Management Thread | The Song Remains the Same Edition

[Ernie]

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.

Yeah, it comes down to what's more likely:

1. 3 different goaltenders are coincidentally playing at a sub-ECHL level
2. The defence sucks and they are dragging down a mediocre group of goalies to terrible #'s.

There's probably not a goalie in this league that could put up decent numbers with this group right now.

A big part of the team defence issues are also on the forwards of course. Only Pettersson has had any kind of two way success this season.

 

[TruGr1t]

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.



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.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. We'll be competitive in no time at this rate. I'll check back in four months.

 

[andora]

so basically at 5on5

24th Corsi%
25th Fenwick%
24th shots allowed
31st goals allowed
26th Xga
23rd scoring chances against
31st in scoring chance SV%
28th in HDSC allowed
30th in HDSV%
16th in MDSC allowed
26th in MDSV%
14th in LDSC allowed
30th in LDSV%
32nd in SV%

there are some heavy variants to suggest that goaltending has been MORE of the problem. middle team in low and medium danger with work to do in high danger chances given up (just like last year)

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

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 will add that are terrible goaltending is mitigated somewhat that every team in the Pacific has had bad goaltending. 5 of the 6 worst teams in the NHL in save percentage are in the Pacific, and the only team above .900 is Vegas.

Also in a lot of games it's not like goaltending was the only reason we lost. I count 16 games this year where we lost by 3+ goals but scored 2 or less goals. If you get better goaltending during a game you lose 6-1 you would lose 3 or 2-1.

 

[racerjoe]

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.

I had us at 5th in the division with an outside chance at that last wild card spot. I really don't think that is an outrageous position. Someone did the math earlier in the season and at that point it was a 35 goal difference to just have league average goaltending this season. That would be massive.

 

[credulous]

a 35 goal difference would get them to -4 which is good for like 55-60 points and 10th or so in the conference

this team is bad even with good goaltending. period

 

[arttk]

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.

I think the only unsustainable shooting % was Bo and his rise was offset by Miller playing like ass. Hell based on projection from last off-season, we would’ve expected PPG from Miller and 60ish season from Bo and what we got in the end was pretty much that but reverse. I think the top 10 offense mostly came from the Kuz and Mik addition and not on Bo’s binge.

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.

I am not saying we are decent goaltending playoffs. I am saying average goaltending would move us much closer to the wildcard spot but most likely outside, like last season. i think Demko being the Demko we know would’ve put us in like a 8th spot.

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.

For 1, who knows what happens with goaltending. I feel it’s like it’s really to project how Demko will perform. Backup is not really an issue, you can get a quality backup for like 1-1.5M. Like we are spending peanuts on Martin because we are still paying for Halak and Holtby.
I agree with 2-3, OEL needs to be LTIRed or bought out and Myers needs to be convinced that Vancouver is not for him.
4. I don’t think getting a new set of PKers should be that hard. It’s hard if you want PKers that are offensive aces but it shouldn’t be hard to get like a PK center, winger and at least 2-3 PKing defenders once we get rid of OEL and Myers.

I think the only issues we won’t be able to solve would be 1 if Demko can’t recover. All the other ones are solvable. And yes you can solve #2 with a snap, unfortunately that snap costs 19M and needs to be made by ownership.

 

[arttk]

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.

We just have horrible PKers. Myers and OEL are god damn hopeless on the kill. They are constantly out of position and they allow a ton of cross ice pass right through them.

 

[racerjoe]

a 35 goal difference would get them to -4 which is good for like 55-60 points and 10th or so in the conference

this team is bad even with good goaltending. period

I just did the math quickly, so double check it for errors. The canucks have let in 223 goals so far on 1716 shots against. League average goaltending is currently .906 if the canucks got that they would have let in 162 goals against. It is now at 61 goal difference in league average to what we have gotten. almost double my earlier numbers. We would be well into the positive goal dif with average goaltending.

This isnt' to excuse our defence it is dreadful.

