Vancouver led the league in points at Christmas, Can they continue this run into the New Year?

[kranuck]

Agreed, it won't. Rangers and Kings (and Vegas and a few others are GOOOD).

But, who cares. It feels so good not to be almost last and a joke. To have earned being in 1st place at Christmas is truly cool. Simple as that. Worth celebrating for sure!!!

And congrats on having such a great team in New York. You guys have ben really good for a few years now.



Ironically, I think the Canucks out chanced and outplayed the Ranger, but the Rangers out PDO'd the Canucks in that game IIRC

Oh look another person posting about how the Canucks actually suck but the power play merchant rangers are great.

Totally not a double standard.

 

[Brookbank]

if/when alvin gets another top 4 rhd and another top 6 winger to play alongside petey look out in the 2nd half of the season and in the playoffs anything can happen.

Alvin picked up Hronek, Soucy, Cole and Zadrov. But I swear Alvin could pick up Adam Fox and guys like this will still say "if only we got another defenseman bruh"

 

[Romang67]

I think there was a period where you GM Kevin Lowe at the time was talking about how hard it was to attract players to come to Edmonton. That's usually the problems small market teams have. You guys could still have average attendance during those times but the team was not seeing much coverage before McDavid especially from American media.


I honestly just heard about PDO this year and am not lying. And I post in a lot of hockey forums. Maybe since the Canucks are now the focus of this, I don know.

I dont think you're lying. People just don't tend to notice it unless it's their own team, which is why we have the semi annual tradition of the talking points:

"This team is literally sent from the Gods."

"I dunno, their shooting percentage and save percentage is mighty high."

"They keep the shots from the outside and mostly shoot when they have scoring chances and/or have tons of snipers on the team."

"They'll probably regress."

"They won't regress."

Followed by a regression to closer where the team has tended to be in previous years. Note that the law of large numbers doesn't actually apply, and it's entirely possible (although unlikely) for a team to get lucky for a full season or even years at a time. The Canucks COULD, without having better snipers or a better goalie, get lucky for the rest of the season. Regression tends to be misconstrued as a gambler's fallacy, where a streak of luck must be followed by a streak of bad luck.

Shooting percentage is easy, since most teams 5v5 tend to not drastically outperform other teams. More shots tend to result in more goals, unless you're the Carolina Hurricanes.

Save percentage being lumped into PDO is pretty dumb (or rather, people talking about save percentage as if every goalie should be expected to have similar save percentage have heard that PDO tends to normalize and don't dig deeper into it), since it's very possible for a team to, long term, have 1-2% higher save percentage than another team just based on goalie skill.

The Canucks have some skilled snipers, and having a slightly higher shooting percentage than average could be expected. Demko has historically been an average to below average starting goalie, so his save percentage to be expected is probably not Vezina level (though as we just saw last year, a team can totally keep that up a full season).

 

[jackjohnson]

I think it has been far from quiet... but at least they stopped telling everyone their top players are the best ever since they are not leading in points/goals/anything now...

Hughes still leads in points, assists and goals for a dman though

 

[Bizzare]

they weren't a "small market" before Connor though, they were "mid-market"...constant sell-outs, cap team and always paying into revenue sharing despite the poor performance on the ice
Oilers fans are loyal to a fault (look at the Oiler presence on HF for example)

Personal experience is tickets have been easier to sell for the Canucks than Oilers last few years. This year it isn’t even close.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Rangers have 2 points less and have played 3 less games.

 

[notbias]

Hughes still leads in points, assists and goals for a dman though

Thanks to Makar missing games...

Not sure it'll last the season, but it may.

 

[Brookbank]

I didn't know what PDO was before 2023-2024 season. Canucks progression to a playoff team this year made me learn about PDO and xGF etc.

Last year Boston led the league in regular season PDO and all we heard about it was how great of an organization they were.

 

[Breakers]

What the hell is so great about the rangers underlying numbers that Vancouver gets dragged consistently for theirs?

LA I get
Vegas I get

 

[kranuck]

Thanks to Makar missing games...

Not sure it'll last the season, but it may.

Thanks to Hughes being better this season.

 

[ziploc]

Really solid turnaround from last year (and the last 10 years or so). The offseason work of bringing in cap-efficient, defensively-responsible pk guys is really paying off. Yeah, the Canucks' pk still isn't anywhere close to tops in the league, but it's also not the league-worst, historically bad, guaranteed goal against kind of unit like it was last year. That is making a big difference, as is having defensive depth and a bottom six that isn't an expensive embarrassment. Lots of hockey to be played still, but we are cautiously optimistic here on the west coast.

 

[Grifter3511]

Oilers play Vegas 3 times this year

What a cushy schedule the Oilers have. So what's their excuse for their record?

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Quietly?

 

[Three On Zero]

What a cushy schedule the Oilers have. So what's their excuse for their record?

Regression back to the mean

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Personal experience is tickets have been easier to sell for the Canucks than Oilers last few years. This year it isn’t even close.

Bandwagon is full eh?

 

[Canucks LB]

jinx thread

We’ve already had like seven jinx threads

 

[jackjohnson]

The new-look coaching staff is a big win. Tocchet seems to have everything pretty locked in.

Good news is they’re finding different ways to win. Demko hasn’t been playing like a Vezina candidate recently and they’ve still been pulling out wins. They’ve also hit nicely on depth additions with the third-line and the play of guys like Juulsen and Zadorov.

It's not just the 3rd line. Look at the 4th line with Lafferty having 9 goals, Aman and Hoglander also with 10 goals. Assuming Kuzy is on top line and Suter on 2nd line.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

What a cushy schedule the Oilers have. So what's their excuse for their record?

“Cushy schedule”? May wanna look up who the Oilers have played
In any case, it’s been goaltending

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

they seem to play the Sharks every other game

lol for real

 

[Old Boys Club]

If it’s just honestly talking about regression because you’re so into stats then why is only one team ever talked about this way?

Because “regression” is COPE for haters.

Because Vancouver is the only team with shooting percentages (5v5, all strengths, etc.) 3 standard deviations above the norm.

 

[Breakers]

Because Vancouver is the only team with shooting percentages (5v5, all strengths, etc.) 3 standard deviations above the norm.

I'll be sure to drag the rangers, and islanders for their unsustainable shooting percentages on the power play,

 

[Three On Zero]

I'll be sure to drag the rangers, and islanders for their unsustainable shooting percentages on the power play,

Because Vancouver is the only team with shooting percentages (5v5, all strengths, etc.) 3 standard deviations above the norm.

 

[Grifter3511]

“Cushy schedule”? May wanna look up who the Oilers have played
In any case, it’s been goaltending

I mean, you barely play Vegas. Canucks are frauds, right? Where's the difficulty in your division?

 

[Mattilaus]

Hughes still leads in points, assists and goals for a dman though

He's tied for goals

 

[Bizzare]

Bandwagon is full eh?

Canucks tickets were easier to sell pre-Covid than Oilers tickets for me.

People in Vancouver are def paying higher dollar now than in previous years though yes.