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The Gillis formula: 6 x 20


Live.&.Die.Nucks

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I remember reading about Gillis and some of his ideas before he put together back to back President's trophy winning Canucks teams. The guy was definitely a forward thinker, and analytical. One thing that always stuck out for me is his idea that to be successful, a team needed 6 - 20 goal scorers on their team. He then set out to build a fast team that could score, and the results are as such in 2010-2011:

 

Regular season

Player

GP

G

A

Pts

+/−

PIM

Sedin, Daniel

82

41

63

104

+30

32

Sedin, Henrik

82

19

75

94

+26

40

Kesler, Ryan

82

41

32

73

+24

66

Samuelsson, Mikael

75

18

32

50

+8

36

Ehrhoff, Christian

79

14

36

50

+19

52

Burrows, Alexandre

72

26

22

48

+26

77

Raymond, Mason

70

15

24

39

+8

10

Edler, Alexander

51

8

25

33

+13

24

Malhotra, Manny

72

11

19

30

+9

22

Torres, Raffi

80

14

15

29

+4

78

Hansen, Jannik

82

9

20

29

+13

32

 

One can argue that Daniel and Kesler count as 4 - 20 goal scorers, and then you have Burrows, and close calls with Henr1k and Samuelsson.  Almost 7 x 20. The Hoff, Raymond, and Torres all chipped in big time too (14, 14, 15).

Gillis of course gave up on this model after the painful loss to Boston, while other teams did not. In today’s NHL, speed and skill will win more than brawn. If Gillis had foreseen this, then perhaps we would have been contenders for much longer, and he’d still be with us.

Having said this, and should the formula still hold true, how many 20 goal scorers do you think we will have next year?

Optimistically, I count Bo and Baer, with maybes in Hansen/Sutter/Boeser/Granlund/D.Sedin. If they can all hit the mark, we may not be in as much trouble as some may think when it comes to scoring.

Thoughts?

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That formula makes sense.  Looking back I had no idea Kesler had such a good season that year.  We are on pace to have 6 maybe 7 20 goal scorers this year.   Although we need Henrik and Loui to pick up the pace a little.  Our only problem is we don't have anyone that will get much more than 20.  

 

As for next year Bo and Baer I agree with.  Granlund and Eriksson as well.  For Hansen it depends on how the twins play next year.  Looking at their production I wouldn't put Daniel as a lock next year.  I think asking Boeser to score 20 in his rookie season is a bit much as well.  I think next year will be similar to this year in terms of goals per game.  I'm thinking its the year after that we will start to see a jump.  That should come from more production form the blue line, as well as continued development of Horvat, Granlund Baertschi.  Loui should be good for 20 each year.  Sutter 15 - 20.  Add in Boeser if he develops then things are looking up.  

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Its tough to say as the suggested build seems to change for the league every year. One year, the status quo is speed and skill, the next, its big and tough. Once we find that perfect medium between speed/skill and big/tough (maybe skill/tough?) I think we will have a dominant club again. Until then, we will continue to float in mediocrity hoping this rebuild goes quicker than anticipated.

 

Personally I would love to have 6+ 20g scorers on this team as well as 1 or 2 30+ goal scorers. Sadly I know this is the real world, and I know it is tough to not only be able to find and keep that personnel on the team, not to mention having them perform at a high level every night against some of the best Dmen in the world.

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22 minutes ago, Beeekz37 said:

Its tough to say as the suggested build seems to change for the league every year. One year, the status quo is speed and skill, the next, its big and tough. Once we find that perfect medium between speed/skill and big/tough (maybe skill/tough?) I think we will have a dominant club again. Until then, we will continue to float in mediocrity hoping this rebuild goes quicker than anticipated.

 

Personally I would love to have 6+ 20g scorers on this team as well as 1 or 2 30+ goal scorers. Sadly I know this is the real world, and I know it is tough to not only be able to find and keep that personnel on the team, not to mention having them perform at a high level every night against some of the best Dmen in the world.

Benning is on that formula of speed/skill big/tough skill/tough... we have Horvat, Virtanen, Tryamkin, and Gudbranson in our future core to provide that size and toughness component, and skill-wise we have Baertschi, Boeser, Granlund, Juolevi, Stecher, and Hutton. Most of that future core can skate well too. I still think we need another forward with speed to burn and high-end offensive vision to make plays, however.

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19 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

78/79 Bruins had 8 players with 20 or more goals & probably would've won the Cup had Cherry known how to count.:P

Count them again....

 

http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?aggregate=0&gameType=2&report=skatersummary&teamId=6&pos=S&reportType=season&seasonFrom=19771978&seasonTo=19771978&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=goals

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12 minutes ago, Baggins said:

That's the 77-78 year...the year I was talking about was the following season (another pretty strong Bruins team - just my opinion but I think they would've beaten the Rags in the Finals as well (if they were able to hold that one goal lead against the Habs).

 

My apologies, didn't mean to infer your statement (post which I replied to) wasn't accurate.

