Bissurnette Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 wow this thread is filled with long comments and I'm too lazy to read them, I'm just going to give my 2 cents. So at the risk of repeating what somebody else already said, I think this is a good system if the Sedins get going here. If the Sedins finally get going then I can see us scoring a ridiculous amount of goals which would overwhelm the other teams' defense-first mentality. If they are still slumping a week from now (which would mean that they've been slumping for about a year since the second half of last year), then I would start making the transition into the system the OP is suggesting and rely on winning games 2-1. But if the Sedins start leading our offense and regain their form then this system would tear up the league. Staying healthy is key here, I think injuries played the biggest role in our misfortunes the past 2 playoff runs, if you can call last year's outing a "run". Thanks and peace out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryten Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 My beef with team defence is backing in on their goaltenders, hanging them out to dry. The league is fast and if you are standing still inside your own blueline because you are scared to get beat (or because Bowness who IMO is a bonehead, told you to be there), you are going to give up tons of goals on the rush. Our defence need to be forcing the play and our forwards need to backcheck for us to be a successful team. Overall, our play and work ethic without the puck needs to improve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smashian Kassian Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Though IMO you have jumped the gun a bit, I do think you raise a legitimate concern which I understand completely in some aspects but I think you are off base in some of your justifications. The thing is they've been playing this way since we acquired Ehrhoff and it's only really worked well for us with him in the lineup. We continued playing the same way last season without him and guys like Bieksa and Edler in particular simply can't skate as well as he could, so were victimized plenty of times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvis15 Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 We scored 8 goals in 7 games in the SCF. /thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamJamIam Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 We scored 8 goals in 7 games in the SCF. /thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LegionOfDoom Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 They would have thrown mactavish in when he was around if they were thinking about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 Though IMO you have jumped the gun a bit, I do think you raise a legitimate concern which I understand completely in some aspects but I think you are off base in some of your justifications. I think Ballard is a better skater than he is, I think Edler is just as good he's just a bigger body, I think Bieksa is almost as good but not quite as fast, still a good skater, then the rest are all great skaters. The advantage we have is all of our defense are great skaters that can play successful in any situation, we are just rusty right now and are still building chemistry with out systems, the PP and even defense pairs in some cases. Only had success in the 2011 playoffs? What are you talking about, this was a huge key to our 2010-11 season as it was last year in our 2nd PT year, it has been constant strength of ours since the 10-11 season begain. Our "Run and gun" defense wasn't shut down against Boston, our supposed "run and gun" defense was injured against Boston. Ehrhoff, Salo, Edler, Bieksa were all battling injuries that majorly affected there play and there effectiveness in that puck moving, pushing the pace style we had played, so they weren't as effective and notice how in that series the defense rarely joined the rush like they had in prior series? A direct point that proves your theory wrong, as we tried to play a more defensive style and still lost, it wasn't a "run and gun" style that cost us defensively it was injuries. And against LA that didn't cost us, it was just a terrible performance all around, Bieksa and Edler were terrible, whereas Ballard who was renound the year prior for playing this way and making mistakes played this way effectively with Chris Tanev and was easily our best defensemen. Hamhuis was good, Salo was good, it was just 2 key parts of our defense and overall I think it has to do with coaching alot more against LA, we didn't make necessary changes and we came out flat in most situations, and not having your best player also doesn't help. It has worked, I don't know how you can come to the conclusion it hasn't with all the success we have had. That's not the reason they were booted out of the playoffs. I don't know how you can say defense cost them when the entire series was a back and forth battle that was decided in a double OT of game 7, Florida could have just as easily won that series then what would you say about the defense? New Jersey was a better team than them anyways. St.Louis also plays this style and look how good they are, Detriot has played this style since the lockout and look how successful they have been, San Jose plays this style look how good they have been. Not going to go through every team but alot more teams than you think have success with puck moving, pushing the pace and joining the rush offensively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bananas Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Flaw in your logic: trap won 2 years in a row. Primary objective: solving the trap. Yeah, let;s adopt the trap. Good idea! I suppose we should also trade the Sedins for big tough goons too, right? If you like the style of hockey those teams play, then go watch them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Carell Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I mostly agree with your post, but I don't feel that Boston beat us because all these 'odd man rushes' you speak of.. they outscored us through every possible scenario (shots from the point, etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry Goose Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Having D men jump into the play is all about making smart reads and the center dropping back for D zone coverage. It's a good system when executed well, but it's also dependent on the Canucks scoring goals as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smashian Kassian Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Yes they're all good skaters but not one of them are close to Ehrhoff. That guy could go end to