Are the Canucks for real? (poll)

[yave1964]

  Going into this season everyone picked the Canucks at or near the bottom of the Pacific Division. The Sedin boys had called it a career, a collective groan over the signings of Beagle and Roussel went up from the pundits and fans alike and not much was expected. Boeser brought some excitement last year, the hope was that Horvat would step up and that Swedish import Elias Pettersson would add some offense to an otherwise anemic attack and the Canucks could show a modest improvement.

 

 Well.

 

 As of this morning the Canucks sit at 9-6 good for 18 points and second in the Pacific 1 point behind the Flames with Elias Pettersson leading the charge with 9 goals and 15 points in his first 9 games, Horvat turning into a faceoff machine consistently playing 20 plus minutes a night and a buzz is growing in Western Canada about the possibility that maybe Jim Benning isn't a complete moron after all.

 

  So the question is, can they contend for a playoff spot. My answer, the Pacific suddenly looks very soft, the three California teams look beatable, Calgary is still trying to figure out what they are after a season of adding a million pieces, Vegas looks like Cinderella ISO her glass slipper and Arizona while hot as any team right now is still Arizona so the odds are that only three teams from the Pacific make the playoffs. The question is: which teams?

 

  I just dont see it from Vancouver, IMHO they will still finish dead last, Pettersson is a fun story and has created a ton of legitimate buzz but the big three of Horvat, Pettersson and Boeser simply tower over their mates on a given night. Virtanen has the occasional good game then disappears for nights on end, same with Baertchi, Granlund Goldobin and Eriksson. There just isn't enough there beyond the big three. 

 

 Defense is still boring and pedestrian at best and the goalie duo of Markstrom/Nilsson is doing okay but not more than that.

 

  They have scored 47 goals which is a fine total, good for 5th in the league but they have given up 50 which is 26th. IMHO that is unsustainable, no team ranked in the bottom five in goals allowed can possibly be legit in any way.

 

 Pettersson is a great story but nobody, Gretzky included can keep the pace that he has set in his first nine games. When he cools, which he will the team will plummet to Earth but they have been fun to watch so far this season. With the big three plus Gaudette and Tanev not counting Hughes who will be patrolling the back end next year they do have some solid pieces but not nearly enough to remain relevant in the long term. That is my opinion. Feel free to offer yours.

[JR Ewing]

Simply put: no, the Canucks are a terrible team which has been ducking the odds so far. I've watched about 6 of those wins, and they were so badly out-played it wasn't even funny. I came away from those games seeing a team that just barely had the puck, didn't look dangerous, and gave up one ten bell chance after another. When I saw this thread, I asked myself "I wonder if the numbers back up what I watching.

 

 

On the left, blue = bad, and on the right, red = bad. The Canucks are literally the opposite of what a good should look like. They are created chances at a rate which is 15% lower than league average, and are giving them up 13% more than average. The combination is a terrible recipe, particularly defensively, imo, where we see deep crimson from the hash-marks in towards the net. They generate very little and surrender too much in the areas where goals are created.

 

Here are the important numbers in their 9 wins so far:

 

CF% = CorsiFor%, GF% = GoalsFor%, SCF = ScoringChance%, HDCF% = HighDanger Corsi%, HDSF% = HighDanger ShotsFor%, and we all know SV%

 

 

They only (barely) outplayed the opposition in 2 of their 9 wins, with the most improbable win coming against the Lightning. That night, they had the puck about 1/3 of the time, had 1/4 of the scoring chances, only about 10% of the dangerous scoring chances, yet won the game because the goalie stood on his head and saved everything that came his way.

 

They won those games; good for them; they don't award point for being close.

As for what people should expect in the future: there's only so long that you can play withe fire and not get burned.

 

TLDR - the Canucks are a bad hockey team.

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

Well, fair to say now that the Canucks likely WON'T finish at the bottom of their division....thanks to the LA Kings.... but still, IMO, they are not likely to make the playoffs either.

They pulled this same stunt last season too.
Started out really well, some people started thinking, "Oh look, maybe Vancouver isn't as bad as many thought".... then reality hit and over the course of 82 games, it was shown that a hot start a playoff team, it makes you not.

 

Granted....they have some nice players in Horvat, Boeser, and the latest media attention grabber, Elias Pettersson, but they still have many holes in other areas and it has been a combination of a concerted defensive style of play, those aforementioned players performance, and lackluster play from many division rivals that has allowed Vancouver to remain where they are in the standings.

To me though, this is just not sustainable.

I still say San Jose figures things out and finishes tops in the division and other teams like Anaheim and Vegas do as well and push for slots 2 or 3.... The Oilers, looking like the team they should have been last year as well, could be in the mix for either of those two spots as well.

I can never really figure out Calgary, but seems to me they have a bit more to work with than the Canucks do in just about every facet....they could possibly push for a wild card spot.

Vancouver still need to sort out who a complete set of top six forwards are and in goal, Jacob Markstrom still has not proven that he is unquestionably a number one starting netminder.
In fact, without looking at the numbers and just going by the eye test (yes, I've watched a number of Vancouver games so far this year), I'd say the goalie on IR, Anders Nilsson, had been the better of the two goalies.
And looking at the defense...they are alright, but nothing spectacular and not exactly a group that one would expect to continue to limit the better offensive teams in the league.

I mean, they are a nice early season story and all, but like I said...they were this same thing last season too.
The cream will eventually rise to the top of the Pacific but right now, the Canucks are not quite that yet.