After hot start, we're 4-10

[Rush17]

Worse case we continue to tread water and games are exciting but in the end we continue to slide down the standings. Id be ok with a top 10 pick if we lose in 1 goal games each nite.  At least the hockey would be entertaining.  I think the veterans though in all seriousness need to step it up.  Since Higgins return this team has been soft.  I think he needs to go and we should explore moving Hammer and Verbie.    If we can flip Edler for another promising young D who's nhl rdy and can slot in lets move him for a good d prospect and a 1st.  

 

Something has to give. I hope Markstrom goes ham again the team seems to respond too him well.  Shinky could do well if inserted in the line up but if they do they need to give him PP time.  Don't make him have to earn it just try him on it and watch him flourish.  He is a player that needs to be counted on to be a difference maker to be successful.

 

At least the games are fun tho despite the losing.

[Heretic]

Did anyone really expect them to be a playoff team, or even in the top 3rd of the league? If they did, they better give their head a shake. Management can spin this any way they want, truth is they are in a re-buil right now. The veterans are getting older, are declining (skating) and the prospects are not up to speed yet.

By the time this year is over, they will be a bottom 3rd club, which is where they should be at this point and in 2 or three years we'll see how well they have drafted and developed their prospects.

Expecting anymore than this is just not realistic. 

I'm with you.

I don't expect them to make the playoffs this year.

[-AJ-]

As disappointing as this is, it just means that they're now meeting my expectations, as opposed to exceeding them. I expected to miss the playoffs by a few positions.

[Crabcakes]

It shouldn't be a surprise.  There are 9 new players in the line up this year and obviously big adjustments to be made. That's a 39% turnover on a team that already had a lot of changes last year. 

Line by line: 

• 1st.  The Sedins are the Sedins but they've been rolling through the right wingers looking for some consistency.  Sutter, Vrbata, Burrows and now Hansen.  That's 4 different right wingers in 18 games.
• 2nd.  Again, instability here.  Horvat isn't quite ready, neither is Baertschi and the right side has seen multiple players including the 19 year old Virtanen at times.  This has become Sutters line but with him injured, there isn't a ready centre to fill his shoes.
• 3rd.  Horvat is going through the sophomore slump.  High expectations from the Canucks and the competition, more responsibility, playing against better players and he has struggled somewhat.  He's just going to have to battle through it because there's a rookie coming up behind him who needs sheltering more than he does.
• 4th.  The 4th line has been good.  Is Dorsett playing through something?
• Defense.  When healthy, the defense has been fine but with one player injured, the house of cards fell.  Can anybody believe we're missing Sbisa of all people?  Tanev got his hand smashed and missed a game and the solid as a rock 1st pair crumbled.  Top 4 depth is clearly an issue, probably the teams biggest issue.
• Goaltending is fine.
• PP.  Issues here are nothing new.  The 2nd unit is better than last year but overall improvement has been slight.  Risks taken near the offensive blue line have lead to many shorthanded goals against.
• PK.  What was good, is now not so much.  Missing Sutter and Prust I would suggest.

Overall, there are a lot of new faces on the team and Willie has the line up in a blender trying to find the most effective line combinations.  There are 4 really young players who need sheltered time but there isn't shelter to be found for that many young guys.  Combine this with a lack of depth on the back end and we can explain the inconsistency.  It's a transition year and next year will be one too.  Is anybody really surprised?

 

[iBlueGreen]

In theory we can make the playoffs with a 30-12-40 =100 pts, as a worst case scenario.   The 3 on 3 doesn't matter in the playoffs, so if they make a point in making it to OT more often than not, we can feel comfortable that we'd do alright in 5 on 5 situations (at least we'd have a better shot at a W) when the playoffs start .... So don't panic too much here.  I'm an optimist !

[longsuffering]

Our record seems to have directly declined in correlation with our face off percentage (now below 50% for the year) and with our special teams.

We live and die in the dot.

Horvat was terrible but WD kept putting him in the defensive zone faceoffs which we lost giving Toronto immediate possession in our end. I think some of the coaching decisions on this are not good. Maybe Sedins should get all the offensive zone faceoffs as Crow used to do,

[Mathew Barzal]

What worries me is we aren't clearly on one side or the other for most of these games. We could very easily have won a bunch of these one goal games and had an inflated record relative to how we're performing.

I hope come December we either pick ourselves out of the muck and climb the standings or continue on our downward trend and receive yet another coveted top 10 pick.

[Canucks Prophet]

Horvat was terrible but WD kept putting him in the defensive zone faceoffs which we lost giving Toronto immediate possession in our end. I think some of the coaching decisions on this are not good. Maybe Sedins should get all the offensive zone faceoffs as Crow used to do,

That doesn't make any sense. You say Bo is terrible at defensive draws, so you want Henrik to take all offenize zone draws? Horvat is at around 50% faceoff win percentage, a respectable number. Last night he won 11 draws, most on the team. In comparison, McCann has been atrocious at 37% on the season. 

Sutter being out is a big blow to this team, especially Horvat. 

[Lui's Knob]

Really want to see a skilled too 5 pick on this team. And a 30 minute d man. Tank!!

[Hairy Kneel]

We're old and we're young.

[khay]

The season is long. Most of us here have been a fan far too long to look at the last 14 games and  conclude that the team is outright terrible and will surely miss the playoffs.

We have some key injuries and two key members of the team are currently struggling (vrbata and hamhuis). Thing will begin to turn around I'm sure.

