Management Thread | The Song Remains the Same Edition

[Ernie]

Is it obvious to everyone that Demko was going to suck and OEL was going to fall off an absolute cliff and be a literal pylon?

Like what @MS has said, if we would’ve gotten average goal tending and not historic bad goaltending we would be in the wild card racex.

I think it’s a pivot in the sense that they are changing what they are doing for the rest of the year. I don’t really think they are going to shift away from a retool but all of the moves they will make for the rest of the year will be to maximize draft capital so they can accrue enough future assets now so they can free themselves to trade picks in coming years.

Also just saying what I think they are doing.

No, we would have sucked without or without good goaltending. Definitely OEL and Myers are a big part of this story. We literally have a single capable top 4 defenceman right now. Those two managed to be decent for the 2nd part of last season but that was clearly a blip.

I don't think it's crazy to think that this team might have had some juice in it over the summer. But it was definitely a rose tinted fan outlook where everything goes right and nothing goes wrong. But it rarely works out that way.

Anyone who has watched this team over the past couple of decades should have a keen sense of a good team vs a bad team. We've had both. This is a bad team with some good players.

 

[racerjoe]

I don't see how the defense can be turned around this off-season. The team has little cap space and very few trade chips. Furthermore, teams seem to be hanging onto their good defensemen.

Cap space would be acquired in a Myers trade and Boeser trade. Probably get minor assets back as well.

We probably trade schenn and get more assets. We will have some room and some assets. If we can do anything with them will be what we can start to really judge management by.

 

[MS]

Wrong again. As always the problem with your posts is the extreme hyperbole. I gave up on them doing what I hoped they'd do when they bombed the trade deadline, from that point on it was too late to generate the market required for the volume of deals they needed to do. So you're wrong that I expected they'd do it, you're wrong that I am campaigning on outrage they didn't do it, and you're wrong that it's in any way comparable to trading for McDavid.

The issue is that you have always been dead set that it was never a viable option to deal the UFA aged guys and build around Pettersson/Hughes/Demko. You refused and still refuse to accept that it was a viable path. You have been completely dogmatic, there-is-only-one-way the entire time.

You have insisted that only Benning's plan of compete immediately with this group is the only way.

You literally called it video games on repeat to talk about trading the UFA aged guys and building around the young core. Not everyone who wanted that course of action agreed with my idea of trying to run near the cap floor, you had an identical opinion for what they wanted to do too, so don't try and retcon this as being solely about running near the cap floor.

You were completely suckered by the Bruce bump. You constantly referred to their point pace under Bruce, that's getting suckered by the bump.

I didn't predict we'd finish this poorly, I thought we'd hover around the wild card. I said there's an oceanic gap between this team and a contender and we'd never get there without massive changes and it took an unexpected losing streak to get mgmt to apparently see it too.

It's a lot easier to make massive changes by stockpiling for a year or two than it is to simply expect GM of the year performance and multiple home runs to fall from the sky - your plan. I like the plan with a higher probability of success and more room for error than hoping for a generational turnaround to fall from the sky.

Your plan was to blow it up, do a tank, and run $20 million below the cap.

That is video game stuff that isn't grounded in reality. End of story. There really isn't anything more I can say.

Management literally came in and stated unequivocally what they felt were the issues plaguing the team. It's hardly impossible or never seen in the history of any sport ever, ever, ever to have tried to address those issues. This black and white scenario you've created isn't helping your argument, particularly when the new management acknowledged the same issues most here agreed upon. Yourself included.

Given the agreed upon situation, taking a step back to build around your younger star players is neither rare nor unusual.

To be clear : I am absolutely NOT arguing that management did a good job last summer.

They pretty clearly prioritized some of the wrong players and I don't think they leaned nearly hard enough into biting some bullets to fix the blueline.

If you're claiming that they should have let Boeser and Miller walk and invested that money into improving the blueline and adding a quality defensive 3C ... absolutely. That's totally fair.

The notion that we should have run $20 million below the cap and tanked for Bedard is not totally fair. It's ridiculous.

I think it’s intellectually dishonest to get to keep everything the same but move the goaltending numbers around. That’s just me though.

