First half Analysis after 42 games ..

[Blob Mckenzie]

I've spent all season laughing at how over rated many here have the little trojan.

Don't worry I've laughed my ass off every time you've referred to Sbisa as a StalWART.
Furthermore when you said you were disappointed in the team earlier in the thread it was a huge laugh. The team has no talent.

Keep the giggles coming!

[Chef Boi RD]

I've spent all season laughing at how over rated many here have the little trojan.

Don't worry I've laughed my ass off every time you've referred to Sbisa as a StalWART.
Furthermore when you said you were disappointed in the team earlier in the thread it was a huge laugh. The team has no talent.

Keep the giggles coming!

The Canucks are 19 points ahead of the Avalanche. The Avalance - A team whose talent impresses you

[Topper]

I've spent all season laughing at how over rated many here have the little trojan.

Don't worry I've laughed my ass off every time you've referred to Sbisa as a StalWART.
Furthermore when you said you were disappointed in the team earlier in the thread it was a huge laugh. The team has no talent.

Keep the giggles coming!

girls giggle

[Meds]

Sedins are like Crosby it's hard to find proper chemsitry as the triplet long term.

naslund, linden, klatt, smolinksi, jensen, santos, dalpe, king, dorsett, megna, sutter, vrbata, eriksson, pyatt, kesler.

The trio that were the only were a good fit were Carter, Burrows and Hansen, meh players but they play hard, have a hustle attitude - swarming around the net.

But in their hey day, it didn't matter who played with them, like any great duo combination in NHL history they could made their RW have a career year.

They got one good year left, hope next season the team is improved up front and our young defense continues to develop so they can have a good farewell tour next season, end it with a bang.

Heck get the other older top tier guy Thornton July 1st, who has never won a Cup either, combine their forces for one last hurrah.

Did you really just compare Henrik and Daniel to Crosby?

The multi-gold, 2 time Stanley Cup Champion? The youngest player in NHL history to record 200 points? 2 Harts, 3 Lester B's, 2 Art Ross', 2 Messier's. And that's just scratching the surface.....and you compared Hank and Dank to him? The fact that he records more than 0.5 ppg MORE than their career ppg figures didn't register either?

Even saying that they are comparable in that they make their linemate better is a laugh. Crosby makes 2 linemates better without the help of a twin brother.

I mean seriously.

[Mickey107]

I'd like to see Stetcher back in Utica . Biega gives us better defence and plays a tougher game. Mind you we will lose Stetcher's offence. Play Biega and call up Pedan as the extra D.

Maybe give Pedan a look at the expense of Biega, the other stuff?

[Mickey107]

I've spent all season laughing at how over rated many here have the little trojan.

Get use to laughing for many years to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't worry, they say it's good for the disposition.

[SKYO]

Yup MEDZ, takes TWO Sedins to get a whiff of being in Crosby's class, but just imagine if the Sedins had Malkin playing behind them on the 2nd line all these years?

Yup shit would be ridiculous good.

[Tiger]

Sedins are like Crosby it's hard to find proper chemsitry as the triplet long term.

naslund, linden, klatt, smolinksi, jensen, santos, dalpe, king, dorsett, megna, sutter, vrbata, eriksson, pyatt, kesler.

The trio that were the only were a good fit were Carter, Burrows and Hansen, meh players but they play hard, have a hustle attitude - swarming around the net.

But in their hey day, it didn't matter who played with them, like any great duo combination in NHL history they could made their RW have a career year.

They got one good year left, hope next season the team is improved up front and our young defense continues to develop so they can have a good farewell tour next season, end it with a bang.

Heck get the other older top tier guy Thornton July 1st, who has never won a Cup either, combine their forces for one last hurrah.

On bad drugs Skyo ? Sedins in their heyday still needed a RW that could play with them.. Together they were not in the Crosby classs.

This year they are having a tough time keeping up.. and are both - players.. Next year even if you added Thornton the line would still be an expensive low scoring , bad defensively and unable to put together a PP,, Sorry the Sedins are now older and slower..not much on forechecking and unable to get back in time to prevent odd man rushes,,

[Per]

---
Rodin - to this point I don't even know why they brought him back given he's barely played. Kind of incomplete I guess
---
I really hope I'm wrong but the team will definitely need a couple of new scorers in the very near future, let's hope they can draft them as this type of player is very expensive in free agency.

Rödin is a scorer.

He was the leading goals and points scorer in the SHL last season before the knee injury, and he led the Canucks in points in the pre-season.

Sadly it seems he still has some problems with his knee, but once it heels up he should be able to deliver.

