So the Canucks were a product of PDO all this time? Or are they still a legitimate contender?

[Rowlet]

Every year a fanbase tries to argue that pdo isn't a real thing, and then come back down to earth the next year like clockwork.

2 less points after 23 games with no starting goalie and a ton of injuries.

If the Canucks had Demko instead of Silovs they'd have more points this season than last season after 23.

 

[benfranklin]

They've gotten by this season without Demko all season. Boeser missed 7 games before returning from a concussion. Been without Miller for around that long as well now for personal reasons.

Excellent road record to offset being meh at home.

Hronek is potentially needing surgery, so that may put the brakes on the GM doing anything until he knows the concrete timeline.

Canucks have a good enough top end of 5-7 players (Hughes, Hronek, Demko, Miller, Pettersson, to Boeser) to compete. It's the next tier of guys in the 8-12 range that they could use a boost in, especially that 3rd Dman spot, but they don't have the assets to really do much. Shot their shot last season with Lindholm and he's gone (too high a price to keep relative to production).

Benning blowing assets left cupboard limited. So, have to make due.

Whats the real rumor with Miller? And trading him?

 

[McFlash97]

2 less points after 23 games with no starting goalie and a ton of injuries.

If the Canucks had Demko instead of Silovs they'd have more points this season than last season after 23.

Demko is half a season type of goaltender. Made of glass they might as well sit the guy until the playoffs or he's going to be on IR when it counts again.

 

[StreetHawk]

Whats the real rumor with Miller? And trading him?

Sounds more like NYR came back around and asked. Van was gaging trade offers before Miller signed his extension a couple of years ago. Sticking point was Van wanted Schneider while NYR offered Lunqkvist, thus no deal.

NYR is the one talking Trouba and Kreider. Sounds like they are actively asking around. Possibly them leaking stuff to get others GM to bite on their offer since they were looking around elsewhere too.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

I’ve been impressed how they’ve managed to win many games where it’s questionable whether they’re the better team due to strict adherence to a suffocating system that they play on the road. At home they still play too fancy and are 3-4-3.

Lankinen is 12-4 and .907. So maybe a small step down from Demko but not like they have Avs, Oilers, Vegas level goaltending. To have him and Demko healthy at the same time will huge. Not to mention Hughes is a Hart trophy candidate. They have one of the best bottom 6F in the league but one of the worst bottom 4D. Injuries have been significant.

All that to say they are a 2nd tier contender when healthy. 1st tier being teams like Edm and Vegas.

I don’t see them doing much without Miller, but if he comes back, has something to prove, and the team figures out how to play at home, then look out.

Lankinens GSAx is literally dead even meaning he's not producing better or worse than what the defense has provided. Silovs on the other hand, yikes... he's been one of the worst goalies in the league this year. So as a whole, canucks have gotten below average goaltending.

 

[Zoupa]

It wasn't "just" PDO, they've had very bad injury luck this year so far, and the additions they've made have made up for who they lost, but having neither of their 100pt C's healthy at the same time has hurt the Canucks, as well as losing Hronek, Joshua, and Boeser while Demko has yet to make his season debut, Silovs has also really struggled as the backup.

Their early high PDO was affected by several huge blowouts in the first few weeks of the season while not having many big losses. An 8-1 win, 5-0 win, 10-1 win all in the first 10 games.

Through 23 games, the Canucks are 13-7-3, last season through 23 games they were 15-7-1. They've earned 2 less points compared to last year.

As for "legitimate contender," most people said they weren't one last season, and many predicted they would lose to a red hot Nashville, and then get blown out by the Oilers. In my opinion, they're basically where they were last year before the Zadorov trade, a hungry young team with two 100pt C's, a top 2 defenseman in the league and a Vezina nominated goalie that needs to add a top 4 defenseman to be taken seriously. We still haven't seen this team fully healthy.

The Canucks appear to have had an easier than average schedule so far this year.

 

[Rowlet]

Demko is half a season type of goaltender. Made of glass they might as well sit the guy until the playoffs or he's going to be on IR when it counts again.

Sure, but the point stands that if the Canucks had a functioning second goalie they'd likely have a better record than last season.

 

[BCNate]

Every year a fanbase tries to argue that pdo isn't a real thing, and then come back down to earth the next year like clockwork.

We are 2 points back of where we were last year.

 

[Rowlet]

We are 2 points back of where we were last year.

and way better statistically

 

[Zoupa]

and way better statistically

Ok, but like I said above, look at their schedule. They have only played like 8 teams (1/3 of their games) that are expected to make the playoffs and they have lost most of those games.

They have played more games against bottom of the barrel teams than expected playoff teams and they are barely winning a lot of those.

Their schedule to start the season last year was tougher.

 

[Josepho]

PDO was impacting individual point totals (i.e. Joshua, Lafferty, Hoglander) more than it was impacting the team's actual results.

The disparity between last year and this year is about 50% health and 50% a worse defensive core.

 

[Crow]

I think they are a good team. Playoff level. Not a real cup contender. Im often wrong though.

 

[Rowlet]

Ok, but like I said above, look at their schedule. They have only played like 8 teams (1/3 of their games) against teams that are expected to make the playoffs and they have lost most of those games.