It’s also not like either of those guys going down. Goaltending is volatile; Demko was coming off of off-season surgery.

Same defence corps.

I don't see how it is.

Lots of stuff has happened this year - some good (Horvat, Pettersson) some bad (OEL, Miller) some injuries, whatever. But what's happened to the goaltending situation is *so* extreme that you simply can't look at the season without that being at the center of discussion.

And yes, goaltending can be volatile. But nobody expected this. Or anything like this. Again, we're like 40% worse than league average than the 2nd worst team of the last 25 years. What has happened is absolutely insane. People are simply not grasping just how absolutely nuts our goaltending results have been.

Like, management could have got literally everything right and somehow swapped Boeser and OEL out for Chychrun last summer and with this sort of goaltending result ... we still suck. If you take any decent NHL team and give them .870 goaltending ... they're going to suck.

Like, Calgary is a good team with great underlying numbers and they're getting 28th-ranked .890 goaltending and it's torched their season. We're getting .870.

This is no different than isolating any other unpredictable variable and positing a different outcome. It's the same shit pro-Benning posters did for years and were rightly pilloried for. Literally every other important player has been healthy all year. But injuries!

'We've received statistically the worst goaltending results in this league in 30 years' is not the same thing as 'oh, we would have been fine if Brandon Sutter didn't tweak his groin late in the season'.

Just because people used to make nonsense excuses for our terrible GM doesn't mean that there's no such thing as an actual excuse for an actual thing that can totally destroy a season.

You can't just put words in his mouth and not print the receipts.

The Management Thread | We live Page to Page here

This is a good team now. In a show of gratitude towards Benning, you'll be kissing those shoes soon. This team has an absolutely shit blueline. They might be a marginal playoff team at best. But again, this is the same thing as Fake Stanley Cup 2020. There is no plan or goal to consistently...

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The Management Thread | We live Page to Page here

This is a good team now. In a show of gratitude towards Benning, you'll be kissing those shoes soon. This team has an absolutely shit blueline. They might be a marginal playoff team at best. But again, this is the same thing as Fake Stanley Cup 2020. There is no plan or goal to consistently...

forums.hfboards.com

The Management Thread | We live Page to Page here

This is a good team now. In a show of gratitude towards Benning, you'll be kissing those shoes soon. This team has an absolutely shit blueline. They might be a marginal playoff team at best. But again, this is the same thing as Fake Stanley Cup 2020. There is no plan or goal to consistently...

forums.hfboards.com

These are just snippets, though. What his truth and how he felt is between him and himself only. Our situation has changed drastically since then, keep in mind and he's allowed to change his mind with new information presented to him. I'll leave his response to him.

That was my reaction to the absolutely insane OEL deal.

My position was consistent in 2021 - the only way out is through (not that Benning would be capable of doing it) and that you have to keep building around the team we have.

That meant I would have been totally fine with trading #9 overall in a deal for a player like Provorov or Chychrun who fit the age group and could help the team move forward.

That doesn't mean that I supported something as suicidally short-sighted as the OEL trade.

 

[canucksfan]

Cap space would be acquired in a Myers trade and Boeser trade. Probably get minor assets back as well.

We probably trade schenn and get more assets. We will have some room and some assets. If we can do anything with them will be what we can start to really judge management by.

But what if they can't move Boeser and Myers which is a likely situation? As of right now, the only assets the Nucks have that they could use to trade for a defenseman if their two first-round picks. All reports indicate that the team has been trying to move salary but they have failed in doing so.

 

[arttk]

No, we would have sucked without or without good goaltending. Definitely OEL and Myers are a big part of this story. We literally have a single capable top 4 defenceman right now. Those two managed to be decent for the 2nd part of last season but that was clearly a blip.

I don't think it's crazy to think that this team might have had some juice in it over the summer. But it was definitely a rose tinted fan outlook where everything goes right and nothing goes wrong. But it rarely works out that way.

Anyone who has watched this team over the past couple of decades should have a keen sense of a good team vs a bad team. We've had both. This is a bad team with some good players.

I think most of us assumed that Demko would be Demko and he would carry the load as usual. I really didn’t look at it from the perspective of oh everything is going to go right. It was more like, it was expected for Demko to perform well. And from that perspective, it looked like we can score a lot of goals and the D sucked but Demko will probably keep it to 2-3 goals a night.

