Mattrek Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 3 hours ago, 10TRAVIS NUCK10 said: I feel we are deeper and the accountability or fear of losing your spot makes you play with a little more grit or heart or desire whatever yo want to call it. Also theres probably a big 65 points sign in the locker room as a constant reminder of no one is giving them respect. Sutter came exactly as advertised, he's foundational player. He is a big part of this team now for sure, having him healthy and in the line up makes us significantly better. Completely agreed. I don't think anyone on this board realized how big of a loss him getting injured was to us. He was on a .5 point per game trajectory and was improving seemingly every game. This was one of the best moves we've done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathew Barzal Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I think its a combination of being healthy and lucking out with instant chemistry on all of our lines. Burrows, Dorsett and Gaunce looks phenomenal. Granlund, Sutter and Hansen look like they've played together for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Doug Jarvis. Defensive structure has been emaculate. Forwards are defending hard, defenders are skating well and making crisper passes, and those bone-headed defensive gaffs are almost completely eliminated. Everything builds from the defence. Goaltending is much better with good defence. Forwards can move up the ice better and form a more co-ordinated attack with good defence. I stressed this last season, JB went out and changed our coaching and personel and now look what we have - a defence good enough to shutdown some of the best offences in the league. We kept the Blues to 1 goal. We're one of the best defensive teams in the league right now. Keep this going and we'll make the playoffs easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkyard Dog Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 We are a lot better defensively and in terms of depth defensively. Sbisa delivering some new and improved play. Gudbranson is a significant addition and should improve as he grows more accustomed and comfortable here. A bigger and better Hutton. Tanev who is Tanev. A healthy Edler. Larsen who appears a lot more useful than Weber. Not too mention the depth we have if injuries/fatigue come into play. Tryamkin, Beiga, Stecher, Pedan, Subban. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phat Fingers Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 The biggest reason we are off to a good start is Jim Benning. This is truly his team, his coach and his vision. I do not believe his work is near done, but we can see what type of team he is building. Everything is coming together because the 31st ranked GM put it together. MG gets a snippet of credit for starting the process, Utica is essential, Horvat, Hutton and Gaunce are all his picks and Tanev was an excellent signing. We obviously won't keep up this pace, and I expect us to have an up and down year and be one of the bubble team/dark horse candidates, clubs will likely take for granted in the first half. We will get a true sense of how things are in the second half. Dont underestimate confidence and what effect it can have on fine motor skills. Almost everyone is skating with it, save Eriksson and Virtannen. Whether this team can keep battling thru the tough spells and maintain its confidence will determine our season. EW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Industrious1 Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 To be honest it is probably a lot of good fortune. I mean i'm not sure the Canucks have even led a game going into the 3rd yet and somehow we are pulling off last minute heroics to pull out a win in OT/SO. I am enjoying it while it lasts, for sure.....but this isn't sustainable hockey and eventually that kind of karma balances itself out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuxfanabroad Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Sounds like no passengers, thus far. Flying 'under the radar' somewhat..sure hope they can keep stockpiling lots of wins, early on. Will come in handy as inevitable injuries hit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riffraff Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Yay wins. unsustainable hockey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toyotasfan Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Besides the subtraction of Webber and Bartowski we also are missing Vey getting 17-18 minutes a night , McCann playing 12 minutes ... the list of patchwork players from last year is too long . I would say dead last if we had to go with that line up again. We can afford injuries on D this year because of depth but still thin at forward if anyone goes down. Healthy top 6 is critical to this team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madwolf Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 The number one reason I would actually say is depth, especially on defense. We have more guys who belong where they're playing. Out of the poll questions I'd say the best reason is health. Last year's team looked like a MASH unit. The 2nd reason out of the poll options is tough, but I went with goal-tending. Miller and Markstrom really played well so far, even though Marky took a period to get in his flow. I'd honestly say defense has a lot to do with it though too. It seems like we're giving opposing teams far less dangerous shots this year through 3 games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift-4 Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Simple. They outplayed the opposition every night. And scored when it mattered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canucklehead73 Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Doug Jarvis has to be helping in my books, he is a veteran coach who has had his hands in some pretty good teams. With that being a factor we are playing fairly solid defense and working on the transition game which is where a lot of teams have success going the other way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfstonker Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I think actually it is due to a combination of things. I said before the season started that the inclusion of a guy like Guddy would have a wash down effect on the rest of the D especially Edler and Sbisa who have long had to bear the brunt for this teams D physicality. In Edler's case he had to do it while putting up massive minutes and at one time last season when Edler was out it all fell on Sbisa. You