GDT: Jan 27 - Canucks @ Sharks 5:00PM PST SNET-P

[Uncle dans leg]

Let's end Marleau's scoring streak...

As an aside...where the hell have YOU been????

[Larry Goodenough]

I'm not sure what to think of Edler on the right side. Do you keep him there and endure the short term pain while he gets more experience and acclimated. Will there even be long term gain?

Right now Edler on the right side may be the best of a bad situation; out of Hamhuis, Garrison, Ballard and Edler he might just be the least hindered by switching sides - Ballard is an outright disaster, Garrison has said he's just not comfortable there, I don't know about Hamhuis but who keeps KB3 grounded if not him?

Given it's fairly commonplace for left-shooting defenseman whose bread and butter is their offensive contribution to play the right (like Christian Ehrhoff, Brian Campbell, etc) I'm willing to let the experiment play out and see what happens - not that I have a choice of course.

But if Edler doesn't show signs of progressing this season, or even worse if his confidence takes a hit and his game goes through the floor, then I think when the offseason rolls around and it's time to get rid of Keith Ballard, you have to go out and find an every day player who can play that side - then you go with Hamhuis/Garrison/Edler down the left and Bieksa/Tanev/whoever down the right.

Of couse that's not an easy task, Philly had to give up JVR to get Luke Schenn just to have a single right-side defender.

Generally agreed.

Edler did play some right side towards the end of last year and the results were not pretty. The hope is the rust begins to fall off here and he just gets a little bit better each game.

I think it's almost a certainty Ballard is gone next year. Problem is, if you bring in another right handled d-man, either Garrison or Edler are on the 3rd pairing. That's alot of money for a 5/6 d-man.

[coco_canuck]

Other than a couple of terrible give-aways and an impotent PP, I thought the Canucks were actually better last night than they were on Friday vs Anaheim. At least on even-strength the Canucks seemed to out-chance SJ and VAN was able to dictate the pace for large stretches of the game, something I was doubtful about before hand.

KB and Hamhuis played their best game on Friday, but it was only their best performance in comparison to the previous three games, but last night they regressed again, but I fel the D stabilized a bit once the pairs were juggled.

What we've seen so far is not dissimilar to what we typically see from the Canucks to start the season. VAN's game is predicated on quick puck movement, structure and smooth rotations...for whatever reason it takes this team a while to click with that style. Not having Kesler complicates matters, but the Canucks should be much better once they get their game together.

[dbr]

Larry, I agree.

The team have been creative in they deployment of the forward groups, so perhaps they can find a way to get enough minutes to all three pairings at even strength to make things work.

After all we had Christian Ehrhoff on our third pairing at one point, that seemed to work out for the most part.

[herb]

I stopped watching closely after the Sharks' 4th goal, but outside of the first 5 minutes I thought the Canucks played OK. The effort seemed to be there, and 5 on 5 I thought we were better after we went down 2-0.

A few thoughts:

- The giveaways which led to goals were horrendous. Worse than my level of puck movement horrendous.

- The PP was a disaster. Again, puck movement and the attack was too predictable, which seems to happen with this group. Either the PP is on fire, or it is ice cold. Newell Brown needs to find a happy medium.

- You would think that when you're playing a team with the hottest players and PP in the league that you'd make a conscience effort to not take stupid penalties, no?

- PK was alright until I believe it was the 4th SJS goal.

- Props to Kassian and Volpatti for hanging in there against two tough customers.

- Andrew Ebbett is not a NHL player.

- What is there to like about No Show Joe? He's a massive man, but a cheapshot artist, not to mention the biggest crybaby and whiney-est sissypants in the league. I think Sami Salo could beat this guy up. No class whatsoever.

- Five posts...are you kidding me? Sometimes you get a bounce, a puck goes in, and you look like heroes. Other times, you don't get a bounce, the puck goes wide and you look like a pack of buffoons. Thems the breaks sometimes.

- If Jannik Hansen scores on his breakway to tie the game up, I think the result would have been different. This was Hansen's best game this season...if only he had more finish. Same could be said for Schroeder's one hopper that went post-and-out.

