Cornuck wrote: ↑Fri Mar 14, 2025 10:58 am
It's amazing how this team dropped from last year - how much of that is on management, and how much of that is on players underperforming / injured. Definitely a combination. This off-season will be the turning point for this management crew. More trades? Boeser re-signed (or walks)? I don't have nearly as much faith in them these days.
In other news: Vancouver Canucks General Manager announced on Friday morning that the organization has agreed to a one-year, $775,000 one-way contract with forward
Linus Karlsson.
I think the decline is mostly a factor of underperformance and injuries -- and its compared to a season filled with overperformance. Having said that, in the last half of last season, the Canucks looked sort of mediocre but won a lot. This year, they looked mediocre and lost a lot.
The underperformers are obvious.
Miller, when he was here, played a game as pouty as Petey with the added demerit of not playing defense and being the absolute worst player on the ice for many of those OTLs.
Petey, as pouty as Miller, has gone from a star to a two way center who contributes secondary scoring. Not good.
Boeser looks a lot more like the years preceding last year than last year. Sad, because the corner he turned last season seemed to be a lot more than lucky breaks.
Hoglander, what can you say? Can't catch a pass, the situation says shoot he passes, says pass he shoots. Last year may very well be his high water mark.
Joshua plays like the kind of guy you sign in the offseason for near league minimum. Which is how he's always played until last season.
Soucy became a caricature of his worst attributes.
All of these guys were major contributors last year -- a little drop off was expected, but the fall for each was dramatic.
As for injuries, when a team is just decent, its goaltending needs to be outstanding. Lankinen was a great signing, but the guy is at best average as a starter. Demko's injury has cost the team numerous points in the standings -- the Canucks went from top quarter in save percentage to bottom quarter. Outside of the messy first month, I am just not seeing a higher number of high danger chances. Goaltending is the difference. Insofar as management's received a ton of blame for letting Z go (and some blame for letting Cole go), it is going from very good goaltending to okay goaltending that's been the primary factor to giving up more goals against. To be sure, management made a bad choice when it replaced a 4-5 (Z) with two 6-7s (Desharnais and Forbort) -- two guys who count success as not being a healthy scratch do not add up to one legitimate NHL defenseman. But it's been a secondary problem, in my view. (And the good news is some of the corner is turned with the MP acquisition and unexpectedly decent DEP development).
Other injuries have mattered, but while the Canucks have had a lot of missed games, they've been relatively fortunate in that they have not "stacked" on a position.
The bigger problem than the underperformance is that what remains is simply not as good as what the Canucks came into the season with. An enhanced set of complementary players with a depleted core isn't a good formula. Having the league's best defenseman on the ice for nearly half the game is always going to keep a team out of the dregs of the league. But I do not have optimism.