end with ease and skate right back in position without being caught. Bieksa has been caught so many times up ice with not enough gas in the tank to get back, and Edler although a good skater, if he pinches he can't accelerate as fast back as Ehrhoff could. As for pairings, I understand Edler and Garrison may take time to gel but Tanev and Ballard have been together for over a year now, Bieksa and Hamhuis have been together since Hamhuis has been here so there are no excuses there. I understand that injuries hampered their play against Boston, but if you watch the goals Boston scored in that series you can obviously tell how many times our defence were caught. Often by a big hit in the offensive zone or our defence getting checked and tangled up by their forwards, leading to odd-man rushes against. I haven't witnessed that many odd-man rushes against in a series before and it's because of our defencemen pinching when they really shouldn't have. We did not play a sound defensive game in that series at all, and all our pinches were exploited by Boston's fast forwards in particular, like Peverley, Marchand and Krejci who tore us apart. Their big forwards broke our small agile defencemen down, then their small guys scored on them by outskating them when they were caught out of position. Obviously we crapped the bed against Los Angeles, but again look at the goals they scored there. Plenty of odd-man rushes against, which is the result of their coaches exploiting our defence getting caught up ice. Once again, their big bodies contained our defencemen quite well, but they had the speed up front to capitalize on our poor defensive positioning. Simply put, this run-and-gun defence works great in the regular season when there is more open ice. Yes it succeeded all throughout 2011 but really peaked during that San Jose series - after that we were never as successful again and it's been 2 years since that success. During the playoffs however, forwards check much more closer, checking is tighter, there's less ice out there and so any mistake caused by poor positioning can lead to goals against. It's simply not how you win in the playoffs and the coaching staff have to figure that out. Exactly, New Jersey played a sound defensive game, Florida was free-wheeling from the back-end and the solid defence triumphed. Defence wins championships, it won one against us in 2011, swept through the playoffs in 2012 and it will win another win this season. As for those teams, St. Louis have never played that way. Do you watch their games at all? Their defence rarely jump up in the rush, but more importantly their forwards collapse back and they play a very tight all-around defensive game, from forwards to defencemen which is impressive to watch. It's a modified trap, they basically hang around until the opponent make a mistake when they pounce, but score off a very aggressive forecheck as well - very similar to how L.A won the Cup last season. I've never seen one of their defencemen leave his position and just skate end-to-end unless on the powerplay (when Peitrangelo will often skate around and pass from the half-boards). Detroit have a MUCH better overall defensive strategy than the Canucks - their forwards play similarly to St.Louis in that they collapse back to help their defencemen, plus they never skate around as much as the Vancouver defencemen. Similarly to Ehrhoff though, when you have an excellent guy like Lidstrom on the blueline as well as Rafalski it works perfectly, but now that these guys are gone they cannot keep it up. San Jose is a good example of what the Canucks are doing wrong. Yes, they free-wheel and their defencemen like Vlasic and Boyle are always joining the rush and going deep, but likewise they get caught. They have great regular season success because of the open ice allowing their D-men to do what they want, but come playoff time they're getting torn apart by solid defences and have never had much playoff success. Once again - to win in the playoffs you need to play tight defence, not this rubbish wide-open offence from the defence. History has repeated these very words and it will happen again in a few months time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forsy Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I just posted a few days ago about the necessity of a great defense required for winning the stanley cup. And I do believe that the team must have a more conservative defense to offset their reduced level of offensive power. However, all defense won't solve it either. 1) To focus on a good defensive system, they must have amazing transition hockey to actually produce goals somewhere. In addition, snipers who can score without complicated offensive system setups will be necessary. 2) No matter how good your defense and attack is, you will fail if you are not smarter in anticipating puck movement (faster retrieval, more blocked passes, steals, etc), and having the cunning, strength and size to win 1v1 puck battles. This has been the achilles heel of the canucks because they play too predictably. They must infuse unpredictability to all aspects of their game in order to reach the level required to win the cup (unpredictability in passing, skating, attacking, battling 1v1 downlow to get the puck away from the opponent, etc). Unless the cycle around the outside is somehow an unbeatable tactic, it is obvious that any one strategy team will eventually be shut down in the playoffs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smashian Kassian Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 DP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Heffy Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I'd be happier with them picking their spots better. Take into account who is on the ice and what the score is. I also see far too many d-d passes on the PP that almost end up in a breakaway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vwnuck Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 It doesn't matter who's in net, as we've seen against Boston, Los Angeles and even early in this season, you can be the best goalie in the league but if a defence craps the bed in front of you, you're going to let in goals. For example, last night, Bieksa pinches, 2-on-1 and Tanguay scores on Schneider. Go back to the Edmonton game, Edler is caught pinching in one play, then gets spun around by Eberle in the next for not being back deep enough and both plays result in goals. Even look at the first game, plenty of horrible turnovers and Schneider gets shelled. Then back to the Los Angeles series, the series-ending goal sums up what I'm talking about. A defenceman gets caught up ice, Stoll rushes in on a two-on-one in overtime and just clean beats Schneider