The Bookie Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Playing with a broken nose and has the game of his career so far. Those are the players you can go to war with in the playoffs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeanBeef Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Playing with a broken nose and has the game of his career so far. Those are the players you can go to war with in the playoffs. You know, Lucic never broke out until after his nose broke... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
people please Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Way to early for every 10, or some bad games he has one good game. The organization just has to get him to be consistent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milk Hot Dog Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Kassian's post game honesty & bluntness is endearing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ice orca Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Where are those guys that will tell us his goal and assist was all smoke and mirrors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lychees Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Can't deny he's been playing well, let's just hope it sticks in the long run Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maniwaki Canuck Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I'll confess, I've wanted this thread to die for a long time now. But since it marks the time that Zack got it together on the 3rd line and forced Torts to promote him to the 2nd, I'll do my bit to keep it going. We're seeing the emergence of an impact player, folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niloc009 Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 If getting whacked by Sestito's skate will make Kassian play like he did laat night, we may have found a good use for Sestito after all. Jokes aside, man did Kassian have a good game. He was physical, he dangled, he had crisp, bullsye passes, and a beautiful goal that left me slack-jawed. That's the player we traded for. If Kassian can play like that consistently, we're seeing the breakout of a real beauty here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJDDawg Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I love what this coaching staff is doing with him. No external pressure by putting him on the first line. Nope. Just having him work on his game by doing the little things on the third and fourth lines. His game suddenly looks much more well rounded and mature, and now we can see all that raw talent coming together. His skill and enthusiasm last night was awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Kesler Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 What a beautiful game by Kassian last night. I think the coaching staff is figuring out his role in the top 6, and it is not on the Sedin line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanuckleHorse Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 This young feller is lookin like a keeper I love all that he brings if he puts it all together his play will make the haters change their minds he is close keep it goin Zak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darius Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Kassian has been putting it together for a few weeks now. You could see glimpses of his passing abilities and his talent for reading the play on the fly. People who call him a goon or claim that he has no hockey IQ dont know what they are watching. Other than the Sedins I think this guy has the best ability to find the open man or to make a rink wide tape to tape pass. Goons and/or 4th liners do not have the talent to score the goal he scored last night. He put it all together last night, and he was given top 6 minutes. If he can manage to string together similar performances nobody is going to bring up the small and slow Hodgson again. Who would you want in a 7 game series against those big strong pacific division teams? Hodgson would be pushed around like a rag doll. Hopefully he can keep it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TS06 Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Kassian, Kes and Higgins could be a dynamite line if he can continue to grow and build off his performance last night. If he gets the chance to run with the ball in the top 6 he might find himself and turn into the player we're all hoping he is. That goal last night was amazing. Two touches. Beautiful. When Burrows comes back put him with the twins. Santo comes down and plays with Kesler and Kassian. 3rd line is Richardson Higgy and Hansen and 4th line is Dalpe, Sestito and Weise and we're starting to look like a team again. A trade would be nice too, but a healthy team will go a long way. I'm as pissed as anybody about the loss last night, but if we can get some guys back in the next few days and put together a win streak, hopefully we'll be able to say that they "bent but did not break" when their line-up was decimated with injuries. On mornings like this, that's the only attitude I want to have. They've given away points like nobody's business lately, and in pretty brutal fashion. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are still in the mix, and there is a lot of hockey to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baggins Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 An interesting article on Kassian regarding his role and under lying numbers.... http://canucks.nhl.c...s.htm?id=699708 Two weeks ago, in a game against the Winnipeg Jets, Zack Kassian picked up the puck in the offensive zone and took a sharp angled shot on Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. He was stopped but was able to recover the puck in traffic and threw the puck back to the high slot, right onto the stick of Chris Tanev, It was one of those plays that vindicated the opinions of at least two people. Myself, and Dimitri Filipovic of the blog Canucks Army, both agree that while Kassian is an interesting player, he's probably better suited to a role where he's expected to play more on the perimeter and focus on puck-possession and passing than he should be a grinder and muckracker in the crease. "Perimeter player" shouldn't be a dirty word in the hockey world. Lots of the great players play away from the crease. A majority of goals are started off plays from the outside, and the puck bouncing onto the blade of the right stick. Just because Kassian is big shouldn't mean he's instantly qualified for a role in front. The other thing to note with Kassian is that he's very skilled and has an odd stickhandling prowess for a player that looks as much of a tough anachronism to the 1970s as he does. There are a lot of