The Vancouver Canucks haven’t had many nights like this.
On Tuesday evening in Denver, Colo., the Canucks were deeply unlucky. A couple of soft penalties went against them, including a crucial trip against Ian Cole late in the third period. The 3-1 game winner was scored off of a harmless Ryan Johansen point shot that rode up Conor Garland’s stick and somehow found the top corner of the Vancouver net. Meanwhile, Elias Lindholm and Filip Hronek couldn’t finish grade-A chances with a yawning cage.
The fundamental performance was there for Vancouver on Tuesday night, but the breaks weren’t.
Now, this isn’t an uncommon story for most NHL teams. Before this week, however, the Canucks had seemed immune to runs of normal, everyday hockey misfortune.
And so despite a really impressive effort in the second leg of a back-to-back at elevation against an elite team on Tuesday night, despite a stellar defensive effort that worked to contain the Nathan MacKinnon line, the Canucks dropped their third consecutive contest in regulation.
Vancouver is still extremely well-positioned overall. Even with losses in their past three games, the Canucks sit atop the Western Conference and the Pacific Division standings. They’ve built up a sizeable lead where it matters, too.
The club’s upcoming schedule, however, is an absolute gauntlet. The Canucks face the most difficult schedule in the Western Conference over the balance of the season, based on the quality of their upcoming opponents.
Even Thursday’s game against the Seattle Kraken, a get-right spot that now looms large for a Canucks team working through their first losing streak of the campaign, is sneaky difficult given the Kraken’s rest advantage.
Vancouver has some breathing room yet, but their margin for error isn’t quite as big as it might appear from a facile glance at the NHL standings.
Consider, for example, that under Kris Knoblauch, the red-hot Edmonton Oilers have reeled off an astounding .769 point percentage across 32 games and currently hold six games in hand over the Canucks with one remaining head-to-head matchup. A .769 point percentage is a preposterous pace, but if the Oilers could maintain, say, a .700 point percentage over the balance of their season, they’d get to 109 points by season’s end.
So in order to salt Edmonton away and seal the Pacific Division crown, which carries the crucial benefit of locking the Oilers and the Vegas Golden Knights into a brutal first-round matchup, the Canucks will want to get something like 30 points from their remaining 24 games. That’s very doable, but it’s a 103-point pace, or a .625 point percentage. It’s a win rate far greater than what the Canucks have managed since the All-Star break (4-4-1).
There’s no reason for undue panic on the heels of three consecutive losses, especially considering Vancouver’s defensive play and overall five-on-five form continue to be solid.
There is and should be urgency from the team to get back on track, however. Winning the Pacific significantly boosts Vancouver’s chances of making a deep playoff run, and given Edmonton’s refusal to lose games the past few months, the Canucks need to get back to picking up points or the division crown will become a sweat in a hurry.
A solid first impression for Arshdeep Bains
Arshdeep Bains’ NHL debut would’ve been a tremendous story regardless of his performance on Tuesday night.
A local product hailing from Surrey, B.C., Bains was passed over in the WHL priority draft. And then again in the NHL Draft.
Undeterred, Bains made himself into the most prolific playmaker in the WHL. After leading the league in scoring during the 2021-22 season, Bains signed with his hometown Canucks as an undrafted free agent.
It wasn’t necessarily obvious in terms of his on-ice performance in the American League, but behind the scenes, Bains popped immediately for Canucks brass. The internal excitement about his pro prospects really began to build for the Canucks internally in the fall of his first professional season.
One couldn’t necessarily tell from watching Bains play at the American League level or by tracking his stats. After scoring in his American League debut, Bains scored just one more goal in 22 games before Christmas.
At practice, however, and most importantly in the weight room, Bains’ work ethic immediately caught the eye of his coaches and Canucks player development staff.
A high-IQ playmaker in major junior, one hallmark of Bains’ game at the major junior level was his ability to set up teammates with his back turned to them. Bains’ collection of clever spin moves, and his feel for protecting the puck while still making plays, had the potential to be a separating skill for him at the professional level. First though, Bains had to improve his skating and add a ton of functional strength for those spin moves to really translate.
With that as the focus, a plan emerged. Bains was tasked with hitting the gym and logging extra time in on-ice workouts in the fall of 2022. The message was passed along through Jeremy Colliton, Ryan Johnson and others and it was explicit: Bains was told that if all the extra work came at the expense of his energy level in games, so be it.
Top to bottom, the organization had its eyes on a night like tonight.
After Christmas in his first season, Bains took off. He managed 28 points in his final 44 games and was a major contributor in Abbotsford’s brief Calder Cup playoff run.
By the summer, Bains had cemented his status as the star pupil of Vancouver’s new player development apparatus to the point that the club invited him to development camp to talk to younger Canucks prospects about his adjustment as a professional player.
An intelligent, young player with the ability to outwork everybody else can quickly become a weapon. In his second professional season, Bains levelled up again. He’s become arguably the key driver for Abbotsford on the power play, a near-point-per-game player and an AHL All-Star — where he was named MVP.
Last week, the Canucks called Bains up for the first time. And on Tuesday, before stepping onto the ice for warmups and taking the solo lap that would mark his NHL debut, Bains did the “matha tek” — touching his heart, and then touching the ground — before stepping onto the ice in a Canucks game jersey.
he touched the ground and then touched his heart before stepping onto the ice and in punjabi we call that “matha tek” which is done to show worship and respect. such a small yet such a meaningful gesture from him before his NHL debut 🥹 https://t.co/TWsNrV6ybC
— d (@avsinseider) February 21, 2024
When the puck dropped, Bains’ debut performance was more than commendable. In fact, he made an excellent first impression at the NHL level.