I'm surprised he's still not 100%, since it's not your typical knee injury; it was a skate that sliced of some tendons.
I figured it should heel faster and better than when you have bone damage; Erik Karlsson hasn't seemed hampered by having his achilles' tendon sliced off and reattached. Once it had healed he was good to go.

Oh well. Guess we will have to keep waiting.

[UWSaint]

The Canucks results this season -- hanging around in playoff contention -- is mostly a mirage. They've gotten more than there fair share of cheap-o points, which I define not as the loser point in an OT or SO loss, but the winner point. (At the halfway point, their mark was 9-3 in games decided in OT and SO; today it is 9-5). They've also played more games than most of the other teams fighting for the 5-8 playoff spot. And their goal differential isn't encouraging in terms of projecting a leap over enough teams in their point bandwidth to make the playoffs (and, if the Canucks had 4 more points, I would say it would be overly optimistic to think they could hold off all of those teams and keep a playoff spot).

On the flip side, they've gotten their results missing one, two, or three of their top 5 defensemen almost the entire season. Injuries are a part of the NHL, and it always seems that injuries impact "your" team more than others. But the Canucks have little to no margin for error given their lack of depth (if the goal was the playoffs), and I've been surprised that they didn't look more like the Avalanche in results given their injuries. Regardless, the difference in the Canucks from the defensive perspective is night and day when Chris Tanev and Alex Edler are in the lineup compared to when they are not. It isn't just that you have to put guys like Alex Biega on the ice; losing Larsen (#6 when the season opened) for Biega is simply not the same in impact as losing Tanev and kicking everyone else up a slot in responsibility. The Canucks are 12-4-4 and a +3 goal differential with Chris Tanev in the lineup; 8-15-1 with a -21 goal differential without him. The Canucks have given up more than 3 goals in regulation only 3 times in those games.

Now Chris Tanev is not a magic elixir and other factors contribute to these stats (luck again in 1 goal games; more home games for a team that struggles on the road; etc.) But the overall point is that while the Canucks were on an 86 point pace through the midway point based on a fair amount of luck, it isn't pollyannish to think that they can maintain the pace and end with 84-88 points with a healthy Tanev and Edler and without that luck. The thing is, that number doesn't get you into the playoffs.

In numerous threads, posters talk encouragingly about all the young defensemen. It is encouraging to have players we have in the pipeline (or getting NHL time). But make no mistake, if the Canucks were a solid team, Stetcher and Tryamkin wouldn't be getting enough NHL time to even know what they have and had the team been deep on D last year, Hutton might not be in the NHL at all to prove his worth (me, I am not nearly as high on Hutton as others; I like him, but think he remains over his head in a top 4 role). And when Edler and Tanev are absent, we can remark with optimism about what those young defensemen serving as a future core, but today they are not anywhere close to good enough to have a lot of minutes on a playoff caliber team. The 8-15-1 record without Tanev shows this. Those young players must develop, and each of their curves are different, and outside of Tryamkin (whose improvement has been steady), there is no reason to believe that the development will be linear. For example, Hutton must play with confidence (he does not); that's a psychological thing, not something that you just learn through experience. Stetcher's warts are physical; to overcome them and be a legitimate top 4 player, he must improve his balance, body position, and defensive use of his stick. To date, he has made it this far because he is not scared and is the most competitive sonofabitch the Canucks have had in a long long time -- which should make him a fan favorite and makes me want to cheer for him. It is the thing that without makes great talent useless. These attributes are also why I don't support sending him down to the AHL because I think he will be able to succeed at the AHL-level on the basis of his competitiveness and existing skill. He needs to get worked over to use his internal competiveness to get better from a fundamentals perspective, not just winning a single puck battle against a power forward or miraculously recovering after blowing a tire. The thing is, we don't know that he has what it takes to make those next jumps.

My point is not to be a pessimist about this developing D; it is a lot more promising than what the Canucks have had in the pipeline in a long time -- perhaps as long as the 25 years I've been following this team, at least for overall depth that can mature around the same time. (There is no one I think "there's a potential true #1" like I thought with Ohlund and Edler (they didn't quite get there) and I don't know enough about Juolevi to have that level of optimism). My first point is that they are not good enough right now and my second point is that players don't develop evenly and that some player-types are probably more projectable.

