Optimal 22-23 Season Composition for Success

[nuckfanfromafrica]

 

Extract from Sportsnet. 

 

Boudreau said he believes the team is better, due to the speed and skill added on the wings, and offered some hints about how players may be deployed.

• He likes the idea of rolling out J.T. Miller, Bo Horvat and Elias Pettersson at centre, rather than using Pettersson on the wing, because there are now enough talented wingers to build a top-nine that can score.

• Boudreau confirmed that elite defenceman Quinn Hughes will switch to the right side from the left, at least for training camp, potentially beside Oliver Ekman-Larsson on a new top pairing.

• He wants to better manage the workload of star goalie Thatcher Demko, who played in 64 games last season before breaking down in April, but that this will depend on how well backup goalie Spencer Martin plays.

“I think Petey can play with anybody,” Boudreau said of Pettersson, who moved between lines and positions last season while scoring 28 goals and 56 points under the new coach. “I think he's proved that he can play any type of game. Like, I watched all these games again this summer, and. . . he's a physical player. You know, he hits. When he killed penalties, he was good at it. The offensive stuff takes care of itself. I still think the sky's the limit if he's healthy.”

Boudreau said by playing Pettersson at centre, even if it’s theoretically on the third line, one of Pettersson, Horvat or Miller is going to get an advantageous matchup.

“I think it's easy to say that no one's going to be classified as really a third-line player because most of them are going to be on the power play,” he said. “Our third line last year was Tyler Motte, Juho Lammikko and Matthew Highmore. They would kill penalties, but their role (at even strength) was to make sure the other team didn't score. And they did a great job at it. But I think this year's so-called third line is going to be asked to score.

“There's a lot of rolling parts here. Believe me when I say I've gone over it 5,000 times this summer.”

Denied an extension by new general manager Patrik Allvin and president Jim Rutherford, Boudreau will be coaching the final season of the two-year deal he signed with Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini in December. 

After sharp year-end remarks by Rutherford about the Canucks’ “structure” under Boudreau and how poorly the team exited its defensive zone, the coach has only the same defencemen to work with. Allvin landed Mikheyev from the Toronto Maple Leafs and Kuzmenko from the Kontinental Hockey League, but failed in his stated mission to upgrade the defence over the summer.

“You know what, I think they're really underrated,” Boudreau said of his blue line group. “I've worked in my head and on video a lot on that, and we'll be better (at zone exits). Yeah, we want great exits. Everybody does. At the same time, I'd rather be great defending. I think in the last 57 games we were the third-best defensive team. We might have scrambled a little bit but we protected ourselves off of mistakes and we had good goaltending. And I'm not going to apologize for good goaltending.”

[DownUndaCanuck]

I think Bruce hit everything on the head in terms of what he has and what he'll do with them. Management has not addressed our key issues - RD > top 4 defence > 3C. Instead they've just gone out and acquired wingers - the last thing we needed. Whether this was just due to the market or what Bruce wanted is up in the air.

 

I think rolling 3 lines will be lethal during the regular season. Teams will not be able to stop all 3 scoring lines and we'll matchup really well against most teams, so having extra wingers will work well. 3 good scoring lines, all of the centers can play decent defence and then a PK-heavy 4th line will be interesting but I can see teams struggle to check Miller, Petey and Bo, especially when their wingers are all 20+ goal scorers.

 

Hughes on the right will be very interesting too because of his mobility but I hope it doesn't impact his ability to skate down the wing and throw passes across/back (which will be much less smooth on his off-side). I'd rather play the defensive guy OEL on the right as they don't have to zip passes across, but it'll be interesting to see how Hughes goes. Realistically that leaves Schenn, Dermott and Myers to take turns on our 2nd pairing. 

 

I like that they all addressed the key issue of our downfall last year - burning out Demko. Bruce didn't have a choice last year with a rubbish Halak but I hope he works Martin into around 20 games to space out Demko's starts. A fresh Demko down the stretch will be the only thing which saves this porous defence.

 

Bruce is making do with what he has but I worry about how our defence will perform, hopefully with a good off-season he'll have them a bit more functional than last year but I have to say I'm excited by rolling 3 scoring lines. Think we'll see something like this for game 1:

 

Boeser - Miller - Podkolzin

Kuzmenko - Horvat - Pearson

Mikheyev - Pettersson - Garland

Joshua - Lazar - Hoglander

Dickinson

Lockwood

 

OEL - Hughes

Dermott - Myers

Rathbone - Schenn

Burroughs

 

 

[Fred65]

Welll bring in 2 wingers does help in one way. You won't see EP on the wing this coming season, in addition maybe we are a tad overloaded on wing which does supply trade opportunities. Allvin thoght we needed more scoring and not concerned so much about the D.

 

Quote

 If everybody's healthy, I think we're pretty good, led by Quinn Hughes and OEL (Oliver Ekman-Larsson). Every indication is Tucker Poolman is good to go here from Day 1, and if he is, I think that changes our group.

BB is talking about having  scoring lines this coming season.

[wai_lai416]

Oh god if we have a OEL Hughes pairing this team will be in big trouble lol.. hope OEL and Hughes can play 40+ mins a night.. coz Myers is with any combination of rathbone dermott is big trouble.. just like any combo of schenn rathbone dermott poolman together.. 