I think we all recognized that if Demko goes down then this team will go down as well.

I think the not expected part was Demko struggling badly and that once he goes down, the D and backup goalie combined would contribute to historic level bad results.

I think we are giving up like at least 3 goals a game from PK and bad goals. That’s kinda insane, I don’t even know if the pure tanking teams in the past was that bad. We are like talking about a baseline of giving up at least 3 goals and then you add like 1-2 more per game due to them being actually good goals. Our GAA is like 4.4 now? I am curious to see how that ranks in the modern era.

 

[Ernie]

I think most of us assumed that Demko would be Demko and he would carry the load as usual. I really didn’t look at it from the perspective of oh everything is going to go right. It was more like, it was expected for Demko to perform well. And from that perspective, it looked like we can score a lot of goals and the D sucked but Demko will probably keep it to 2-3 goals a night.

I think we all recognized that if Demko goes down then this team will go down as well.

I think the not expected part was Demko struggling badly and that once he goes down, the D and backup goalie combined would contribute to historic level bad results.

I think we are giving up like at least 3 goals a game from PK and bad goals. That’s kinda insane, I don’t even know if the pure tanking teams in the past was that bad. We are like talking about a baseline of giving up at least 3 goals and then you add like 1-2 more per game due to them being actually good goals. Our GAA is like 4.4 now? I am curious to see how that ranks in the modern era.

No question the goaltending is terrible.

But to reduce this team's problems to just goaltending is ridiculous. This team has 1 quality defenceman. It has pretty much zero quality penalty killers.

Also, goaltenders don't tend to do well when they are playing in front of a terrible defence, either.

As for the forwards, it's also a bit of a mirage - the Canucks have the 3rd highest sh% in the league. We have some good players but that is also likely unsustainable.

Time to take off the rose tinted glasses and acknowledge the truth: this team belongs where it is in the standings. I still hope we can build around Pettersson and Hughes, but if Pettersson doesn't re-sign long term this summer...

 

[TruGr1t]

Its funny, how I agree with a fair bit here, but come to a completely different conclusion with where this team is, and this management team. I agree with what you were saying is their mistakes for the most part. I do think they thought they could move the wingers and misjudged the market, and that Boeser contract was a mistake.

With their goal I don't think Miller was a mistake. If they wanted to win you keep your best players. If they wanted to rebuild yes they should have moved him, for a retool, 1 of Miller or Horvat should have been moved, with what Horvat signed for I have no problem with keeping miller over him.

I also think some things were looked at longer term. I don't think they thought they could move OEL. I think they obviously looked at it, but doubt they thought it was realistic. I think they looked at clearing space with a longer view then just right now.

I think people get caught judging the team now for a longer term project. They talked about a two year plan, we are 1 year in. Before Benning was fired no one thought this could be turned around in a year. So lets give them the time they asked for... maybe they are terrible, but judging a have done plan for the full one is a bad argument.

I do think the D can be turned around much quicker especially with this offseason. I don't see Myers, or Schenn back. That is most of the RHD side, and I can see an upgrade on the Left. That would be half the top six changed. That would be drastic. I hope, but doubt we buy out OEL, and that too would be even more massive.

I don’t really see how you turn the defense around with nothing in the pipeline, no real trade currency outside of draft picks and only Hughes.

Top-four defensemen, especially on the right-side, are bar none the hardest assets to acquire in the league, basically never hit free agency, and even if they do hit free agency can write their own cheque and play wherever they want. If you’re assuming they fix the D via the draft that’s probably at least 3 years out. I’m talking about creating a legitimate team, not floating around at 95 points for the lols.

Miller also makes basically no sense under this timeframe as by the time the team is competitive he’ll be squarely on the downside of his career, overpaid, and could easily be Eriksson/OEL 3.0.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

That was my reaction to the absolutely insane OEL deal.

My position was consistent in 2021 - the only way out is through (not that Benning would be capable of doing it) and that you have to keep building around the team we have.

That meant I would have been totally fine with trading #9 overall in a deal for a player like Provorov or Chychrun who fit the age group and could help the team move forward.