From the offensive perspective, there seems to be predictable-range modest growth from the younger players (but it wasn't necessarily predictable that each of Horvat, Baerstchi, and Granlund would take a step forward) and typical and expected modest output declines from the veterans (Eriksson and the Sedins). Daniel and Henrik have really been squeezing the stick over the past 10 games or so, but I wouldn't use that snapshot as an expectation of future performance any more than I would buy the argument Granlund is a 40 goal scorer..... More concerning to be about the Sedins is not their speed (I don't actually think that's taken the hit many other posters observe) or recent play, but their lack of can-you-believe-that creativity and the deterioration of core puck skills that was still apparent when they were scoring more. Henrik's passing is not nearly as crisp as in the past and both players are having far more problems receiving off-the-mark (or even on-the-mark) passes than ever. This is especially concerning because the hands should be the last thing to go, and it is their hands combined with their intelligence and strength that made me think they had a good chance to be those Jagr-type rare players who could be effective (if not stars) into their early 40s.

But to summarize, the offense is providing what you might realistically expect (unless you actually believed Jake V. was a promising player) if things go well in terms of projectable "good" development but without a radical transformation. Absent improving special teams performances, which I am pessimistic about, the Canucks will probably score in the neighborhood of 200-210 goals; 10-20 more than last year (pretty decent considering your 2 of your top scorers were 35 years old last year) and about 10-20 shy of where they probably need to be to make the playoffs (only 2 teams made the playoffs from the west last season with less than 220 goals (Anaheim (218) and Minnesota (216); only one team missed the playoffs in the west with more than 220 goals (Calgary)).

I would say at the halfway mark the Canucks, thorough a fair amount of luck that has been offset somewhat by injury, are producing exactly the kind of product that management could realistically hope for. It is a competitive team most nights. It is a young team anchored by veterans, but the young players are getting their roles increased -- exactly how it should work during a transition. It is a team with the right attitude; the kind of team that is not going to get distracted from understanding the process and individual development is needed to achieve the end goals (that's a result of shipping out bad attitudes, alcoholics, and the impatient know-it-alls). And it is even a team with enough young talent to think that its new core can be a playoff contender.

But in the future, the Canucks are two difference makers short (three, if Markstrom isn't good enough to be a #1) of really getting to the next-next level. Imagine the 2009-12 Sedins on the 2018-19 Canucks.... Of course, add two superstars to most NHL teams.....

Still, if this season isn't considered a "good" season according to the plan, then the expectations have been way out of whack. There is improvement nearly everywhere and reason for cautious optimism. I am not sold that Twitchy Willie has been the right kind of in-game coach or tactician, but I am fairly convinced that he is an extremely good coach for individual player development. Players from other organizations have improved (he is getting more from their potential) players that the Canucks gave up on have not (they didn't have the talent-capacity or self-discipline, it wasn't like Willie didn't tap it or help it grow).

I think there is reason to doubt whether the overall talent level is enough. But the Canucks have played the hand they have been dealt well.

[2Fingers]

Excellent and well written post UW.

The only part that worries me the most at this point is in the forward, who will be the first line to move this team to be a contender. I know we have time and maybe our pick this year or next year are those players, time will only tell.

[Chef Boi RD]

Excellent and well written post UW.

The only part that worries me the most at this point is in the forward, who will be the first line to move this team to be a contender. I know we have time and maybe our pick this year or next year are those players, time will only tell.

The defence is in excellent shape with Juolevi and Brisebios coming. The goaltending is in excellent shape, apparently Demko has been lights out lately. I'm a little more optimistic with the D than UW's Eeyore opinions on the D, what's not to like? Edler is the oldest at 30. It's been awhile since we've had a good grouping of young D like this.

The team definitely needs to add to the forward group but Horvat and Boeser are pretty fine young players to start with. If Virtanen can get his head out arse then It's not so bad, apparently he had a pretty good game last night

[dangler]

This is especially concerning because the hands should be the last thing to go, and it is their hands combined with their intelligence and strength that made me think they had a good chance to be those Jagr-type rare players who could be effective (if not stars) into their early 40s.

Actually the hands are the first thing to go according to a few retired pros i've heard interviewed.

[Ronning's Ghost]

This is especially concerning because the hands should be the last thing to go, and it is their hands combined with their intelligence and strength that made me think they had a good chance to be those Jagr-type rare players who could be effective (if not stars) into their early 40s.

Actually the hands are the first thing to go according to a few retired pros i've heard interviewed.

Yeah, it's not what you'd expect, but it's what we've observed on many players in their twilight years. Any sport physiologists on this board who can tell us why?

[Ronning's Ghost]

So I'm thinking "great analysis", and then I get to

And it is even a team with enough young talent to think that its new core can be a playoff contender.

By "playoff contender", did you mean the contend to make the playoffs, or a contender once the playoff tournament began ? There's a big gap in talent between the two concepts. I agree with the former, but think that they are still at least a couple of impact players away from the latter. Maybe if Juolevi achieves nigh-Lidstrom levels....