[UWSaint]

[quote="coco_canuck"]Other than a couple of terrible give-aways and an impotent PP, I thought the Canucks were actually better last night than they were on Friday vs Anaheim. At least on even-strength the Canucks seemed to out-chance SJ and VAN was able to dictate the pace for large stretches of the game, something I was doubtful about before hand.
{/quote]

I think this is right. I mean you can't exempt terrible giveaways from the overall performance, but in many ways, those kinds of mistakes are less likely to occur as the season wears on and the players who made them have track records of not being walking turnover machines. Fundamentals are reinforced by habit and early in the season -- every year -- these kinds of errors are more prevelant.

What was frusturating about the game last night is that the Canucks did an excellent job of recovering from those mistakes only give the game away after they scored. Lapierre's penalty was pointless and poorly timed. The Sharks are a high-end skill team but seem to lack the overall team speed to keep up 5 on 5 -- don't put them on the PK! And don't play Andrew Ebbett on the PK! (Maybe the prepositional phrase is unecessary).

[Southern_Canuck]

One thing that is irritating me about Garrison is how many times his shot does not hit the net... the official stats said he had 3 missed shots against San Jose, but it seemed more like 8-10...!

Get it on net, buddy.

S_C

[Meds]

I think this is right. I mean you can't exempt terrible giveaways from the overall performance, but in many ways, those kinds of mistakes are less likely to occur as the season wears on and the players who made them have track records of not being walking turnover machines. Fundamentals are reinforced by habit and early in the season -- every year -- these kinds of errors are more prevelant.

Edler was around 10th in the league last year amongs defensemen who are in or above his $5M pay grade. He may not cough it up as much as some others, but his timing has always been piss poor (as if there is such a thing as a good time for
a turnover in the first place ), and it usually results in the puck in our net.

Bieksa and Hamhuis were 9th and 18th, respectively, among all defensemen. Bieksa's usually land us in trouble, Hamhuis' not so much.....although the last one he made in 2012 was a doozy that sent us home for the year.

What was frusturating about the game last night is that the Canucks did an excellent job of recovering from those mistakes only give the game away after they scored. Lapierre's penalty was pointless and poorly timed. The Sharks are a high-end skill team but seem to lack the overall team speed to keep up 5 on 5 -- don't put them on the PK! And don't play Andrew Ebbett on the PK! (Maybe the prepositional phrase is unecessary).

Ummm....I think you mean don't put them on the PP, right?

You're right, the bounce back after the 2nd goal was pretty good. In all honesty the Sharks had 4 goals and a post. The Canucks had 5 posts. On the post they hit it wasn't going in because Schneider had that entire side sealed off, on the ones we hit Niemi was hopelessly beaten. So really the Canucks did outplay San Jose badly 5-on-5.....special teams are another issue.

The following quote is from Alain Vigneault via TSN.....

"Power play wasn't as good," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. "We were unable to score. A couple of unforced errors that ended up right on their tape and in the back of the net. What's important is how we responded, and I thought we responded very well."

I am sometimes stunned by this guy. Hi there captain obvious. The PP wasn't as good as what? It was against the Ducks who have a weak PK, no real defensive names to boast about and a goalie who, while being very quick and agile is inconsistent at best.....

The PP is going to be the achilles heel of this team this year. It is VERY clear after one week of hockey that the NHL has sent a mandate to its officiating crews: KEEP IT CLEAN AND DON'T PUT UP WITH ANY BULLSHIT. Just look how last night's game started. The style of play that the Canucks practice should mean that we se piles of PP time this year, take the abuse and skate away, bury them on the powerplay (that actually has some musical rhyme to it ). Our PP sucks though. Last night it was like watching two examples of PP instructional videos, one on what to do, and the other on what NOT to do. The Sharks movement on the PP was awesome, the puck carrier moves a little, but the other players are in constant motion with the exception of the safety on the puck carrier's point. The Canucks were static, puck carrier moved a bit, looking for passes, but the other 4 guys stood next to motionless waiting for the Sharks to move. This has been par for the course with this team. That works against undisciplined and inexperienced PK's with limited defensive prowess, but it has been the Canucks' undoing as a team when facing teams like Boston, SJ, and LA. Vigneault needs to pull his head out of his ass and start looking at what successful PP units are doing.....they are adapting to their opponent and exposing the weaknesses in said opponent's defense and PK strategy, they are NOT waiting for their opponent to divert from their own gameplan completely of their own accord and just jump onto the Canucks playbook. The guy is woefully inept when it comes to recognizing and reacting midstream.