That doesn't mean that I supported something as suicidally short-sighted as the OEL trade.

Oh totally, and I get that. I actually had the same thought as the bolded, but in the opposite direction. But the Miller and OEL deals are huge commitments that are over their actual provided value in my projection of where I see the league heading in terms of cap considerations. Of course, my view deals with the tomorrow of it and not the now. Naturally, the cap trends up ceteris paribus which is in conflict to my projection. But as every CBA expires, we see it flatten or move down for a season in recent memory, keeping in mind the CBA expires in 3 years. Then you have the RSN going under, and barring a major television company in the States coming in to play saviour or the NHL BoG coming up with a brilliant, forward-looking plan (they always seem more interested in shorter-sighted deals), the cap will likely be moving in a slight bullish way (more a cow) in the best case scenario.

So moving into next year, you have EP up for renewal. What moves do we have with the cap space available to improve the team over this season to next? Does he want to stay if we stagnate? These are the questions whose answers are not available to the average fan like you and I. With the Miller and OEL deals, we have precedence close to home that we are going to be shelling out big money. Is it too much to even keep him? I'm a big believer in Elias but really we need some of our stars to leave some money on the table to have a hope in hell at doing *anything* noteworthy. So, the basis of the argument, or the real crux of the issue, if you will to me is not what will we do, it's more what we ought to do - provided the only goal worth chasing is getting a Stanley Cup as soon as possible. And I realize that completely ignores the business side of things which is foolish and idyllic, but that's part and parcel my licence to do so as a fan.

I'm not trying to be rude, I think it's a rather interesting discussion to be had is all. And I think we are in a unique situation to do so.

 

[mriswith]

Your plan was to blow it up, do a tank, and run $20 million below the cap.

That is video game stuff that isn't grounded in reality. End of story. There really isn't anything more I can say.




To be clear : I am absolutely NOT arguing that management did a good job last summer.

They pretty clearly prioritized some of the wrong players and I don't think they leaned nearly hard enough into biting some bullets to fix the blueline.

If you're claiming that they should have let Boeser and Miller walk and invested that money into improving the blueline and adding a quality defensive 3C ... absolutely. That's totally fair.

The notion that we should have run $20 million below the cap and tanked for Bedard is not totally fair. It's ridiculous.

Your argument was never just about the cap.

You called any plan from any poster that called for trading the UFA aged guys, and building around Pettersson/Hughes instead, video games, because of how the team performed during the Bruce bump.

20 games later everyone was calling for the same thing.

You may not like it, but selling the UFA aged guys and building around Pettersson/Hughes/Demko was always a viable option and should have been pursued immediately when Miller/Horvat had 2x as much value instead of getting forced into half assing it this season.

 

[MS]

Your argument was never just about the cap.

You called any plan from any poster that called for trading the UFA aged guys, and building around Pettersson/Hughes instead, video games, because of how the team performed during the Bruce bump.

20 games later everyone was calling for the same thing.

You may not like it, but selling the UFA aged guys and building around Pettersson/Hughes/Demko was always a viable option and should have been pursued immediately when Miller/Horvat had 2x as much value instead of getting forced into half assing it this season.

I called any proposal that involved tanking for a high pick video game stuff, and it was. And nothing has changed about that.

 

[racerjoe]

But what if they can't move Boeser and Myers which is a likely situation? As of right now, the only assets the Nucks have that they could use to trade for a defenseman if their two first-round picks. All reports indicate that the team has been trying to move salary but they have failed in doing so.

Then judge that... like this is weird to judge a team on what ifs. If this team fails to do x then yes it is a failure. Like I siad from the beginning, I agreed with Trugrit on some of the failings. I defintely haven't thought they have been perfect, I just find most of the judging is also based on 8 years of not this management team.

If they fail, it is on them. They asked for two years, I will give it to them.

I don’t really see how you turn the defense around with nothing in the pipeline, no real trade currency outside of draft picks and only Hughes.

Top-four defensemen, especially on the right-side, are bar none the hardest assets to acquire in the league, basically never hit free agency, and even if they do hit free agency can write their own cheque and play wherever they want. If you’re assuming they fix the D via the draft that’s probably at least 3 years out. I’m talking about creating a legitimate team, not floating around at 95 points for the lols.

