Player Discussion Tocchet What Is/How He Doing?

[Orr4Norris]

I don't think there's enough sample size to draw conclusions here, but I was curious about the difference between Tocchet and Boudreau considering score effects, so here they are if anyone cares enough to see. NST is being a bit glitchy with the stats loading so please correct me if you're adamant that there's an error.

Team Stats after January 23rd: Team Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick
Team Stats before January 23rd: Team Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

While Tied, All Strengths
Boudreau - 34.65 SA/60 (28th)
Tocchet - 26.61 SA/60 (4th)
Boudreau - 3.22 xGA/60 (24th)
Tocchet - 2.19 xGA/60 (3rd)
Boudreau - 30.92 SCA/60 (20th)
Tocchet - 23.07 SCA/60 (3rd)

Within One, All Strengths
Boudreau - 33.18 SA/60 (26th)
Tocchet - 26.97 SA/60 (3rd)
Boudreau - 3.28 xGA/60 (T-24th)
Tocchet - 2.73 xGA/60 (T-7th)
Boudreau - 31.33 SCA/60 (22nd)
Tocchet - 26.31 SCA/60 (4th)

Again, we need more sample size, but basically everything (offensive metrics too) points to Tocchet being an upgrade. And yeah, goaltending continues to be unquestionably the biggest issue with this team.

The Canucks timed the Tocchet hire to a soft part of the schedule.

 

[Josepho]

The Canucks timed the Tocchet hire to a soft part of the schedule.

I don't know if it's THAT soft.

In terms of points percentage, they played NJ (3rd), NYR (7th), SEA (11th), NYI (18th), DETx2 (22nd), CHI (31st) and CBJ (32nd). That averages out to be 18.25, and I don't think that's solely enough to explain the massive disparity.

Stuff like this will probably become more clear as time goes on.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

That's because the same guys are largely running the Xs and Os. Tocchet baldly stated when he took over he wasn't a "whiteboard guy" and would largely leave the play-by-play to Yeo et al. Rutherford and Allvin already basically had their staff in place before Tocchet even arrived.

To be fair Tocchet has not had practice time to implement any meaningful systems changes.

 

[VanJack]

At some point, Canuck fans and some media types with rose-colored glasses, are going to grasp that the last 25 games of a season that's basically dead and gone mean virtually nothing.

A number of the lottery teams are trading their best players for picks/prospects; and are using AHL fill-ins just to get through the season. Points get earned from teams with weakened rosters and absolutely nothing to play for.

They don't call it 'garbage time' for nothing. Yet it seems every year fans and pundits are fooled by a team that goes on a mini-run in the dog days of the schedule.

Heck last year the Canucks went 32-15 under Boudreau down the stretch. But was that a reflection of what this team really was? Even team management got fooled.

I suppose Tocchet can try to introduce all of the defensive systems he wants. But the best thing right now is just to keep losing and shedding contracts at the TDL and beyond. That's just where this team is at right now.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

At some point, Canuck fans and some media types with rose-colored glasses, are going to grasp that the last 25 games of a season that's basically dead and gone mean virtually nothing.

A number of the lottery teams are trading their best players for picks/prospects; and are using AHL fill-ins just to get through the season. Points get earned from teams with weakened rosters and absolutely nothing to play for.

They don't call it 'garbage time' for nothing. Yet it seems every year fans and pundits are fooled by a team that goes on a mini-run in the dog days of the schedule.

Heck last year the Canucks went 32-15 under Boudreau down the stretch. But was that a reflection of what this team really was? Even team management got fooled.

I suppose Tocchet can try to introduce all of the defensive systems he wants. But the best thing right now is just to keep losing and shedding contracts at the TDL and beyond. That's just where this team is at right now.

75% of the season is hardly 'down the stretch'.

 

[Orr4Norris]

I don't know if it's THAT soft.