Edit to add in where I got those numbers;

NHL League Averages | Hockey-Reference.com

Check out the latest NHL League Averages including shots, saves, goal averages and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

Vancouver Canucks Average Shots Allowed Per Game This Season | StatMuse

The Vancouver Canucks have 27.35 shots against per game played this season.

www.statmuse.com

 

[canucksfan]

I had us at 5th in the division with an outside chance at that last wild card spot. I really don't think that is an outrageous position. Someone did the math earlier in the season and at that point it was a 35 goal difference to just have league average goaltending this season. That would be massive.

Most of us, including myself, had the Nucks around 5th in the division. I thought they had a chance at the playoff spot if everything went well and being in a crappy division helps too. There was also a chance of things going wrong and them finishing poorly. Personally, I thought Hughes would get injured and miss a lot of time which would cause them to finish lower than expected. I didn't expect goaltending to be a problem. Goaltending and scoring were supposed to be the strengths of the team. Obviously, the team isn't entirely constructed for next season but goaltending is now a question mark. Can Demko stay healthy? Will Demko be able to perform as he has been or will there be a decline?

 

[Hodgy]

I had us at 5th in the division with an outside chance at that last wild card spot. I really don't think that is an outrageous position. Someone did the math earlier in the season and at that point it was a 35 goal difference to just have league average goaltending this season. That would be massive.

When you say “league average goaltending” you are referring to save percentage though, right? Save percentage is heavily dependent on team defense. This team has terrible team defence. So, bearing that in mind, what kind of goaltending performance do you think we’d need to have league average save percentage? Vezina quality like Demko last year? Not really sustainable.

 

[MS]

a 35 goal difference would get them to -4 which is good for like 55-60 points and 10th or so in the conference

this team is bad even with good goaltending. period

I'm not sure if this makes the point you think you're making.

Allowing 35 fewer goals still has us at bottom-5 .890 goaltending, and you're saying that with statistically bottom-5 goaltending we'd be right with Calgary like 2-3 points out of the playoffs.

 

[racerjoe]

When you say “league average goaltending” you are referring to save percentage though, right? Save percentage is heavily dependent on team defense. This team has terrible team defence. So, bearing that in mind, what kind of goaltending performance do you think we’d need to have league average save percentage? Vezina quality like Demko last year? Not really sustainable.

Well, last year with this same defence, Demko put up a 915, with the league average being anear identical 907 to this years 906. So the same performance from him would be 915, the same save % he put up two years in a row. I don't think it was a much to think Demko would be at worse league average.

 

[Hodgy]

Well, last year with this same defence, Demko put up a 915, with the league average being anear identical 907 to this years 906. So the same performance from him would be 915, the same save % he put up two years in a row. I don't think it was a much to think Demko would be at worse league average.

Our defense is worse this year because OEL and Myers have both got worse, the former with a pretty big drop off. We then added Stillman who really sucks and we play him a lot. We then lost Our defensive coach who seemed to be helping.

Demko was giving us unsustainable Vezina level goaltending. Even if his play didn’t drop off his save percentage would have fallen. But obviously his play regressed as well. Delia and Martin are also just bad goalies. But lots goes into having such a terrible team save percentage and goaltending is just a component.

Generally, I’d say there are three main components: non goalie personnel; coaching and goaltending.

All three of those significantly worsened this year.

 

[racerjoe]

Our defense is worse this year because OEL and Myers have both got worse, the former with a pretty big drop off. We then added Stillman who really sucks and we play him a lot. We then lost Our defensive coach who seemed to be helping.

Demko was giving us unsustainable Vezina level goaltending. Even if his play didn’t drop off his save percentage would have fallen. But obviously his play regressed as well. Delia and Martin are also just bad goalies. But lots goes into having such a terrible team save percentage and goaltending is just a component.

Generally, I’d say there are three main components: non goalie personnel; coaching and goaltending.

All three of those significantly worsened this year.

Going from two back to back seasons of 915 is vezina quality and I would say is sustainable... and you can tell because it was sustained for two seasons.