Miller also makes basically no sense under this timeframe as by the time the team is competitive he’ll be squarely on the downside of his career, overpaid, and could easily be Eriksson/OEL 3.0.

You are looking at the picture now, instead of looking 4 months from now.

We will have some assets, a draft pick or two from this deadline, maybe a prospect or two, these will be assets to flip.

Jake Livingstone, who I have been talking about getting for probably a year and a half now, as well.

We have Hughes and Bear right now, and we need a RHD and LHD, I don't think getting a top 4 LHD should be that hard, they are much more plentiful, and if you are not aiming for the top then you don't need the huge package.

So a second and decent prospect should you one judging by last years price.

So with Bear, Livingstone, and what ever you trade for that is a rebuilt Right side.

The Left Side you have Hughes, blank then OEL hopefully at worst on the 3rd pair. So you traded for the RHD, sign a LHD, again looking at more defensive guy.

The biggest hurdle will be moving myers.

 

[Hodgy]

And yes, goaltending can be volatile. But nobody expected this. Or anything like this. Again, we're like 40% worse than league average than the 2nd worst team of the last 25 years. What has happened is absolutely insane. People are simply not grasping just how absolutely nuts our goaltending results have been.

Like, management could have got literally everything right and somehow swapped Boeser and OEL out for Chychrun last summer and with this sort of goaltending result ... we still suck. If you take any decent NHL team and give them .870 goaltending ... they're going to suck.

Like, Calgary is a good team with great underlying numbers and they're getting 28th-ranked .890 goaltending and it's torched their season. We're getting .870.

'We've received statistically the worst goaltending results in this league in 30 years' is not the same thing as 'oh, we would have been fine if Brandon Sutter didn't tweak his groin late in the season'.

I think you are really exaggerating the unforeseeability of us getting bad goaltending. Demko, prior to this year, for around 100 games or whatever, has been very good. Not Vezina level, but very good. The performances of these type of goalies from year to year are very volatile. And it very much depends on the team in front of them.

And that leads me to my second point: our team defense. It’s historically terrible. Look at our historically terrible penalty kill. This group, individually and together, are terrible defensively. This is doubly so on defense. So it’s not surprising that all four of the goalies who have seen action this year have put up terrible stats. No one should have been shocked that Demko may struggle behind this team defense.

Lastly, goal scoring is at historical highs. So sit isn’t surprising that save percentages of goalies on historically terrible defensive teams in a historically high scoring year would be historically low.

With all that said, I agree that posters weren’t predicting Demko to be this bad. But I don’t think it’s some crazy event.

 

[MS]

I think you are really exaggerating the unforeseeability of us getting bad goaltending. Demko, prior to this year, for around 100 games or whatever, has been very good. Not Vezina level, but very good. The performances of these type of goalies from year to year are very volatile. And it very much depends on the team in front of them.

And that leads me to my second point: our team defense. It’s historically terrible. Look at our historically terrible penalty kill. This group, individually and together, are terrible defensively. This is doubly so on defense. So it’s not surprising that all four of the goalies who have seen action this year have put up terrible stats. No one should have been shocked that Demko may struggle behind this team defense.

Lastly, goal scoring is at historical highs. So sit isn’t surprising that save percentages of goalies on historically terrible defensive teams in a historically high scoring year would be historically low.

With all that said, I agree that posters weren’t predicting Demko to be this bad. But I don’t think it’s some crazy event.

We aren't getting 'bad goaltending'. A team like the Florida Panthers is getting 'bad goaltending'.

We're getting - by far - the worst statistical goaltending any team has received in 30 years. And again, I'm not just using raw save % to say this - I'm using the difference relative to league average goaltending. It doesn't matter if the league average is .901 this year and in some other year it's been .910. We're nearly 40% worse than any other team has been relative to the league average in any given year.

It is absolutely a crazy event. And it boggles my mind that people aren't grasping this. The average AHL team has received better goaltending than we have.

And the bad PK results are quite heavily tied to the bad goaltending and goalies who can't make a save at either 5-on-5 or 4-on-5.