In terms of points percentage, they played NJ (3rd), NYR (7th), SEA (11th), NYI (18th), DETx2 (22nd), CHI (31st) and CBJ (32nd). That averages out to be 18.25, and I don't think that's solely enough to explain the massive disparity.

Stuff like this will probably become more clear as time goes on.

They picked up 1 pt of 6 against the playoff teams.

They picked up 4 pts of 4 against the worst teams in the league.

They picked up 2 pts of 6 against the middling teams.

It’s definitely been schedule driven so far.

 

[Josepho]

that has literally nothing to do with the team's defensive metrics and what we were talking but whatever

 

[Grub]

We have had many Tank Commanders over the past years, let Tocchet carry this torch.

 

[theguardianII]

I don't think there's enough sample size to draw conclusions here, but I was curious about the difference between Tocchet and Boudreau considering score effects, so here they are if anyone cares enough to see. NST is being a bit glitchy with the stats loading so please correct me if you're adamant that there's an error.

Team Stats after January 23rd: Team Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick
Team Stats before January 23rd: Team Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

While Tied, All Strengths
Boudreau - 34.65 SA/60 (28th)
Tocchet - 26.61 SA/60 (4th)
Boudreau - 3.22 xGA/60 (24th)
Tocchet - 2.19 xGA/60 (3rd)
Boudreau - 30.92 SCA/60 (20th)
Tocchet - 23.07 SCA/60 (3rd)

Within One, All Strengths
Boudreau - 33.18 SA/60 (26th)
Tocchet - 26.97 SA/60 (3rd)
Boudreau - 3.28 xGA/60 (T-24th)
Tocchet - 2.73 xGA/60 (T-7th)
Boudreau - 31.33 SCA/60 (22nd)
Tocchet - 26.31 SCA/60 (4th)

Again, we need more sample size, but basically everything (offensive metrics too) points to Tocchet being an upgrade. And yeah, goaltending continues to be unquestionably the biggest issue with this team.

The Canucks timed the Tocchet hire to a soft part of the schedule.

I don't know if it's THAT soft.

In terms of points percentage, they played NJ (3rd), NYR (7th), SEA (11th), NYI (18th), DETx2 (22nd), CHI (31st) and CBJ (32nd). That averages out to be 18.25, and I don't think that's solely enough to explain the massive disparity.

Stuff like this will probably become more clear as time goes on.

The most important stat is wins versus losses and GF/GA IMO.

I have had enough of looking good losing.

While some players seem to be getting more of a free ride other he seems to be playing creating more stress.

The idea of this coach selecting which players to trade for right now is not a good idea. Most of his recent work in the TV studio was watching established players on several teams not looking into character, skill levels or attitudes. He was sort of looking at the cover of a book rather than reading the pages.

This team already has a bad enough mix without trying to trade for players that play the "right way".
Kuzmenko was not signed to be a boards battle guy and at 27 yrs old and never being that guy I doubt there will be much success with him. He was signed because he scores goals not wins board battles. I have seen him dump a puck in when there is no pressure. There is nothing wrong with puck possession but there are a few players that are just not board battlers, 3rd/4th line type guys.

A coach for the most part coaches what he is given not makes trades to make his job easy and he should not be involved or give opinions about players being targeted.

Who knows he might only be here for 2 years and then what, more wrong pieces of the puzzle? Bench Bedard because he doesn't win board battles?

Although right now whatever he is doing is making some players look better as trade assets and guiding the team to a 3rd over all pick and that will result in three NHL players from the first two rounds, so far.

SO

 

[Josepho]

The most important stat is wins versus losses and GF/GA IMO.

I have had enough of looking good losing.

While some players seem to be getting more of a free ride other he seems to be playing creating more stress.

The idea of this coach selecting which players to trade for right now is not a good idea. Most of his recent work in the TV studio was watching established players on several teams not looking into character, skill levels or attitudes. He was sort of looking at the cover of a book rather than reading the pages.