people that want to see Kassian become Milan Lucic, but Lucic has a career shooting percentage of 14.9% over 447 games. He's not only good in the dirty areas, but has a pretty good shot in all areas of the slot. Kassian, meanwhile, has a 13.2% shooting percentage, which is high for a forward, but elevated thanks to an unsustainable 19.5% shooting rate this season. Lucic also shoots about twice as often as Kassian. But just because Kassian isn't Lucic in one area doesn't mean he can't be similar in other areas. One of the strange things you'll discover about Lucic is that despite being a player who was late joining competitive hockey and has a limited skillset, his Boston Bruins teammates mostly have better Corsi numbers with Lucic than without. Corsi, for the uninitiated, is a simple statistic used to approximate how much time one team spends with the puck when a player is on the ice, by using attempted shots. These have shown to correlate very well with zone time, back during a day the National Hockey League tracked the statistic with a stop watch. Anyway, between 2011 and 2013 per a tool found at the excellent HockeyAnalysis.com, Milan Lucic's teammates had better Corsi percentages with him than without him. David Krejci (56.4% with, 47.4% without) and Nathan Horton (58.4% with, 53.1% without) and Tyler Seguin (60.3% with, 59.3% without) are good examples. Kassian has shown a similar proficiency to increase the Corsi percentages of the teammates he's on the ice with. Through Sunday, Brad Richardson had a 46.2% Corsi with Kassian and 39.9% without, David Booth was a 51.7% with and 47.2% without, and Tom Sestito was a 47.2% with and 37.3% without. Mike Santorelli, another good example, was 54.1% with and 50.9% without. It's difficult to form any major conclusions on this data because John Tortorella sends his lines out with different roles, but Kassian doesn't get a lot of favours from the coaching staff in terms of deployment. He starts just 26.3% of his shifts in the offensive zone, which is 13th out of 15 Canuck regulars, and 40.4% of his shifts in the defensive zone, which is 2nd behind just Richardson. Per ExtraSkater.com's Quality of Teammates ranking, Kassian is 7th among 10 qualified Canuck forwards. Which really leads us to the question… how would the better players on the Canucks do if they were to play with Kassian, rather than Zack being relegated to defensive lines with minimal offensive responsibilities? One year ago, he had some early success with the Sedin twins, mostly thanks to some good early shooting percentages. However Henrik Sedin had a 60.0% Corsi percentage with Kassian, and even though Henrik was 61.2% when he wasn't paired with Kassian, 60.0% is still a very high percentage and is the benchmark for some of the best tandems in the game, like Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang (62.7%), Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams (63.6%), Patrice Bergeron and anybody, or Henrik and Daniel Sedin (62.6%). It's no secret that Kassian is a very interesting player to look at, but it's tough to tell exactly what he succeeds at. Among qualified Canucks forwards, Kassian is 7th out of 10 players with 5.3 shots on goal per 60 minutes, and ahead of only Sestito in passes per 60 minutes, with 3.9. ("Passes" is a statistic created by Rob Vollman of Hockey Prospectus, using on-ice shots and assists statistics to estimate how many times a player set up a shot. Henrik Sedin leads the Canucks with 11.3 per 60. If converted to shots on goal, that would put him among the league leaders.) Canucks leaders in passes Passes Henrik Sedin 132 Mike Santorelli 109 Daniel Sedin 92 Chris Higgins 91 Kevin Bieksa 67 The fact that Kassian is ranked so low in passes is surprising to me, because my eyeballs tell me that he is very adept with the puck in the neutral zone and along the wall in the offensive zone. I think he's a better player when he opts for finesse rather than raw power. His goal against Pittsburgh Tuesday night was a mix of both. While he cut hard to the net and benefit from a good bounce, he also began the rush forward in the defensive zone and despite the Canucks being on a 3-on-3 rush in a very small amount of ice, Kassian opted to dish the puck to Chris Higgins for a controlled zone entry rather than dump the puck in, and exploited the small amount of space Rob Scuderi had to move to prevent a move to the net from Higgins. It's just those little things that are buried beneath the surface. Kassian is described as "a project" or "toolsy", but he helps the Canucks depth players achieve better results when with him and his recent uptick in ice-time could lead him to playing more offensive minutes. It's odd to see how few assists (3) or how he ranks in the passing estimator based on the things he can accomplish when he has the puck along the wall, but perhaps he just needs to be put with shooters. After all, Kassian's teammates score on just 5.5% of their shots when he's on the ice (if you remove Kassian's shots) which is unsustainably low. His assists total is probably not indicative of the way he's played. That play against Winnipeg was his lone primary assist on the season, but if he keeps playing the way he has, I don't think it will be his only one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plaguez Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Ahem. Kassian with 6 hits, some beautiful feeds, an assist, and a sweet goal tonight. Love this young man. Weird that the hits stat can be used as a "hey look how good he is playing" but when it was used to demonstrate how bad he was playing it was a "very unreliable" stat. So which is it? Is it usable or just when it allows for you to put a positive spin on his play? He currently has 53 hits in 39 games, not great, not terrible. Again, games like his last game need to happen more often and against our stiffer west coast competition. I'm happy he had a good game, but why does he completely disappear against the bigger teams when we need him to play like he did tonight? His consistency is still his weak spot, but his good games are starting to come closer and closer together while his terrible games are getting further apart. I'm anxiously awaiting Schroeder's return. I just think that Kass and Booth with him will be one of those third lines that gives other team matchup nightmares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldnews Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Weird that the hits stat can be used as a "hey look how good he is playing" but when it was used to demonstrate how bad he was playing it was a "very unreliable" stat. So which is it? Is it usable or just when it allows for you to put a positive spin on his play? He currently has 53 hits in 39 games, not