could argue Hutton also suffered due to the number of defenders injured. The new set up has seen him look even better. I also think that having more defensively aware forwards has helped and that is because we have not had any real injuries yet. (hopefully that continues) Lastly I think it is only with this stable group that WD has been able to get some consistency in his systems and the players appear to all know what is expected of them. See Bo's interview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfstonker Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 3 hours ago, Industrious1 said: To be honest it is probably a lot of good fortune. I mean i'm not sure the Canucks have even led a game going into the 3rd yet and somehow we are pulling off last minute heroics to pull out a win in OT/SO. I am enjoying it while it lasts, for sure.....but this isn't sustainable hockey and eventually that kind of karma balances itself out. But do you not agree we are making a lot of chances. It's not just been our goalie who has been standing out. Listen to Henrik when he said they should have had 4 or 5 goals against the Blues. Normally Hank wouldn't say something like that unless he thought it was true. Our D looks tight too and although the opposition has had chances, no D fails to give up some chances over the term of the game. Where I would agree though is we must learn to capitalize more on our chances as we can't keep expecting to come back or indeed always do so well in OT which is always a bit of a lottery (as is the shoot-out) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfstonker Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 6 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said: Doug Jarvis. Defensive structure has been emaculate. Forwards are defending hard, defenders are skating well and making crisper passes, and those bone-headed defensive gaffs are almost completely eliminated. Everything builds from the defence. Goaltending is much better with good defence. Forwards can move up the ice better and form a more co-ordinated attack with good defence. I stressed this last season, JB went out and changed our coaching and personel and now look what we have - a defence good enough to shutdown some of the best offences in the league. We kept the Blues to 1 goal. We're one of the best defensive teams in the league right now. Keep this going and we'll make the playoffs easily. I thought Lidster was the defensive coach? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 7 hours ago, darkpoet said: -> DOUG JARVISTHANK YOU GOD Hmm! Clouston to Calgary = 0 - 3; Dougie to Van and 3 - 0! Absolutely love the Jarvis signing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 14 minutes ago, alfstonker said: I thought Lidster was the defensive coach? Lidster is the defensive coach and Jarvis the PP coach. For sure there has to be a meeting of the minds as the puck is transitioned up ice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM_ Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 10 hours ago, JamesB said: The Canucks surprised a lot of people by winning the first three games. Pessimists would say it is primarily just good luck, or maybe just that the goalies started hot. Optimists might say that we are seeing development from young guys (Horvat, Hutton, Baertschi), or that injuries really were the problem last year and that having Sutter and Edler healthy makes a huge difference. And maybe the new guys are the key (Guddy, Eriksson, Larsen). I think its a combo of the new guys and by extension not having the guys released. Higgy - unsigned. Vey - resassigned. Prust - unsigned. Bartkowski - unsigned. Weber - league minimum as #8 Nashville. 4 guys no longer in the NHL and 1 marginal, all part of our everyday lineup last year, not taking roster spots. That alone is an improvement. Now add Guddy, Loui, and Larsen in and no kidding we're doing better! On Loui people are being a bit premature - his defensive play has been solid, and its nice to have that when the scorings not clicking. Never had that with Vrbata e.g., and he has had some quality chances. He's a bit snake bitten but this too shall pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoosh Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 So many things overall contribute to the success right now. It's still such a small, fine line between winning and losing in the NHL today. I have to say goaltending has been very good, albeit a very small sample size of that. The duo wasn't projected to do very well and they are proving that wrong right now. Defense has been stellar too. All teams are good in the league and they're all going to get chances, but so far we've been able to keep them in check and have defended well. Huge improvement on D and in goal so far from last year. Everyone can see it for themselves of course, but offense is still going to be an issue for us going forward. But definitely more light at the end of the tunnel on that department too. Even if it will be a grind at some point down the road, good things will are still to come when PP starts to get the puck in the net. All this equals to the fact that we have self-confidence and momentum on our side at the moment. A loss in game 1 could have us in a totally different direction now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgarM Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I have said in the past that we were never a really bad team to begin with other then the Tort's year and last year which we had numerous injuries. I remember last year people were saying we could not beat the California teams but we managed to do that. Take a look at our stats and you can see what I am talking about. I also said losing Sutter was big but again people said he was not that important to the team. We have more depth, we are faster, we are tougher and the team seems to have found a connection with the system they are playing. Lastly, we have dropped some excess baggage with Vey, Weber and Higgins. Got so tired of their non-chalant play last year. The PP is a concern right now but I think a lot of it has to do with Erickson not clicking yet. He is a pro and I think it will come. The new PP system will need some time to get used to also and just wait until the Twins come up with creative ideas once they become comfortable with it. Having a point man helps and also gives the opposing something else to think about. I am comfortable with what we have now lets just see how they develop together and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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