 

[Hodgy]

We aren't getting 'bad goaltending'. A team like the Florida Panthers is getting 'bad goaltending'.

We're getting - by far - the worst statistical goaltending any team has received in 30 years. And again, I'm not just using raw save % to say this - I'm using the difference relative to league average goaltending. It doesn't matter if the league average is .901 this year and in some other year it's been .910. We're nearly 40% worse than any other team has been relative to the league average in any given year.

It is absolutely a crazy event. And it boggles my mind that people aren't grasping this. The average AHL team has received better goaltending than we have.

And the bad PK results are quite heavily tied to the bad goaltending and goalies who can't make a save at either 5-on-5 or 4-on-5.

But we also have a historically terrible team defense. No question our goaltending has been poor this year, but it’s the poor goaltending and historically bad team defense that are driving the historically bad save percentage numbers.

With that said, even if Demko played like last year I still don’t think we are making the playoffs. This is a very bad team.

 

[arttk]

No question the goaltending is terrible.

But to reduce this team's problems to just goaltending is ridiculous. This team has 1 quality defenceman. It has pretty much zero quality penalty killers.

Also, goaltenders don't tend to do well when they are playing in front of a terrible defence, either.

As for the forwards, it's also a bit of a mirage - the Canucks have the 3rd highest sh% in the league. We have some good players but that is also likely unsustainable.

Time to take off the rose tinted glasses and acknowledge the truth: this team belongs where it is in the standings. I still hope we can build around Pettersson and Hughes, but if Pettersson doesn't re-sign long term this summer...

I don’t think people are reducing things to goaltending.

Like I said, people projected this team to have a good offense, bad defense and good goaltending. And that mix would’ve landed them in the wild card vicinity.
I think the drop in OEL’s play, like that degree of a drop was surprising and the goaltending, dropping was also unexpected.

Like no matter how you stand, we are having historic bad goaltending. The last team to get that level of goaltending was the Kraken last season and that sunk them to bottom 5 finish. Like I think with normal bad goaltending we solid be bottom 10, historic bad we are seeing bottom 5, perhaps bottom3.

Like we are top10 in scoring right now, like when was the last time a top 10 offensive team finish this low in the standings? Probably never? It’s not any of us are arguing that oh we are fine if goaltending rebounds next year. I think everyone wants the D to be revamped.

We aren't getting 'bad goaltending'. A team like the Florida Panthers is getting 'bad goaltending'.

We're getting - by far - the worst statistical goaltending any team has received in 30 years. And again, I'm not just using raw save % to say this - I'm using the difference relative to league average goaltending. It doesn't matter if the league average is .901 this year and in some other year it's been .910. We're nearly 40% worse than any other team has been relative to the league average in any given year.

It is absolutely a crazy event. And it boggles my mind that people aren't grasping this. The average AHL team has received better goaltending than we have.

And the bad PK results are quite heavily tied to the bad goaltending and goalies who can't make a save at either 5-on-5 or 4-on-5.

I think the bad D and bad goaltending are like stuck in a negative feedback loop. Bad goalie causing defense to cheat leading to AAA chances against leading to the D cheating more leading to more occurance of those AAA chances.

 

[credulous]

san jose has worse goaltending this season right now so it's not true vancouver has historically terrible goaltending

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

This also, isnt a case of 'but injuries' as far as the goaltending is concerned..Even when healthy,(starting the season) our Vezina level top 5 goalie, and our undefeated in reg time backup..'couldnt make a save'...Both players fell off a cliff becoming second from the bottom worst in the league.

When all your centers, or one side of your D goes down..you can somewhat mask it..When your atrocious goaltending has permeated to all your 1st, 2nd,3rd string goaltenders..you're in big trouble..Especially, when they're giving up two bad goals a game.

 

[andora]

Your argument was never just about the cap.

You called any plan from any poster that called for trading the UFA aged guys, and building around Pettersson/Hughes instead, video games, because of how the team performed during the Bruce bump.

20 games later everyone was calling for the same thing.

You may not like it, but selling the UFA aged guys and building around Pettersson/Hughes/Demko was always a viable option and should have been pursued immediately when Miller/Horvat had 2x as much value instead of getting forced into half assing it this season.