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Just now, NewbieCanuckFan said:

That's the 77-78 year...the year I was talking about was the following season (another pretty strong Bruins team - just my opinion but I think they would've beaten the Rags in the Finals as well (if they were able to hold that one goal lead against the Habs).

Ah sorry. Didn't notice you were talking the following season. lol

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1 minute ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

No problem.  You should see some of the mistakes I've done (and will continue to do in the future) LOL. :)

I'll use being up since 8pm last night as a shabby excuse. Night shift.

 

Btw, that 11 player season was an NHL record. If I recall correctly they needed 1 of 2 players to score in the final game of the season to tie the record of ten 20 goal scorers. Both scored to break the record. I remember watching that game.

 

Off to bed now. lol

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Yeah this formula is all fine and dandy but look at that team every single guy was in his prime. Along with the fact our division was an absolute dumpster fire. Like do people forget the pounding we put on Edmonton Colorado minni on a regular basis?

 

We were the best team in the league no doubt about that but it wasn't sustainable with the age of the entire team and the stats are so inflated with a quarter of our season played against that god awful division. 

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2 hours ago, Live.&.Die.Nucks said:

I remember reading about Gillis and some of his ideas before he put together back to back President's trophy winning Canucks teams. The guy was definitely a forward thinker, and analytical. One thing that always stuck out for me is his idea that to be successful, a team needed 6 - 20 goal scorers on their team. He then set out to build a fast team that could score, and the results are as such in 2010-2011:

 

Regular season

Player

GP

G

A

Pts

+/−

PIM

Sedin, Daniel

82

41

63

104

+30

32

Sedin, Henrik

82

19

75

94

+26

40

Kesler, Ryan

82

41

32

73

+24

66

Samuelsson, Mikael

75

18

32

50

+8

36

Ehrhoff, Christian

79

14

36

50

+19

52

Burrows, Alexandre

72

26

22

48

+26

77

Raymond, Mason

70

15

24

39

+8

10

Edler, Alexander

51

8

25

33

+13

24

Malhotra, Manny

72

11

19

30

+9

22

Torres, Raffi

80

14

15

29

+4

78

Hansen, Jannik

82

9

20

29

+13

32

 

One can argue that Daniel and Kesler count as 4 - 20 goal scorers, and then you have Burrows, and close calls with Henr1k and Samuelsson.  Almost 7 x 20. The Hoff, Raymond, and Torres all chipped in big time too (14, 14, 15).

Gillis of course gave up on this model after the painful loss to Boston, while other teams did not. In today’s NHL, speed and skill will win more than brawn. If Gillis had foreseen this, then perhaps we would have been contenders for much longer, and he’d still be with us.

Having said this, and should the formula still hold true, how many 20 goal scorers do you think we will have next year?

Optimistically, I count Bo and Baer, with maybes in Hansen/Sutter/Boeser/Granlund/D.Sedin. If they can all hit the mark, we may not be in as much trouble as some may think when it comes to scoring.

Thoughts?

Pretty much bang on with your comment about Gillis changing to be more like Boston or whatever it is he thought we needed.  We lost due to goaltending more than anything.  Time after time Thomas made quality saves that a less hot goalie would have missed.

Sure we were pushed around a bit but we earned the power plays and played disciplined hockey nothing wrong with that.

Should have done nothing at all.  Maybe Hodgson would have succeeded under our format he seemed to be excelling as our third line center and for whatever reason kept the second pp working when the first faltered.

An absolute failure on his part dealing with our star goalies and as far as I'm concerned ruined the core Burke and Nonis put together.  He walked into a pretty sweet situation and did help manage the cap and bring in some auxiliary players but went wacko after we lost.

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From what I can tell right now, we are on pace for four players with over 20 goals (Granlund, Sutter, Baertschi, and Horvat) , though Daniel is just a little bit behind. As has been said, our problem is a lack of star power. Bo is on pace to lead the team with 23 goals, a pitifully low amount to lead the team with. I also think offense from the blue line is critical, and as of now, the best we have is Stecher, who's on pace for only 25 points.

 

We might make the playoffs, but any success after that would have to be the result of a drastic sudden improvement in those areas.

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2 hours ago, Baggins said:

In 77/78 the Bruins had 11 players with 20 or more and lost in the finals to Montreal who had 5 with 20 or more.

The 71-72 Bruins team had eight and won the cup...The 76-77 habs t eam had eight and another with 19 and one with 18,16,15,14,13...Also had a 60 and 50 goal scorers..No wonder they only lost eight times.  The 83-84 Oilers had eight 20 goal scorers ...And a 87 goal scorer plus two other fifty goal scorers..Averaged over  five goals a game with a record 446 ...And now if we score 250 your threatening to lead the league...

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After 2011 everyone complained we weren't tough enough...too soft etc. He had to try to make us stronger...

Also, unless PP works there is no chance we will hit those kind of numbers again.

 

However if you can reach the play offs without relying on the PP, you have a decent chance once they put their whistles away.

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