DownUndaCanuck Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 It's no surprise that Boudreau should come back. He brought this team back from the death single-handedly, and in over half a season has a win percentage of 0.65 which is good for 10th in the league. Under a full off-season and year with Boudreau (not to mention all the kids getting better and not as many veterans slowing down) we'll surely be a playoff team if not a top 10 team. That being said, even under Boudreau, we had some weak spots, which I think they'll need to address and work on over the off-season: 1) A big reason we missed the playoffs was our play in OT and shootouts. We were worse 3-on-3 under Boudreau than Green - a rare stat. The Canucks rack up 12 OTLs compared to many teams around us with 6-7. If we had those 6 extra points we'd be in the playoffs. I think they really need to work on the skill part of the OT and shootouts. We've got some of the best young talent in the league but we haven't used it well in OT. Shootouts are pure skill and researching a goalie, but I think we need to play more safe in OT. Put out one scoring forward, one defensive forward who won't get caught up ice all the time (Pearson, Chiasson, Bo, Highmore, Lammikko) and one defenceman. We've lost too many points with 2 forwards going up ice. I understand you have to take chances but they don't even materialise. Often it's Miller with a bone-headed attempt at a dangle through 3 defenders. 2) Fix the slow starts. This is really bizarre and to be fair, in the last couple of weeks it seems to have stopped, but hopefully we can keep that going into next year because we lost a lot of games because of it. 3) Better game management of our goalies. Halak sucked, no question, and Bruce was forced into over-playing Demko who suffered for it. He can't play that many consecutive games and nowadays not many goalies are even playing 60 games. Luckily Spencer stood on his head these last few games and has really proven himself, but Bruce and the coaches have to work out a plan to get Demko well under 65 games. He just played 64 and his play really started dipping around 10 games ago. If we can get Demko 55 games and Martin the rest I think we'll have a fresher Demko all season and ride whoever's hottest in the playoffs (probably Demko but you never know). 5) More offence from the defence. Under Green and AV, we used to have defencemen jump up in the rush all the time. Most of the time under AV they contributed and scored. Under Green they just got caught out defensively and we let in about 1-5 odd man rushes against per game. Our offence has been good this year (but so has every team's) but we're one of the lowest scoring defences in the league. We had 28 goals from our defence all year. Calgary had 41. Unfair comparison but it'd be nice if we had a bit more goal scoring from the defence. Sure, Hughes racks up assists, but not many of the other guys do. One thing that would be nice to see in the off-season is Hughes improve his shot and Bruce be a bit more flexible with OEL and Myers' pairing and use OEL a bit more offensively because he's got it in him as we've all seen - even if it's just sifting through the occasional point shot. Those are my big points, can you guys think of anything else? This isn't about trading or acquiring personnel, it's purely with the team we have and what they can work on in the off-season. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Phat Fingers Posted April 30, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted April 30, 2022 His cardio, we need him to live a long and happy life 1 1 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barnstorm Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 More F bombs next year . 1 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithers joe Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 for me it's the defense taking players on the rush, out against the boards. other teams do it to us to stop our drives into the offensive zones. more schenn like d-men. stick checks work sometimes but not often. maybe 4 more good forwards and 2 more good d-men. thats allvin's job. if he can find replacements for chaisson, dickinson, pearson, myers and poolman, we'ld be set. that would save us about 15 mil. miller and garland; petey and boeser; bo and hoglander; highmore , lammy and lockwood. hughes and ______; oel and _______ lockwood and schenn 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
higgyfan Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 His golf swing and enjoying his family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Torts Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 Embrace the chant 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-DLC- Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentSam Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 36 minutes ago, -DLC- said: Very Very Nice,. News like this will keep his players highly motivated im sure.. the whole team should go have a fishing derby up coast this Summer just before Camp. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Lock Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 (edited) All of these ideas are more about when the team gets back together rather than the off-season itself. Maybe a gameplan could be thought of beforehand? Other than that, to say it's something Bruce "needs to work on" is a really weird and silly way to put things. Also, "Fix the slow starts": You talk like this is something that can just be fixed when, in reality, it's going to be based on initial momentum. You're looking for coaches to have some magical formulas that don't exist. Edited May 2, 2022 by The Lock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBatch Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 Only thing he needs to do is get into the groove that this guy had 3 x 3 and with his ledger of shootout players .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBatch Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 (edited) Also when do we get a Bruce emoji? And what will it look like!!?! Edited May 2, 2022 by IBatch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBatch Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 1 minute ago, IBatch said: Also when do we get a Bruce emoji? And what will it look like!!?! Or maybe this ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-DLC- Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 7 minutes ago, IBatch said: Also when do we get a Bruce emoji? And what will it look like!!?! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBatch Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 1 minute ago, -DLC- said: Yes that will do! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rychicken Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 What happened to #4? Already completed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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