This team already has a bad enough mix without trying to trade for players that play the "right way".
Kuzmenko was not signed to be a boards battle guy and at 27 yrs old and never being that guy I doubt there will be much success with him. He was signed because he scores goals not wins board battles. I have seen him dump a puck in when there is no pressure. There is nothing wrong with puck possession but there are a few players that are just not board battlers, 3rd/4th line type guys.

A coach for the most part coaches what he is given not makes trades to make his job easy and he should not be involved or give opinions about players being targeted.

Who knows he might only be here for 2 years and then what, more wrong pieces of the puzzle? Bench Bedard because he doesn't win board battles?

Although right now whatever he is doing is making some players look better as trade assets and guiding the team to a 3rd over all pick and that will result in three NHL players from the first two rounds, so far.

SO

Do you think having a save percentage of .825 since taking over has asolutely anything to do with his record? The entire conversation is about whether or not we've started surrendering less chances under Tocchet.

I find it weird when people say they're done with good losing or moral victories or whatever. This team was consistently getting their ass kicked in terms of surrendering shots and scoring chances over the last 8 years, and were bailed out by goaltending - there were literally never moral victories. This year, it's the complete opposite and I have no idea how anyone can expect this to sustain at this point.

 

[Gurn]

9 games of Rick: 3 wins 5 losses and 1 ot point .389 win% against some of the weakest teams in the league
Bruce B 50 wins 40 losses 13 ot .549 win % against everyone.

not trending well

 

[Nucker101]

9 games of Rick: 3 wins 5 loses and 1 ot point .389 win% against some of the weakest teams in the league
Bruce B 50 40 13 .549 win % against everyone.

not trending well

Hasn’t had much practice time. Bruce did also get his record inflated by Demko playing vezina worthy hockey during the 2nd half of last season

But I do think the xgf stats getting quoted as some sort of win are funny. Those get inflated when you’re the trailing team which the Canucks have been for the majority of time since Tocchet has taken over. And again, lack of practice time so how much of that is “look at the structure under Tocchet!” versus small sample size and score effects when the team has probably had like 2 or 3 real practices since he’s taken over?

 

[Gurn]

If you are concerned about sample size, just take Bruce's first 9 games, and compare that to Rick's first 9 games.
apple to apple.

 

[theguardianII]

Tocchet is so much like Torts was/is. Right down to no morning skates, very few practices, throwing the odd player group under the bus and being quite frank about the state of the team. Torts said it was old and stale and needed younger players, Tocchet says they have to strip it down.

And it sounds like he is trying to put square pegs in round holes by benching players for not winning board battles except Hughes. Did anyone watch him? Coughed it up 4 or 5 times, got caught pinching twice, pushed off the puck just about every time the puck is in the zone, Pettersson IS spinning around but trying hard.

The coach bump is over.

If/when Demko comes back and steals a couple of games I am sure it will be Tocchet changing the team.

While Tocchet appears to have the team reducing shots against apparently the quality is still really high.

Really hard to determine his exact impact on the team. They still lose, which is good for the draft.

 

[Hoglander]

Forget this "start and stop gradeschool", how about some "oddman rush against gradeschool"? They don't take away the pass, so the opposition simply passes to the open guy, and essentially eliminate the goalie from the equation, for easy goals where they have half the net to shoot at. Whatever happened to taking away the pass and letting the goalie challenge the shooter? I thought this was basic defending. As it stands, they aren't checking the guy with the puck, they are leaving the passing lane wide open... it's like a 2-on-0 except worse because the goalie thinks the dman will actually do something.

 

[VanJack]

How is Tocchet doing? Does it really matter? The Canucks are firmly entrenched in 'garbage time' of their schedule.

If they chose to use guys like Delia, Martin or even Silovs in the crease going forward, they'd lose a majority of their games based on goaltending alone. And if the Canucks are serious about enhancing their draft prospects, that's exactly what they'd do.