Sure Myers and OEL were worse, so our Vezina quality goaltending should be league average? In Save % I could agree with that. I could even agree with saying with the coaching change maybe 900. We are getting no where close to that.

Stillman who was terrible to start the season and I was one of the people praying to get him off the ice has only played half the games... I don't think he really factors in here.

 

[Hodgy]

Going from two back to back seasons of 915 is vezina quality and I would say is sustainable... and you can tell because it was sustained for two seasons.

Sure Myers and OEL were worse, so our Vezina quality goaltending should be league average? In Save % I could agree with that. I could even agree with saying with the coaching change maybe 900. We are getting no where close to that.

Stillman who was terrible to start the season and I was one of the people praying to get him off the ice has only played half the games... I don't think he really factors in here.

I agree that Demko has been much worse than usual. My point is the historically poor save percentage is a result of a few factors only one of which is Demko. The other two factors, terrible defense and bad coaching, were not surprising. As for Demko, while I wouldn’t have predicted this big of a dip, goalie volatility is widely accepted as being very real and normal outside the top few goalies in the league. Look at Helllybuk last year.

 

[racerjoe]

I agree that Demko has been much worse than usual. My point is the historically poor save percentage is a result of a few factors only one of which is Demko. The other two factors, terrible defense and bad coaching, were not surprising. As for Demko, while I wouldn’t have predicted this big of a dip, goalie volatility is widely accepted as being very real and normal outside the top few goalies in the league. Look at Helllybuk last year.

Hellebuyck's bad year that your brought up from last season was a 910... still above league average, and .006 down from the season before... that isn't showing a huge difference.

I agree coaching and OEL/Myers was worse, but the much bigger issue was the goaltending. We were not that much different from last year, but goaltending was.

 

[arttk]

I agree that Demko has been much worse than usual. My point is the historically poor save percentage is a result of a few factors only one of which is Demko. The other two factors, terrible defense and bad coaching, were not surprising. As for Demko, while I wouldn’t have predicted this big of a dip, goalie volatility is widely accepted as being very real and normal outside the top few goalies in the league. Look at Helllybuk last year.

It should be obvious at this point that Demko’s issue are with his knees or whatever lower body issues.

 

[me2]

Yes, they have just over 7.6m in LTIR space after putting Pearson on LTIR. They can use that to act as a broker but only have 2 retention spots left. I suspect they will probably save one for a Boeser deal. That leaves only one to be used as a broker.

Two way to use it: Retention slots eating bad ufa contracts taken.

 

[me2]

I don’t know why you want to lump in Benning with Allvin.

Hey if you want to say Benning had no anything I am with you.

Allvin has a had a year Benning would be proud of. Gunned up for the playoffs, ended up bottom 5.

This is a cap and draft based league, there really isn’t that much vision involved with team building. I think you are talking about identity and not vision.

Vision. What separates teams is manegememt's ability to read their team, develop a vision, lay out plans and execute. It's more important in a cap league than a non-cap league. You can just buy your way to success or bury your failures.

The cap magnifies incompetence and punishes teams that aren't working towards something.

 

[arttk]

Allvin has a had a year Benning would be proud of. Gunned up for the playoffs, ended up bottom 5.



Vision. What separates teams is manegememt's ability to read their team, develop a vision, lay out plans and execute. It's more important in a cap league than a non-cap league. You can just buy your way to success or bury your failures.

The cap magnifies incompetence and punishes teams that aren't working towards something.

Yeah it’s an accidental tank at first but they are making moves to make sure we are going tank as hard as possible. If this was Benning he would be trading everything to try to rescue this thing.

This vision talk is really f***ing stupid. There are like 4 states that teams can be within a capped league, rebuilding, building, retooling or competing. like I said, this is not European football where you can really define a vision and execute on it. Everybody has essentially the same vision in this league, it’s all about execution. If you think it’s visionary to say let’s rebuild this team then you really need to rethink what it means to have a vision.

 

[F A N]

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.