[Jam126]

IMO The team is better than what they are showing out on the ice. The part that frustrates me is when they come out sloppy after they said they're gonna "try to solve the problem". And don't give me that BS of "They are too old", if Jagr is 43 and still putting up his "A" game every night so should the vets. And I'm not letting the rookies slide either, they have been too scared to make a bad decision which, in this case is pretty bad. You learn from mistakes, that's what makes you a better player. Also, the defense is straight up utter garbage right now since Sbisa got injured (Never thought I'd say this), Edler, Hammer and Weber keep turning the puck over, and the worst part it's when they are under pressure. Finally, Ryan Miller just needs a rest. He's been overplayed and Willie still doesn't notice that it's costing us games. I'd say it's a mental issue just like last year where they had a stretch of just sitting back and playing like crap. 

[captaincowbasher]

The Canucks are not a good team, the Sedins are not what they were, that is the reality. The Canucks will be lucky to go 1-7 which should settle them in as a bottom 5 team in the league. Looking forward to the Draft.

[khay]

It shouldn't be a surprise.  There are 9 new players in the line up this year and obviously big adjustments to be made. That's a 39% turnover on a team that already had a lot of changes last year. 

Line by line: 

• 1st.  The Sedins are the Sedins but they've been rolling through the right wingers looking for some consistency.  Sutter, Vrbata, Burrows and now Hansen.  That's 4 different right wingers in 18 games.
• 2nd.  Again, instability here.  Horvat isn't quite ready, neither is Baertschi and the right side has seen multiple players including the 19 year old Virtanen at times.  This has become Sutters line but with him injured, there isn't a ready centre to fill his shoes.
• 3rd.  Horvat is going through the sophomore slump.  High expectations from the Canucks and the competition, more responsibility, playing against better players and he has struggled somewhat.  He's just going to have to battle through it because there's a rookie coming up behind him who needs sheltering more than he does.
• 4th.  The 4th line has been good.  Is Dorsett playing through something?
• Defense.  When healthy, the defense has been fine but with one player injured, the house of cards fell.  Can anybody believe we're missing Sbisa of all people?  Tanev got his hand smashed and missed a game and the solid as a rock 1st pair crumbled.  Top 4 depth is clearly an issue, probably the teams biggest issue.
• Goaltending is fine.
• PP.  Issues here are nothing new.  The 2nd unit is better than last year but overall improvement has been slight.  Risks taken near the offensive blue line have lead to many shorthanded goals against.
• PK.  What was good, is now not so much.  Missing Sutter and Prust I would suggest.

Overall, there are a lot of new faces on the team and Willie has the line up in a blender trying to find the most effective line combinations.  There are 4 really young players who need sheltered time but there isn't shelter to be found for that many young guys.  Combine this with a lack of depth on the back end and we can explain the inconsistency.  It's a transition year and next year will be one too.  Is anybody really surprised?

 

good summary.

I think there forward lines are imbalanced with Sutter getting injured.

Put burr with the twins and Hansen and Higgins with Bo. This immediately gives us two solid lines. they know how to defend the lead.

Then try Baer-McCann-Vrbata as the secondary scoring line, give them 12-14 minutes a night.

Virtanen-Crack-Dorsett to round out the fourth line.

 

[Canuck Surfer]

Our record seems to have directly declined in correlation with our face off percentage (now below 50% for the year) and with our special teams.

We live and die in the dot.

And special teams...

Miss Sutter quite badly after how many games?

[Zuongo]

Back to reality

[combover]

This club/ roster is exactly what almost every expert predicted. 

Terrible D group 

lack of skill/ scoring in the top six 

again as so many times before no identity. Unless lazy is what they were going for. 

This roster is a ticket for the lottery. 

What is more surprising than the losses is them winning as many as they have. 

[The Bookie]

The way they looked after Hansen's goal was called off - if they can play entire games like that, they're good.

It's up to them really. I'm tired of stressing over this core.

 

 

 

[DIBdaQUIB]

This club/ roster is exactly what almost every expert predicted. 

Terrible D group 

lack of skill/ scoring in the top six 

again as so many times before no identity. Unless lazy is what they were going for. 

This roster is a ticket for the lottery. 

What is more surprising than the losses is them winning as many as they have. 

Pretty much this.

The Nucks are not a hard working team nor are they hard to play against.  This has been the case for a very long time going back to before the 2011 run.  In 2011, they had the twins in their prime who were winning scoring races and they were able to score their way out of situations.  Fast forward to today and you have the same core who never worked overly hard but without the offensive weapons of 2011. were never a hard working team. 

This team plays incredibly soft.  Only Cracknell and Virtanen even try to take the body the rest just do fly-bys or waive as they skate past the opposition players. 

I expected the team to struggle this year but thought the idea was to have the vets show the kids how to play and prepare for the future.  I am now scared about having our prospects learn from our core group who appear resigned to playing out their contracts or waiting for a trade to a contender.

 

[FireGillis]

The canucks are who we thought they were.  You guys would enjoy the season more it you embraced the tank.  It's less stressful that way except when comebacks and losers points happen as those hurt our tank. I'm enjoying cheering for hope though and for a better future rather than the short term and fleeting feeling of a futile playoffs race.  I want to actually contend and not be bounced in the first round and to do that we need elite talent from high draft picks. Would much rather endure short term pain now and cheer for a dominating team in the future.