Who were all the ufa guys to sell?

 

[MS]

But we also have a historically terrible team defense. No question our goaltending has been poor this year, but it’s the poor goaltending and historically bad team defense that are driving the historically bad save percentage numbers.

With that said, even if Demko played like last year I still don’t think we are making the playoffs. This is a very bad team.

We don't have historically terrible team defense. We don't even have the worst defense in the NHL right now - like, has anyone watched an Anaheim game this year?

We're a bad defensive team. We aren't worse than the expansion teams of the early 2000s or the absolute worst of the tanking teams that have been thrown out there by Edmonton/Detroit/Buffalo/whoever in the past 30 years that were barely even NHL squads and got destroyed every single night. But we're getting substantially worse goaltending results than those teams.

 

[rypper]

san jose has worse goaltending this season right now so it's not true vancouver has historically terrible goaltending

Hmmm...

 

[arttk]

san jose has worse goaltending this season right now so it's not true vancouver has historically terrible goaltending

We have been getting .800 goaltending at even strength since Tocchet joined lol. There is a reason why we are falling like an absolute rock.

Also not sure what stats you are looking at, our goalie stats are behind SJS

Martin has a -28 gsaa
Khakonen has like -16 in comparison

 

[Josepho]

SJ's goaltending is probably slightly worse at 5v5 but for some reason our goalies are mainly extremely terrible on the PK (even relative to expected goals against, so not really a system thing).

I was browsing through some insane numbers. I'll post them later.

And no, the Canucks aren't even close to the worst defence in the league in terms of chances/xGA/shots surrendered.

 

[Ernie]

I don’t think people are reducing things to goaltending.

Like I said, people projected this team to have a good offense, bad defense and good goaltending. And that mix would’ve landed them in the wild card vicinity.
I think the drop in OEL’s play, like that degree of a drop was surprising and the goaltending, dropping was also unexpected.

Like no matter how you stand, we are having historic bad goaltending. The last team to get that level of goaltending was the Kraken last season and that sunk them to bottom 5 finish. Like I think with normal bad goaltending we solid be bottom 10, historic bad we are seeing bottom 5, perhaps bottom3.

Like we are top10 in scoring right now, like when was the last time a top 10 offensive team finish this low in the standings? Probably never? It’s not any of us are arguing that oh we are fine if goaltending rebounds next year. I think everyone wants the D to be revamped.

Well that top 10 in scoring is also based on an unsustainable sh%. So let's not get ahead of ourselves on the offence, either.

I'm less focussed on what happened last offseason. Nobody projected the team to be this bad, it's true. As I said, I didn't want a tank at that time.

But man, you have to really have your head in the sand to think this team is a decent goaltender away from the playoffs given what we know now. We have at least a couple of seasons before we can be competitive, and I certainly hope we are able to hang on to our young stars through that process. But the Miller and possible Horvat contracts made no sense given that timeline.

The 4 biggest developments this season:
1. Goaltending sucks
2. OEL sucks
3. Myers sucks
4. Zero useful penalty killers

We aren't a simple snap of the fingers away from fixing those issues. Even if the Canucks cleaned up their cap issues by trading Boeser, Garland, and Myers, and buying out OEL, they still would be lacking the talent they need with no way to acquire it except by overspending on UFA's. Quite simply, we need more assets.

 

[Hodgy]

We don't have historically terrible team defense. We don't even have the worst defense in the NHL right now - like, has anyone watched an Anaheim game this year?

We're a bad defensive team. We aren't worse than the expansion teams of the early 2000s or the absolute worst of the tanking teams that have been thrown out there by Edmonton/Detroit/Buffalo/whoever in the past 30 years that were barely even NHL squads and got destroyed every single night. But we're getting substantially worse goaltending results than those teams.

But the goaltending results you are pointing to - save percentage - are team results not just an individual goalie’s results. We all know save percentage is heavily affected by team defense. So they point to a historically bad defensive team as much as they do to a historically bad goaltending. Frankly, I don’t think you can really isolate them.

 

[rypper]

Just for comparison, all situations for Vancouver and San Jose's starters.

Martin:

Delia:

Kahkonen:

Reimer: