Character, tenacity, aggressiveness........where the hell is it? (discussion)

[JM_]

42 minutes ago, HKSR said:

Joshua has been useless.  Mind as well bring back Macewen.  Same production and quality on the ice, but Mac stood up for his teammates. 

Joshua might have his hands full keeping up at the moment, I'm happy to give him 20 games and see if he can get up to speed and start using that toughness. 

[EdgarM]

17 hours ago, Coconuts said:

I'd point you to my post just a little further up regarding how toughness has changed, it looks different on the ice than it used to. 

 

I also question what "soft" means to you. Because just like there's often a disconnect between what people mean, want, and what's actually on the ice regarding "toughness" there's likely something similar with "soft". One could blow it all off as semantics, but I believe it matters. Is soft not pushing, shoving, crosschecking in scrums? Is it not barking back and forth? Is it not throwing hits in addition to pushing, shoving, and crosschecking? The twins for example get written off as soft, but as someone who watched most of their career they were involved in their fair share of scrums, barking back, and forth, ect. Were they out there dishing out hits and throwing crosschecks willy nilly? Nah, but they were durable as hell and took punishment and kept on ticking. Isn't that toughness too? Where's the line between toughness and being soft and when can a player be both? 

 

Schenn is actually one of the toughest guys left in the league if you break it down by guys who've actually thrown down. If you look at his fight card on hockeyfights and then look at others around the league there are only a few remaining players who've fought more than he has. Myers tries to play modern tough, but he's also singled out by refs more because of his size in a way that Chara didn't seem to be. Sometimes he seems to get called for playing physical in part because of his being so big, not because he's doing stuff that other guys aren't. 

 

The makeup of a roster is tough, particularly because a lot of players are probably more "soft" by older school standards. As a roster we don't actually have very many little guys who play regularly. The only regulars under six feet are Garland, Hughes, Hoglander, and Kuzmenko. You could toss in Rathbone and Dowling as well but I wouldn't consider either of them regulars. Most guys are in the 6'0"-6'2" range, though an argument could be made that we need to get heavier. But even then, if you look at the roster it's your skill guys who are likelier to be lighter. https://www.nhl.com/canucks/roster

 

And it's because those players don't typically exist in the NHL anymore. Being able to play effective hockey is a minimum requirement nowadays, guys who can throw em and who play a more aggressive style in addition to being effective hockey players are a minority throughout the league. 

I think you have the meaning of "Soft" all wrong. In no universe is the Twins NOT SOFT!  Just because they could take it they were tough? So if a Bully beat the living daylights out of you but you were able to stand up afterwards you are tough? yeah OK. 

Hockey is a contact sport. There is hitting and fighting and this goes both ways. That means, as a hockey player, occasionally you must fight and sometimes you should probably hit. If you don't do those things, what kind of hockey player are you? Unless your name is Wayne Gretzky, you need to be involved in physical play.

I get it, the amount of physicality has lessened over the years and we longer have "Goons" per say, but it still exists, its a contact sport. 

Momentum can still swing with a big hit or a fight in a game. To say that it doesn't exist in the NHL anymore is ludacris.

[Gurn]

52 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

Oh my, Yes the GOALIE of your team is going to Intimidate the opposition. Although that is pretty bad when your team lacks so much team toughness that your goalie feels he needs to step up in a situation like that.

Yes we have had the odd time we did do some of it but, generally, we don't do enough of it, especially as a "team" or "pack" mentality. 

Its really been the general attitude is to wait for a penalty to be called instead of going "Gino Odjick on the entire St.Louis team" type of scenario.

Well if you only want to count, what you want to count, you get what you wanted to count.

[HKSR]

11 minutes ago, JM_ said:

Joshua might have his hands full keeping up at the moment, I'm happy to give him 20 games and see if he can get up to speed and start using that toughness. 

He shouldn't be having trouble throwing a hit though...

[JM_]

21 minutes ago, HKSR said:

He shouldn't be having trouble throwing a hit though...

has he been that invisible?

[EdgarM]

39 minutes ago, gurn said:

Well if you only want to count, what you want to count, you get what you wanted to count.

I actually forgot about Miller in my examples but you are right. Thanks. 

[EdgarM]

35 minutes ago, HKSR said:

He shouldn't be having trouble throwing a hit though...

 

14 minutes ago, JM_ said:

has he been that invisible?

I haven't really seen too much physicality or intimidation from that whole line yet. Maybe its still coming? 

[JM_]

1 minute ago, EdgarM said:

 

I haven't really seen too much physicality or intimidation from that whole line yet. Maybe its still coming? 

I'm just wondering if he's still trying to learn the systems and keep up? dunno, he was a fringe NHL player when we picked him up. 

[Honourable Hughes]

On 10/18/2022 at 12:10 PM, NUCKER67 said:

Heart of a Lion

 

Miller

Pettersson

Podkolzin

Pearson

Garland

Hoglander

Kuzmenko (?)

Mikheyev (?)

Hughes

Schenn

Burroughs

Dermott

Demko

 

Build around these guys, and go back to the "skate" uniforms.

 

 

Country Club - They can go anytime

 

Horvat

Boeser

Myers

Ekman-Larsson

 

 

Keep Horvat though

[Honourable Hughes]

On 10/18/2022 at 12:10 PM, NUCKER67 said:

Heart of a Lion

 

Miller

Pettersson

Podkolzin

Pearson

Garland

Hoglander

Kuzmenko (?)

Mikheyev (?)

Hughes

Schenn

Burroughs

Dermott

Demko

 

Build around these guys, and go back to the "skate" uniforms.

 

 

Country Club - They can go anytime

 

Horvat

Boeser

Myers

Ekman-Larsson

 

 

Keep Horvat though

[IBatch]

On 10/18/2022 at 1:48 PM, Warhippy said:

lol...you're asking this knowing it's been absent since 2010-2011

 

The last time we had this on our team we had a roster that consisted of 

 

Albert

Lapierre

Burrows

Hansen

Kesler

Rome

Torres

Volpatti

 

You have to go a LONG ways back to find any sort of aggressiveness or the like on this team.  hell, I have more tenacity in my stoll than the last decade of canucks line ups.  I'm taking fibre for it but you get the idea

And well.   That's not really much toughness/tenacity  either.    Meh level.   Decent enough for the era, maybe slightly above average, and that's generous.  Now?  Well it's embarrassing to talk about a team that back then we talked about being kind of soft, that today looks like they were somehow the 70's PHI flyers lol.   Not even close to anything pre-lockout really.