For me the question then is what if we did get top 10 calibre goaltending from a healthy Demko which is a reasonable expectation? We would then likely be in the playoff race. And if we still end up firing Boudreau that certainly means that management sees the team as a playoff team which is in line with JR's original vision of competing in 2 years? But the only thing this changes is where the Canucks are in the standings no? The strengths and weaknesses of the team will still be there.

I agree with you on the whole pivot. It's common sense of course. The Canucks are way too far out of the playoff picture and they aren't riding a hot streak that would or should make them think twice of being sellers this year. Even the Horvat trade doesn't really tell us much beyond the fact that the Canucks couldn't re-sign him and it was probably the best deal. I mean if you look at it, there's the first round pick (check), 25 and under roster player (check), young C or D prospect (check). Teams are looking to add to their defensive depth so we weren't getting a young potential top 4 Dman who is already on the roster. Neither are we getting a young C who can replace Horvat within 2 years.

 

[mriswith]

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

Wrong. You literally called anyone calling for trading the UFA aged players video games.

30 seconds of searching to find just one of many examples.

I usually agree with you but another option would be to rebuild. I would have traded, Boeser, Miller, and anyone else on a UFA at the trade deadline last year. This year I would have traded Horvat. I would have also looked at trading Garland is the trade made sense. All the trades would obviously be for picks and prospects. I also would have taken on some short-term cap dumps for picks if possible. By doing this, the only long-term terrible contract is OEL. I admit this would have pissed off EP, Hughes, and Demko but I don't see how this team wins anything with this group. Even though management is in a horrible position, I believe they chose the worst possible option, doubling down on the group.

Obviously, ownership would not have done this.

Rebuilding and keeping Hughes/Demko/Pettersson is absolutely pointless.

Even if those players stay (unlikely) the odds you're competitive again before their contracts run out is miniscule. What exactly is the endgame here?

And again, we saw what happened to these players in 2020 when the team accidentally was forced to take a step back. The same thing would happen but worse if we intentionally did.

It's just video game stuff. To me, it's the definition of a 'no plan plan'. And again, no ownership group would ever have signed off on it.

No mention of running below the cap or tanking.... video games!

Your entire issue was that taking a step back was unconscionable and video games because of the point pace we had during the Bruce bump.

20 games later everyone called for it and 40 games later we did it.

Seeing you now try to retcon your opinion as if it was only about the cap is weird but I guess that indicates that you've changed your mind about what course of action would have been unthinkable in the history of sports for our team.

Management Discussion | Pre-Season Approaching

It took them 11 years of no post season to acquire 2 young elite D men (and additions)..Yikes. The Sabres would be going to year 12 of no post season this season, but I think they'll make it, Colorado and Edmonton both spent close to a decade being terrible, and getting multiple opportunities...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[PuckMunchkin]

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?

Demko no. Decline for sure, but not to this point.

OEL. Yes.

I was shocked by how well he played his first year here. Or to be more specific, the defensive results we got with him.

He has been absolutely horrific for a good while in Arizona. His inability to pivot outside is not new. I have NO clue how it sort of worked out for his first year. From what I understand from my work about the human anatomy... it makes no sense.

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'll just give you guys this at this point since there is no point in debating it.

But thank god we didnt. Maybe we can now break out of the cycle of mediocrity.

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.

At least there is now hope that they finally see what the team is and are abandoning the shortcuts.

We will see.

 

[Nucker101]

so basically at 5on5

24th Corsi%
25th Fenwick%
24th shots allowed
31st goals allowed
26th Xga
23rd scoring chances against
31st in scoring chance SV%
28th in HDSC allowed
30th in HDSV%
16th in MDSC allowed
26th in MDSV%
14th in LDSC allowed
30th in LDSV%
32nd in SV%

there are some heavy variants to suggest that goaltending has been MORE of the problem. middle team in low and medium danger with work to do in high danger chances given up (just like last year)

Definitely seems like the type of team that should be able to turn it around in a hurry.