

i think it is very funny how you are so quick to give our goaltending higher than league average save percentage when it’s extremely unlikely we would get above average save percentages given the quality of chances we concede

but if anyone says “yeah but we are shooting at a far more unsustainable quip relative to league average” - you say it is unfair to say we would be league average (which i do agree with - but my point is that you’re being a hypocrite and trying to frame things so it’s convenient

again, we do not control play and do not limit quality chances enough for your argumement to be plausible

maybe you just havent seen how bad our team defense has been this season

 

[Jay26]

By my math about 1/3rd of the drop in SV% can be attributed to the team’s drop in expected goals. Maybe another bit can be explained by the league-wide drop on SV% to the extent caused by an increase in shooting talent. Goalie performance is probably at least half of the change and maybe more.

Yep, and this is reflected in Demko's plunge down the ranks in goals saved above expected. Last year the statistics showed that he was one of the BEST in the league. This year one of the worst. Again, this is judging him and him alone, without taking the defence into account. The goaltending got a lot worse on its own. Period, the end.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Honestly, what is best case scenario for this team?

If:

1. Demko returns to play as a Top 5-10 goalie
2. The PP runs Top 5-10 in the league
3. The PK operates at even a slightly respectable level

Then what? Playoffs?

Possibly. Probably likely given the division.

But what is that? Maybe 2 or 3 in the division?

I’d bet money on any of Vegas, LA or Seattle (least right now) beating Van in a first round matchup.

Edm and Cal are going in circles.

SJ and Ana blow. Maybe Ana could turn things around but they have been all kinds of awful.

So to me, best case scenario, is making the playoffs to eventually lose in the 1st round.

That should not be the goal.

But unfortunately, deluded ownership and mgmt think otherwise.

 

[tyhee]

Obviously no journalist is going to outright say it, and Jones denies it. But the implication is there. It was no longer investigated after Tocchet took the fall.

Gretzky, wife address gambling ring allegations

The Newark Star-Ledger reported in Thursday's editions that there is no evidence that Gretzky placed bets, but investigators are looking into whether his wife placed them for him.

"At no time did I ever place a wager on my husband's behalf," Jones Gretzky said in a statement Thursday. "Other than the occasional horse race, my husband does not bet on any sports."

What you quote is simply the answers to the questions anyone would ask when a person's spouse is caught in a gambling ring. It is a long, long way from a rumour about Wayne Gretzky. Until your post, I'd never seen anyone actually suggest that Gretzky placed a bet, had someone place a bet for him or had a gambling problem.

I don't see the implication that you say is there.

 

[TruGr1t]

Yep, and this is reflected in Demko's plunge down the ranks in goals saved above expected. Last year the statistics showed that he was one of the BEST in the league. This year one of the worst. Again, this is judging him and him alone, without taking the defence into account. The goaltending got a lot worse on its own. Period, the end.

Maybe over relying and over playing your goalie with a shit defense can have an impact on their performance year-over-year. Just maybe.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

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.

Our goaltending hasn't even been that much worse than the teams we are "competing" for playoffs spots for either. The 4 worst team save percentages are in the Pacific and the average for the division is .890. 8 of the 20 (and 7 of the bottom 10) worst goals saved above expected are in the Pacific, and 14 of the 30 negative goalies in that stat ar in the Pacific.