on a shot. It doesn't matter how good our goaltending is, if we play poorly in front of them and give up glorious chances any team will capitalize on them. Meanwhile, a couple of average-to-slightly-above-average goalies like Halak, Elliot and Harding look like the worlds best because they play behind a solid defensive team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bodee Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Going back the last few seasons, AV has changed the Canucks defensive system from one of a complete trap style (especially successful in the 06-07 season) to one where defencemen jump up in the rush, take risks, pinch often and go deep in the offensive zone. This new system worked well for us in the 2011 campaign and during the playoffs as teams weren't able to anticipate our attack and our forwards cycled perfectly back to defend when our defencemen were caught up ice in the rush. However, this is NOT how you win a Stanley Cup in today's NHL. AV and Rick Bowness need to change our system back to a much more conservative defence, and here's why. The biggest reason it worked well in 2011 was our personel - Edler, Bieksa, Ehrhoff and Salo are all perfectly suited for that style of play, especially Ehrhoff who really lead the way. However, this style also lead to our downfall against Boston, as they exploited our smaller, faster defenders and often caught us on odd-man rushes where they would victimize us and capitalize on our mistakes. Now look back the last 2 seasons. Boston won a Cup over us with solid, stay at home defence. Their defencemen never jumped up in the rush but always hung back which is why we couldn't score against them. Their defence didn't make many mistakes and that's how they won. Then look at Los Angeles, and even New Jersey. The only real offensive threat there was Doughty - all the other D-men sat back, played physical shutdown-hockey and that's how they won games all season and playoffs long. But it's not just a personel issue, Sutter and Julien play a very defence-first minded hockey game and that's what stymied other teams. Defence first, then offence through capitalizing on opponents mistakes, and that's what won them the Cup. Here we are in 2013 and once again the Canucks are already being victimized for their stupid defensive system. It's been 3 games and our defencemen are being caught up ice, caught pinching at the wrong time and getting scored on for being out of position because they're trying to join the rush. Sure, we get a bunch of goals from defencemen, but more are being scored on us which will kill us come playoff time. Goaltending is not an issue on this team, and we have decent depth at forward now to score without defencemen needing to jump up in the rush. Plus, our personel are far better suited now to play solid stay-at-home defence than they were before with Garrison and a flourishing defensive stud in Tanev. Meanwhile, the real defensive stalwarts will challenge for the Cup this season. St. Louis is coming off their 2nd shutout of the season already but it's not because of their goalie. They included a 13 and 14 save shutout which just shows how well the whole team plays defence in front of their goalie. Aside from Peitrangelo, St.Louis don't have many stars on their blueline, but it's Ken Hitchcock's defensive style of play that is winning them games and will do so in the playoffs as well. Similarly, New Jersey is playing solid defence once again despite having no stars on their back-end which just shows the importance of the defensive coaching. Minnesota have always been a great defensive team, and now with Suter to help out they will be a force come playoff time because of the lack of mistakes they make. So in short, for us to contend in the playoffs we need to adopt a similar, defence-first mentality and scrap this "offence from the defence" idea. We don't need defencemen jumping up in the rush every shift to score from the blueline, just let them shoot and sit back. Defence first wins cups. I'd much rather watch solid positional and sound defensive hockey and win a Cup than watch nervous, end-to-end hockey and get kicked out in the 1st round again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodyHodgson's #1fan Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 Agree, I've noticed (how can you not) Bieksa pinching down A LOT latley, which i love it when he does, but that right winger NEEDS TO COVER HIM I don't know how they decide to leave hammer all alone and allow the opposing team with so many chances with odd man rushes with all the canucks deep in the offensive zone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ice orca Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 It doesn't matter who's in net, as we've seen against Boston, Los Angeles and even early in this season, you can be the best goalie in the league but if a defence craps the bed in front of you, you're going to let in goals. For example, last night, Bieksa pinches, 2-on-1 and Tanguay scores on Schneider. Go back to the Edmonton game, Edler is caught pinching in one play, then gets spun around by Eberle in the next for not being back deep enough and both plays result in goals. Even look at the first game, plenty of horrible turnovers and Schneider gets shelled. Then back to the Los Angeles series, the series-ending goal sums up what I'm talking about. A defenceman gets caught up ice, Stoll rushes in on a two-on-one in overtime and just clean beats Schneider on a shot. It doesn't matter how good our goaltending is, if we play poorly in front of them and give up glorious chances any team will capitalize on them. Meanwhile, a couple of average-to-slightly-above-average goalies like Halak, Elliot and Harding look like the worlds best because they play behind a solid defensive team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferlands_Head Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I suggested this in another thread. The canucks with this current line up would be better suited to play a defensive style of hockey.We have strong goaltending and defense and should play to our strengths. As of now we have no second line and can't really afford to run and gun with other offensive powerhouses. Now when booth and kes return we have some firepower and can revert back to our old system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedMachine Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 I question whether we have the personnel to really play a defensive style. AS much depth as we have at defence, we don't really have a shutdown defensive pair. And most of our forwards are offensive nondefensive-minded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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