Bains immediately understood the assignment of what it means to play Rick Tocchet hockey. His work rate on stops and starts defensively, the way he hit the breaks to make sure he was always inside his check in the defensive zone and his consistent, sharp defensive reads were flat-out impressive for a player debuting at the highest level of the sport.
We even saw one of Bains’ patented spin move setups, a pass from below the goal line that put Teddy Blueger in all alone on net.
The most exciting part about Bains’ debut, however, is that he stood out in the areas — work rate, defensive details — likely to earn him additional looks. Especially given what we know about how Tocchet prizes work rate, structural understanding and two-way details.
Now it wasn’t a perfect showing — Bains finished the game with a couple of dashes and took a bad luck penalty in the first period — but perfect isn’t the standard that matters. If Bains can replicate the level of two-way intelligence and intensity he showed in his debut on an every-game basis, he’ll have a real path to carving out a role as an NHL regular.
Tuesday night, after all, wasn’t the last chapter of Bains’ remarkable story. It was the first.
The special teams thing
Colorado didn’t dent the Canucks for a power-play goal, but it threatened with withering persistence.
The Avalanche had three power-play opportunities and in six minutes of work with the man advantage generated 17 shot attempts, nine shots on goal and eight scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Vancouver, in contrast, had two power-play opportunities and in four minutes of work with the man advantage generated five shot attempts, two shots on goal and two scoring chances.
It was a special teams draw on the scoreboard Tuesday night, but watching these two teams play left little doubt about which team has a sharper edge in specialized game states.
And that’s worth noting and noting prominently. It’s not exactly a secret, after all, that Vancouver’s special teams play has hurt them recently.
Since the All-Star break, Vancouver has played .500-point-percentage hockey despite outscoring its opposition by six goals at five-on-five across its past nine games. For the most part, Vancouver’s goaltending has been solid and its preposterous finishing efficiency has continued. This Canucks team has been controlling play at the level of a fringe elite team for over a month now, and that’s continued even as their results have cooled in recent weeks.
So why is Vancouver rather suddenly dropping games? The answer, primarily, is that Canucks special teams are struggling enormously.
The power play isn’t scoring and, worse than that, has been surrendering goals against. In Vancouver’s nine games since the All-Star break, the power play has scored just three times while surrendering three short-handed goals.
Meanwhile, the penalty kill, which seemed to be trending in a solid direction, has surrendered nine goals in nine games — most of them coming just this past weekend in a pair of ugly games against Winnipeg and Minnesota.
As good as their five-on-five work has been this month, they’re giving it all back (and then some) on special teams.
Now some of what we’re seeing on the power play is bad finishing luck. Vancouver’s band of super-efficient finishers has suddenly run cold with the man advantage. The lack of sustained dangerous looks from Vancouver’s first power-play unit, however, and the anemic shot and shot attempt rates are genuinely concerning.
The first power-play unit carries the mustard for the Canucks, so let’s start there. Since acquiring Elias Lindholm and installing him at the net front, the Canucks have mostly rolled with J.T. Miller in the bumper as opposed to his usual spot on the left-side half-wall, with Brock Boeser and Elias Pettersson on the flanks and Quinn Hughes at the point. Now, Vancouver’s first power-play unit is actually generating shots, scoring chances and shot attempts at a pretty consistent rate with what they’ve managed on the season as a whole since the break, but there’s something interesting if you look specifically at who is taking those shots.
Since Miller has moved into the bumper, his shot rate has absolutely — and predictably — exploded. Where Miller’s shot rate on the power play before the break sat at about 11 shots per hour, that number has since ballooned to 26 shots per hour. Meanwhile, Hughes’, Boeser’s and Pettersson’s shot rates have all cratered precipitously.
It isn’t necessarily that Boeser, Pettersson and Hughes aren’t shooting enough. In fact, both Boeser’s and Pettersson’s shot attempt rates are higher since the break than they were beforehand. Hughes’ shot attempt rate is legitimately down a bit, but by a far less significant amount than his actual shot rate. The problem isn’t so much that Vancouver’s perimeter attackers aren’t getting shots off with the man advantage, the problem is that those shots aren’t getting through at a high enough clip.
Maybe this will sort itself out. Perhaps Vancouver’s first power-play unit is just adjusting to a new alignment and happens to be in shooting percentage hell at the moment. It’s conceivable that in time, this new alignment could be an upgrade, once it’s all sorted.
I do wonder, however, whether the fact Hughes’, Pettersson’s and Boeser’s shots are being blocked more frequently this month is directly tied to them taking fewer shots efficiently set up by Miller in his usual spot on his downhill side.
It goes without saying, but the Canucks will need the power play to be a difference-maker when they get into the sort of close, tight-checking games like the one we saw on Tuesday night. It isn’t close to that level at the moment.
As for the penalty kill, much of its success prior to the break was goalie-driven more than anything else. Some save percentage regression was to be anticipated, if not all in a five-minute span.
There is some good news for Vancouver in terms of its short-handed form, though. Maybe it hasn’t looked pretty over the past three games, but Vancouver’s penalty killers are surrendering shots and shot attempts at a lower rate since the break than they have for much of the season. Short of a trade to bring in an absolute short-handed ace, the penalty kill isn’t likely to be a strength of this team in the near term, but it could get close enough to league average to avoid being a fatal flaw.
Simply put, right now Vancouver’s special teams are a drag on a team that is otherwise performing very well. Tocchet and company are going to have to find some answers if they’re going to end this losing streak and maintain their lead in the Pacific Division and Western Conference.
(Photo of Arshdeep Bains: Bob Frid / USA Today)