At this point in a 'dead and gone' season, the guy behind the bench is almost totally immaterial. That's why few lottery teams go to the expense and trouble of dumping their coach with the season winding down. That's because a lot of the bottom feeders are turning over their roster anyway, and the new coach wouldn't even be coaching the same team by training camp.

And despite all the 'spin' from some of the in-house media types, I really don't see that much difference in how the Canucks are playing now than they were under Boudreau. They weren't good enough then, and they're not good enough now.

 

[Green Blank Stare]

 

[iceburg]

I was thinking of starting a new thread but decided to rant here.

Full disclosure, I am reluctantly cheering for a tank. With no hopes for a competitive run in the playoff, the long term prospects of this club improve with a higher draft pick. I know, stating the obvious.

Sadly, that "hope" is in direct tension with what I believe is the most important aspect of being a competitive team. Earlier in the season when the direction down the standings was clear but before BB got fired, there was lots of discussion about what was wrong with this team. There was even a poll. The obvious answers were fix the D, fix the prospect pool, fix the system. But the clear winner was weak character and lack of team identity.

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. The club lacked competitive drive. And I don't mean trying real hard like Horvat did night in and night out. I mean an unquenchable desire to win. Never selfish, never using excuses. The kind of drive that very strong leaders like Crosby have, the drive that causes others on the team to get on the bus or move on. I'm seeing that in the club now. Fighting's not everything but when Myers then Miller had their dust ups recently it showed an attitude that we haven't seen here in years. Bieksa had it. Burrows had it. These guys were going to do everything they could to help their team win. That's why that era of Canucks hockey was the most competitive ever. For me, the defining moment when all that changed was when Marchand speed bagged Daniel Sedin. The lack of response was soul crushing and something from which the club has not recovered in over a decade.

I put this mini rant in this thread because I believe this mutant competitive drive is exactly what Tocchet is trying to instill in this team. It's how he played the game. And he's better positioned than most to know the difference between a skilled, country club group and a team that is simply built to win.

They are learning to get that identity. It's fun to watch. Now if they could accidentally rather than intentionally get a high draft pick this year, everything would be good in Canuck world.

 

[sting101]

Pretty much the top3 defensive teams in each division are the top3 teams in each division with the exception of the Pacific. When you see a team with the personnel of the Minnesota Wild able to win at the rate they do with Jacob Middleton in the top4 and Ryan Hartman at 1C that says a lot about team culture and dedication to systems and doing what it takes to win.

The Canucks under Green and Boudreau have been a players driven atmosphere. Cheating up ice, high risk drop passes and plays at the blue lines and in zone, poor support from the forwards, huge gaps in coverage and wildly inconsistent effort and accountability.

At PA's deadline presser it was nice to finally hear about what the teams culture is going to be and that player unwilling to buy in were not going to be welcome. Tocchet and his staff look to be implementing that plan. It's good to see.

It does suck to be pulling further from the low odds of a lottery win but i can see that hitting the ground running next year is important so i get the timing

 

[racerjoe]

Pretty much the top3 defensive teams in each division are the top3 teams in each division with the exception of the Pacific. When you see a team with the personnel of the Minnesota Wild able to win at the rate they do with Jacob Middleton in the top4 and Ryan Hartman at 1C that says a lot about team culture and dedication to systems and doing what it takes to win.

The Canucks under Green and Boudreau have been a players driven atmosphere. Cheating up ice, high risk drop passes and plays at the blue lines and in zone, poor support from the forwards, huge gaps in coverage and wildly inconsistent effort and accountability.

At PA's deadline presser it was nice to finally hear about what the teams culture is going to be and that player unwilling to buy in were not going to be welcome. Tocchet and his staff look to be implementing that plan. It's good to see.

It does suck to be pulling further from the low odds of a lottery win but i can see that hitting the ground running next year is important so i get the timing

I think we all wanted to keep tanking and try and be as low as possible, but we also saw this coming. Hell even Drance is trying to pump his tires on his prediction of this. It would have been nice, but it just wasn't likely. Let's just try to enjoy what we can, and hope what we are seeing isn't that end of season bump.