great, not terrible. Again, games like his last game need to happen more often and against our stiffer west coast competition. I'm happy he had a good game, but why does he completely disappear against the bigger teams when we need him to play like he did tonight? His consistency is still his weak spot, but his good games are starting to come closer and closer together while his terrible games are getting further apart. I'm anxiously awaiting Schroeder's return. I just think that Kass and Booth with him will be one of those third lines that gives other team matchup nightmares. ' That is weird. Is that a quote? No, not really. It's a Plogue narrative I can't bother too much with. As for the claim he disappears against big teams, that is, ironically, selective on your part. He turned the LA game the Canucks lost in a shootout around in one shift. He and Sestito neutralized Toronto's tough guy act - Kassian intimidated Phaneuf, and needless to say, nailed Bolland and then buried the Leafs by going to the hard area and burying a goal. It would be silly to claim he didn't show up against Boston - the Canucks as a whole owned the Bruins. A few of the 'big teams' like Anaheim and SJ may have size, but they're hardly intimidating in a grit or physical sense - it's more the case that their top lines pose a matchup difficulty that has very little to do with Kassian's effectiveness in the those games/contexts - he rarely matches up against those players at this point, and regardless, has solid underlying numbers. Kassian's consistency is fine - his 'upside' may not be consistent but his responsible play is, and he's easily as consistent as the majority of young players around the league regardless. His 'terrible' games were moreso a case of impatient fishbowl persective and Hodgson trade whiners embellishing than a reflection of his actual play. I agree with you where the return of Schroeder is concerned though. I really like the way those two have looked together when they've been healthy. Not sure I'd keep Booth on their wing, but that's another matter. Kassian also looks like an apt winger to play with Kesler - those two with a puck hound like Higgins could be a nightmare to play against as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drop Em Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 PLOGUE, I'm not too sure what makes you think that a Kassian line with Schroder and Booth will be a matchup nightmare for anyone. Kassian is just now starting to put some consistent games together, Schroeder has shown very little in his brief NHL career and hasn't even been consistently good at the AHL level and David Booth is totally invisible on most nights, if he can stay healthy long enough to actually be available to play. Not to mention that all 3 of these guys are defensive liabilities. They'd be a matchup nightmare alright........ but for us. Let Kassian bide his time and continue to improve and play with guys who are proven NHL players at both ends of the rink(Kesler and Higgins) and not two guys who have shown nothing in 3 years in a Canucks uniform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldnews Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 PLOGUE, I'm not too sure what makes you think that a Kassian line with Schroder and Booth will be a matchup nightmare for anyone. Kassian is just now starting to put some consistent games together, Schroeder has shown very little in his brief NHL career and hasn't even been consistently good at the AHL level and David Booth is totally invisible on most nights, if he can stay healthy long enough to actually be available to play. Not to mention that all 3 of these guys are defensive liabilities. They'd be a matchup nightmare alright........ but for us. Let Kassian bide his time and continue to improve and play with guys who are proven NHL players at both ends of the rink(Kesler and Higgins) and not two guys who have shown nothing in 3 years in a Canucks uniform. Not sure what you base that claim on, but Kassian is hardly a 'liability' and his underlying numbers consistently reflect that - Booth even moreso - he may not produce (offensively) as expected but defensive liability doesn't begin to define him - and Schroeder development has specifically focused on making him a responsible young center, and by all accounts, including his time and usage in Vancouver, would indicate anything but being a 'liability'. I am going to guess that Plogue was suggesting that a pair of big, physical wingers with upside who have excellent speed and are actually defensively responsible on the wing for a very creative, fast, and dynamic (albeit slightly smaller) center could make for a difficult matchup for opposition's depth lines and third pairings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plaguez Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 PLOGUE, I'm not too sure what makes you think that a Kassian line with Schroder and Booth will be a matchup nightmare for anyone. Kassian is just now starting to put some consistent games together, Schroeder has shown very little in his brief NHL career and hasn't even been consistently good at the AHL level and David Booth is totally invisible on most nights, if he can stay healthy long enough to actually be available to play. Not to mention that all 3 of these guys are defensive liabilities. They'd be a matchup nightmare alright........ but for us. Let Kassian bide his time and continue to improve and play with guys who are proven NHL players at both ends of the rink(Kesler and Higgins) and not two guys who have shown nothing in 3 years in a Canucks uniform. I believe it will be a nightmare for other teams because it has skill, two hulking wingers, speed and a very shifty centre. If Kassian can continue to pass the way he has been while also being coaxed to shoot more, I'm expecting there to be more than a few goals, as Schroeder is an underrated passer. I won't be a bit surprised if the numbers end up showing this line ending in the offensive zone 56-63% of the time when they get gelled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenny Jones Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 People mention Shredder with Kass. I like it. People forget Shredder tore it up with team USA in Juniors. The kids plays with an edge and had great vision and an accurate pass. Sestito - Shredder - Kass would be interesting with Kass playing the perimeter, shredder high slot and Sestito in front of the net. Could work very nicely and will allow Richardson to play with Weise/Archibald/Booth/Dalpe etc. come the end of the season. You got Sedins and Burr, Higgy Kes and Santo. Looks like a good set-up to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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