 

1 really good capable pairing and then 2 bottom 6 pairing with a bunch of players that prolly suited for the 7th defenseman on a few teams 

[Slegr]

I’m getting really excited for this season to begin. It feels like it’s taking forever. 
 

It’ll be interesting to see who comes ready to play. Boeser needs a big year. Petey needs to start way better than last year’s start. 
 

If you had to guess who the top two heaviest forwards are, who would you guess? They are……..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miller and Horvat. At least one of them throws their weight around.

[mikeyman109]

19 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

I think Bruce hit everything on the head in terms of what he has and what he'll do with them. Management has not addressed our key issues - RD > top 4 defence > 3C. Instead they've just gone out and acquired wingers - the last thing we needed. Whether this was just due to the market or what Bruce wanted is up in the air.

 

I think rolling 3 lines will be lethal during the regular season. Teams will not be able to stop all 3 scoring lines and we'll matchup really well against most teams, so having extra wingers will work well. 3 good scoring lines, all of the centers can play decent defence and then a PK-heavy 4th line will be interesting but I can see teams struggle to check Miller, Petey and Bo, especially when their wingers are all 20+ goal scorers.

 

Hughes on the right will be very interesting too because of his mobility but I hope it doesn't impact his ability to skate down the wing and throw passes across/back (which will be much less smooth on his off-side). I'd rather play the defensive guy OEL on the right as they don't have to zip passes across, but it'll be interesting to see how Hughes goes. Realistically that leaves Schenn, Dermott and Myers to take turns on our 2nd pairing. 

 

I like that they all addressed the key issue of our downfall last year - burning out Demko. Bruce didn't have a choice last year with a rubbish Halak but I hope he works Martin into around 20 games to space out Demko's starts. A fresh Demko down the stretch will be the only thing which saves this porous defence.

 

Bruce is making do with what he has but I worry about how our defence will perform, hopefully with a good off-season he'll have them a bit more functional than last year but I have to say I'm excited by rolling 3 scoring lines. Think we'll see something like this for game 1:

 

Boeser - Miller - Podkolzin

Kuzmenko - Horvat - Pearson

Mikheyev - Pettersson - Garland

Joshua - Lazar - Hoglander

Dickinson

Lockwood

 

OEL - Hughes

Dermott - Myers

Rathbone - Schenn

Burroughs

 

 

I agree here on almost everything you said except for the fact that if Hoglander is 4th line material he will not make the team and will start in Abbotsford. He has to have an outstanding camp to make the team over the players you have listed in the top 9 roles. Or have a trade happen with Pearson or Garland. I like the kid but he is a victim of the numbers game.Great to have a call up of his caliber though.

[RU SERIOUS]

In all honesty, we all know - not much has changed.  We have pretty well almost the same team as last year, except for a couple of additions on the 3rd/4th lines and a new B/U goalie.     Although those changes are minor, if all goes well and JT has another career year, EP40 & BB start off better, our B/U goalie can play close to .400 and none of our top players get injured for long periods, those minor changes should be enough to allow us to squeek in the playoffs this year.  From there - who knows - although I certainly don't expect a cup from this crew. I sure hope what we've seen this year from JR, Alvin & "The Chipmunk Girls" is not what we'll see going forward because so far they have done little more than tinker with a few peripheral players while keeping the core - no different than JB did for years and we all know where that got us !

 

The real changes will hopefully come in 2-3 years when some of the anchor contracts expire and the cap goes up and then JR can begin to actually "reshape" this team, as we still have a long way to go to building an actual Cup Contender!     No matter, I hope things go better this year and expect we should see a playoff birth.

 

 

 

[Forsy]

I've been chirping for years about the defense being weak, but I believe that the bare minimum required is already in place. The big issue is that the systems and reads/anticipation have to be better.

Hughes and this year, OEL should be more than enough to drive the play. Myers, Schenn, etc fine for rounding out the 4th/5th/6th dmen is 'ok'. The big failure last year was not having someone like a Tanev in the D-corps, or having another dynamic dman like we HOPE Rathbone will be. Even the best teams DO NOT rely on amazing defensive plays night in and night out (until deep in the playoffs). The issues will arise when the team does not prevent chances, retrieve pucks efficiently or do not have clean defensive zone exits. This requires the entire D to be smart (and the forwards to help out in support of course).

Overall, I think if Rathbone pans out as a dynamic offensive defenseman, we will be in good shape.
If Rathbone struggles, we will continue to struggle but will do fine, if:

Tyler Myers cleans up defensively and zone exits.
OEL maintains everything, but has a tiny improvement on offense.
Hughes, Schenn and the rest of the D remain the same as last year.

Everything is about this D-corps reading plays well and anticipating to the best of their ability. They will prevent chances, retrieve pucks on time, and have good zone exits. We saw it at the tail end of last year, and they can do it again. Don't think that some teams do not struggle with this. Both Tampa and Colorado, with their vaunted ultra d-corps' were both hemmed in their Dzone at times during the playoffs, and struggled to get out. It's a constant battle, and some teams simply show more consistency.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Forsy