They have played more games against bottom of the barrel teams than expected playoff teams and they are barely winning a lot of those.

Their schedule to start the season last year was tougher.

They're also missing basically all of their core

 

[kcunac]

Lankinens GSAx is literally dead even meaning he's not producing better or worse than what the defense has provided. Silovs on the other hand, yikes... he's been one of the worst goalies in the league this year. So as a whole, canucks have gotten below average goaltending

I thought that was hard to believe but then looked and indeed Canucks are 25th in the league in team sv%, one better the Oilers and a few worse than Vegas. They do miss Demko and it will be great to have a Demko /Lankinen pair.

As others have said, their schedule has also been relatively easy.

 

[Commander Clueless]

The PDO giveth and the PDO taketh away.

 

[geebster]

I mean they spent most of last month without 2 of their top 3 forwards (including their best one) and haven't had their starting goalie at all this year. Now they have Boeser back (and he's not himself yet) but their #2 Dman is out long term. So while 8-5-0 for November isn't great, they are very short handed.

If healthy they can contend, but I define contender as one of the top 3-5 ish teams and I don't put the Nucks there. If Miller comes back as himself and they can get a top 4 defenseman then they could be dangerous though.

 

[notsocommonsense]

Every year a fanbase tries to argue that pdo isn't a real thing, and then come back down to earth the next year like clockwork.

Um, they have 2 less points than at this time last year with way more injuries.

Swing and a miss

 

[BluesyShoes]

There were some pretty detailed posts last season by Canucks fans regarding their PDO--a great deal of the stat padding for the PDO happened early on in massive blow out games. They were also jumping ahead to early leads and putting games relatively out of reach, which lead to odd shot totals in the second half of games, i.e. Canucks giving up a lot of low grade chances while not pushing offensively and generating few shots.

Take the San Jose game where the Canucks won 10-1, the final shot totals were 33-31 in Canucks favour. Entering the 3rd period with an 8-0 lead, Canucks were then outshot 18-8.

Its one thing winning a bunch of close 1 goal games with a high PDO, but when you are winning by large margins and getting ahead with early leads, PDO isn't all the representative of what is happening on the ice.

 

[Rowlet]

There were some pretty detailed posts last season by Canucks fans regarding their PDO--a great deal of the stat padding for the PDO happened early on in massive blow out games. They were also jumping ahead to early leads and putting games relatively out of reach, which lead to odd shot totals in the second half of games, i.e. Canucks giving up a lot of low grade chances while not pushing offensively and generating few shots.

Take the San Jose game where the Canucks won 10-1, the final shot totals were 33-31 in Canucks favour. Entering the 3rd period with an 8-0 lead, Canucks were then outshot 18-8.

Its one thing winning a bunch of close 1 goal games with a high PDO, but when you are winning by large margins and getting ahead with early leads, PDO isn't all the representative of what is happening on the ice.

Yep, a lot of people see big number and freak out without considering game effects at all. The Canucks also don't play a stat friendly game, some teams like Edmonton and Carolina take tons of shots while the Canucks took some of the fewest in the league last season because they'd only shoot when there were multiple screens up.

They also allow tons of low danger chances.

 

[lawrence]

last year was the outcome of our team if we had our full time. Which was all our key players are healthy and playing.

as someone said earlier, we've lost demko for the full season and counting, which is equal to like Jets losing their star goalie. Our team is built around 5 players, one of them being a goalie that can steal games for us. Part of our foundation IS our goaltending.

 

[TheNumber4]

To this point, they've missed:

Demko for the full season
Miller for 6 games (and counting)
Boeser for 7 games
Joshua for 14 games
Hronek for 2 games (and counting)
Forbort for 19 games (and counting)

in addition to missed games by others including Suter, Desharnais, etc, all while Pettersson has been less than 100%. What do you expect?

You throwing Healthy scatches into that list? Cmon. That's just a reflection of your team build.

 

[nowhereman]

Everything has gone wrong for them this season and, yet, they still have twice as many wins as losses. Healthy, they are still one of the best teams in the league.

 

[Hammman]

You throwing Healthy scatches into that list? Cmon. That's just a reflection of your team build.

No? Miller is on personal leave, Boeser had a concussion, Joshua had cancer, Demko is recovering from off-season surgery, Forbort's father passed away and then he got hurt. Desharnais has been scratched at times, but I think he was also injured for a bit; I threw him into the extras at the end for a reason.

 

[TheNumber4]

No? Miller is on personal leave, Boeser had a concussion, Joshua had cancer, Demko is recovering from off-season surgery, Forbort's father passed away and then he got hurt. Desharnais has been scratched at times, but I think he was also injured for a bit; I threw him into the extras at the end for a reason.

Vinny D is who I was referring to.

 

[wetcoast]

They have too many good players to be a lottery team, but Id say the same for the Sabres.
Whatever is going on with Miller makes me nervous though.

I cant see them getting by Vegas or Edm and maybe are on par with the Kings.

Pretty much this and while it's been a nice look after so many frustrating years they really aren't a true SC contender for me but who knows maybe if their top prospects develop really fast and EP40 finds his game, and Miller returns to form and Demko....you get the idea.