 

[VanJack]

I suppose the positive thing about the changes under Tocchet is that the Canucks are a much tougher 'out' on the defensive side of puck--despite trying to survive with three AHL d-men on the roster.

I suppose it just goes to show, that if you can play with even a modicum of defensive structure, you can survive with even a below-average blueline. And obviously the PK is showing dramatic improvement. Although it's been so bad all season, it's a pretty low bar to surpass.

But the key is goaltending.....it always comes down to that. Demko, when he's on his game, can give even a mediocre team a chance to win every night.

 

[mossey3535]

... Snip...

I only watched the SIlovs highlights but from what I can tell from those and this game, team ES defence has progressively gotten better. Sure there are the catastrophic breakdowns but those were there before and I would argue that they've gotten less common. In this game if either Stillman or Myers eliminates complete bonehead plays we win this one outright.

Basically in the last two games they've played well enough defensively to give a rookie goalie and a guy who sucked just a week ago excellent chances at winning games. Both against the basement dwelling Flyers and the bubble Preds.

Sadly I think the consistent incremental (TINY INCREMENTS LOL) improvement of the defence means that within the next 5 games we're not going to be able to count on the team suckage generating automatic tank (lack of) points. This hurts to say as someone who is firmly on Team Tank.

I think they can beat STL easily based on these two results. We have to hope that the run of BOS, DAL, MIN, and TOR breaks their spirit or something. Still, you can always count on the Canucks to play inexplicably well against teams they shouldn't have a prayer against, and vice versa. After those 6 games I think the team will start to cement some of this defensive play and they will have good chances against a lot of the weaker teams after that.

Unpopular opinion probably but that's how I read the trends right now.

I think the progression under Tocchet has been slow but steady, and I predicted it just after the rangers game. At least to the eye test, we are holding our blue line better and clogging up the neutral zone more. With the Abby defenders, due to their familiarity with each other and not being dragged down by OEL and Myers if he isn't on the pair, they are used to making the simple safe play.

In turn this has made the goalies look a lot better. Delia was good except for Myers having a terrible game even for his standards. Silovs should be given credit for his ability to be steady in his first NHL experience but the team hasn't allowed the same kind of high danger chances they were giving out throughout the early part of the year.

Not great for the tank though. Since then we've beaten pretty much who we should have, held our own against Boston and Minny, and beat the Leafs and Stars. I expect that trend to continue. The schedule is even softer from this point on. We already weather the storm of playoff teams and only have to face DAL and LA for the most part going forward.

The entire point of a disciplined defensive system is that you can pull it off with a mediocre to terrible level roster if you get the buy-in. We should have already been squeezing in more robust performances under 2nd year Boudreau and all of Green's tenure but they didn't have the accountability or defensive abilities to do so.

I don't see why this won't continue next year, and I actually expect them to keep getting better.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I've noticed in the GDT's that the Canucks D usually takes a lot of flack..Mostly its deserved ...They are the last line of defence, and are left holding the bag...This was exacerbated by the hideous goaltending in the first 2/3 of the season, where the goalies were conceding clean shots, and couldn't make a save.

The seed of a lot of these breakdowns/mistakes usually occur up ice (the forwards)....leading to odd man rushes/poor coverage, which in turn make the beleaguered D look like donkeys...Tocchet took notice..

"Bad habits persist throughout the lineup, Tocchet said, like guys spinning away from checks instead of trying to go through their opponents, and until the team learns how to “embrace the pain,” little will change." The Province.


Maybe this is why a lot of coaches are loathe to publicly criticize their D men...?...Unless you're getting a complete buy in..There will be D men hung out to dry.

 

[Yultron]

I feel we will finish the season strong and next season struggle out of the gate and fans will be calling for Tocchet to be fired

 

[Paulinbc]

Go Nucks Go!!! 5-3 Nucks!!