We Need To Change our Defensive Style of Play

[timberz21]

Pinch, go deep and take risk is NOT a defensive system LOL. It's an offensive one.

[Jester13]

I've been thinking this exact thing for a long time. Our D is too offensive. They get caught all the time and leave our goalies (plural) high and dry. +100 OP great thread and read.

[thehamburglar]

I agree somewhat and also don't agree. We need that scoring from our backend. Have you seen our trouble scoring lately and through the SCF? Without D-men trying to add offense we'd be in even more trouble.

[Ray_Cathode]

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.

[Canuck Surfer]

Don't look now, but with Manny out today and possibly Lapierre we just might?

Hey, this is a good topic, it would also be worth considering if Kesler were out a longer period than we expect. As noted, we do miss Erhoff somewhat; his puck carrying style enhanced our game even if Edler scores just as much. We also miss Torres, who created a brutal fore check, with size barrelling in on defenders and punishing them. That then caused turnovers for our speed and talent to pounce on. But we really lost to Boston on physical match up problems and players breaking down under the duress which then caused tactical match up break downs. The Twins started taking defensive draws, and were out of puff for offensive ones. We need more Torres's, not less. We would have lost anyway; the same match up problems remain relevant.

You slow down the game when you feel you have less talent than your competitor, not more. This limits the opportunities where better talent exploit you, and feeds physical match ups to become more prominent. Ultimately, that's just not what we want. We're not changing styles.

Plus our near future includes Schroeder and Jensen, who compliment our current modus operandi.

MG just needs to continue to close the deal on more complimentary pieces like Kassian and Garrison, maybe trade a D for an Erhoff replacement!

[clutesi]

I understand how defence wins, but I would rather watch exciting hockey. I'm not dropping $100 + to go to a game and watch a bunch of plugs line up across their goal line.

[WHFproductions]

Not saying Presidents trophy mean more then the Stanley Cup, but winning 2 in a row mean your doing something right and when you play a certain style for an 82 game season your not going to change it in the playoffs, we've been successful in the past and hopefully we're successful in the future but as long as AV and Rick Bowness are here, I doubt our defensive strategy is going to change.

[bossram]

First of all, it was injuries and an unearned suspension that killed us against Boston - Kesler's hip after virtually carrying the team on his back through the first rounds, the injury to Hamhuis - then Edler's broken hand in the last two games - after already having a D suspended - we lost because we ran out of healthy players. Now if Kassian can turn into our version of Lucic, then we just might be able to play them again - especially with Garrison instead of Salo.