[coco_canuck]

What was frusturating about the game last night is that the Canucks did an excellent job of recovering from those mistakes only give the game away after they scored. Lapierre's penalty was pointless and poorly timed. The Sharks are a high-end skill team but seem to lack the overall team speed to keep up 5 on 5 -- don't put them on the PK! And don't play Andrew Ebbett on the PK! (Maybe the prepositional phrase is unecessary).

Lappy was deservedly stapled to the bench after that penalty. The worst part of taking that penalty was depriving the team of its only penalty killing centre. With Kesler and Malhotra, there was extra onus on Lappy to be disciplined and he ended up taking as bad a minor as you can take at that point in time. As poor as Malhotra is at certain things he's a slightly above average penalty killer that can win draws. I doubt Malhotra is scratched again if one of Lappy or Kesler is absent from the line-up.

I was thinking the same thing about the Canucks edge in team speed, and that bodes well for VAN for future games versus SJ.

[Meds]

One thing that is irritating me about Garrison is how many times his shot does not hit the net... the official stats said he had 3 missed shots against San Jose, but it seemed more like 8-10...!

Get it on net, buddy.

S_C

I think that stat only counts for shots that are not deflected enroute.....alot of the Canucks shots end up hitting a stick or grazing a defender and continuing on wide of the net.

[CFP!]

One thing that is irritating me about Garrison is how many times his shot does not hit the net... the official stats said he had 3 missed shots against San Jose, but it seemed more like 8-10...!

Get it on net, buddy.

S_C

Reminded me of Willie Mitchell's shot. Maybe even Salo....

[Meds]

What was frusturating about the game last night is that the Canucks did an excellent job of recovering from those mistakes only give the game away after they scored. Lapierre's penalty was pointless and poorly timed. The Sharks are a high-end skill team but seem to lack the overall team speed to keep up 5 on 5 -- don't put them on the PK! And don't play Andrew Ebbett on the PK! (Maybe the prepositional phrase is unecessary).

Lappy was deservedly stapled to the bench after that penalty. The worst part of taking that penalty was depriving the team of its only penalty killing centre. With Kesler and Malhotra, there was extra onus on Lappy to be disciplined and he ended up taking as bad a minor as you can take at that point in time. As poor as Malhotra is at certain things he's a slightly above average penalty killer that can win draws. I doubt Malhotra is scratched again if one of Lappy or Kesler is absent from the line-up.

I was thinking the same thing about the Canucks edge in team speed, and that bodes well for VAN for future games versus SJ.

Yeah, Ebbett looked better on the 4th line against Anaheim than I have seen Malhotra look in a long while. But in that game we weren't really killing penalties. Last night he was fairly invisible at 5-on-5, but absolutely brutal on that PK. He had a chance to clear the puck, totally whiffed on it, and we were hemmed in for almost a full 2 minutes where we couldn't even get near the puck. Schneider kept them above water for that entire time until the puck bounced off 2 guys enroute to the net, hit Schneider then hit Marleau's skae and slid under Cory's arm. Rough goal.

Really missing Kesler right now.

[coco_canuck]

Yeah, Ebbett looked better on the 4th line against Anaheim than I have seen Malhotra look in a long while. But in that game we weren't really killing penalties.

I'd agree that Ebbett is a better even-strength player than Malhotra at this point so there's reason to dress him over Manny but it depends on the circumstances.

Even when Kesler returns this team still needs another solid bottom six centre unless Schroeder can excel on the third line with somewhat sheltered minutes.

Although, I will say that I have seen much more two-way ability and defensive potential from Schroeder in his three games than I saw from Hodgson in a Canucks uniform.

[Jovocop]

One thing that is irritating me about Garrison is how many times his shot does not hit the net... the official stats said he had 3 missed shots against San Jose, but it seemed more like 8-10...!

Get it on net, buddy.

S_C

Didn't one of Garrison's shots hit the post in the third period? Anyhow, I found that Edler hardly passed the puck to Garrison for one timers. Instead, Edler chose to wrist pucks towards the net while Garrison was open.

[Jovocop]

Although, I will say that I have seen much more two-way ability and defensive potential from Schroeder in his three games than I saw from Hodgson in a Canucks uniform.

Looking at Schroeder, I just wonder if Schroeder's brain and skills could be transplanted to Weise. The Canucks could have a pretty solid second or third line center...