It’s just one game.
That’s the wisest refrain to bear in mind at the outset of a new NHL season.
The samples are too small for us to draw any conclusions with confidence, and will be for months. One game isn’t even enough time to spot a meaningful trend and suggest that it’s anything more than, well, one game.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t dwell on and discuss the result from Wednesday night’s Vancouver Canucks season opener. It was a wildly dramatic 6-5 overtime loss to the Calgary Flames, one that seemed especially disappointing given the context.
Higher expectations surround the Canucks as the club heads into this season. The loss came at the hands of a rebuilding Flames side that shouldn’t be in the same weight class as Vancouver, and didn’t seem to be in the opening 20 minutes on Wednesday evening. Then there was the baffling nature of the club’s dramatic collapse in the latter 40 minutes and in overtime. It was just one game, but it was a game that provided an unusual amount of grist for the mill.
There’s no big picture here, not yet anyway. It really was just a single contest, one in which the Canucks sustained no meaningful harm and still picked up a point.
As the club prepares to play the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night, let’s further unpack some of what we noticed from Game 1 and break down some of the lineup tweaks that Rick Tocchet debuted at the club’s practice out at the UBC on Thursday afternoon.
How will Vancouver solve its third-pair puck-moving woes?
Physical, big-bodied defencemen who lack dynamic speed and are limited with the puck almost always work best with a quicker, more skilled partner who can handle breakout responsibilities.
Vincent Desharnais, for example, had the best season of his career last year playing third-pair minutes next to a smooth-skating, quality puck-mover in Brett Kulak. The Canucks went away from that by slotting Desharnais and Forbort, their two most limited puck-moving defencemen, together on the third pair for opening night.
This idea seemed questionable from the start and the early returns were troubling: Vancouver was outshot 7-3, out-chanced 6-1 and outscored 2-0 during Forbort’s five-on-five minutes.
Predictably, the biggest problem for this pair was breaking the puck out of their zone. Let’s break down why they struggled in that area with a series of clips from the first period.
On the pair’s first shift of the game, Desharnais got cleanly pickpocketed by Jonathan Huberdeau as he went back to collect the puck. As the Flames drove the slot, the puck came loose to Forbort who immediately put it on the tape of a Flames player. Danton Heinen took a slashing penalty in the process, all of which could have been avoided with a clean puck retrieval by Desharnais in the first place:
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Some more plodding defencemen, like Ian Cole and Luke Schenn for example, can still execute outlet passes because of their feel for pressure. Desharnais and Forbort, however, didn’t really demonstrate that feel or reliable passing ability on Wednesday night. Looking at the breakout attempt below, Forbort has no real pressure on him as he collects the puck in the corner. He has an abundance of time to get his head up and make a tape-to-tape pass to Jake DeBrusk, who’s positioned on the defensive half-wall with space around him.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Forbort decided to rifle the puck off the glass and out, which gave DeBrusk no chance to settle the puck and help his line keep possession.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
In the play below, Desharnais had plenty of time and space to make a clean pass, but he missed the mark and got called for icing.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Now it’s often easy to simply point the finger at third-pair defenders after a tough night, but while Desharnais and Forbort struggled mightily with the puck, Vancouver’s wingers could have done more to assist them on the breakout, too. The wingers occasionally provided lacklustre puck support when this pair tried to rim the puck around the boards to relieve pressure; they have a tough job because they’re trying to balance the responsibility of providing enough help on the breakout (which can require staying deeper in the defensive zone), while still prioritizing rush offense (which can involve blowing the defensive zone quickly).
Still, there were preventable mistakes like the play below where Daniel Sprong coasted back in the defensive zone, got caught flat-footed and was easily beaten to the puck when Forbort rimmed it around the boards.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Since last year, the Canucks have also run a lot of subtle interference on forecheckers to give their defencemen more time on breakouts. This can work brilliantly on occasion, like in the clip below where Forbort sprung Kiefer Sherwood for a two-on-one, but it isn’t a consistent or reliable strategy to solve the bottom pair’s lack of mobility and difficulty beating pressure with sharp outlet passes. Watch how Desharnais and Nils Åman got in the way of Calgary’s forecheckers to give Forbort some extra time with the puck.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
It was only one game, but it was a tough outing for Forbort-Desharnais. The pair will need to sharply improve the next time they get a shot together, or they might not be a combo the Canucks can rely on this season at even strength.
New-look lines
At practice on Thursday afternoon, Tocchet made a couple of tweaks to his lineup.
Now that we’re in season, we’d expect the Canucks bench boss to play with a lineup that’s consistent with the one he practices with. That’s how he did it last season anyway, and while things are a little bit more moveable at the back end of the roster this season given the club’s cap situation — the club is operating outside of Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTI) at the moment, and will likely shuttle some players up and down from Abbotsford more regularly to aid in accruing cap space daily — we’d expect a similar approach this season.
There’s a certain language to the choices NHL coaches make with their lineup, especially when they’re coming off disappointing performances. Sometimes, if the coach likes how the club played in a narrow loss, they’ll opt to make no changes whatsoever. That sends a loud message to their team: we’re doing the right things, I’m confident in our process, let’s stick to it and the results will come. Sometimes a coach will completely reset their lineup, which usually signals a need to shake things up, an effort to put the group on their toes and elicit a significant response in the next game.
On Thursday, Tocchet went with a third approach. There were a few minor tweaks made in the bottom six and on the third pair and a couple of notable demotions, but for the most part, the key elements of Vancouver’s lineup from opening night were preserved:
Thursday #Canucks practice lines
Heinen. Miller. Boeser.
DeBrusk. Pettersson. Sprong.
Suter. Räty. Garland.
Höglander. Blueger. Sherwood.Extras: Åman, Bains
Hughes. Hronek.
Soucy. Myers.
Forbort. Juulsen.
Desharnais.@Sportsnet650 pic.twitter.com/RGtPNuyljP— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) October 10, 2024
Here are four quick reactions to some of the changes that Tocchet made to his lineup on Thursday:
1. Räty sticks at centre, even with Suter drawing back in: With Pius Suter expected to draw back into the Vancouver lineup on Friday night against Philadelphia, Aatu Räty nonetheless held down the third-line centre spot at practice on Thursday. While Räty’s game was mostly quiet in the season opener, it’s worth noting that he won five of six faceoffs. That the club is bumping Suter out to the wing now that he’s seemingly ready to return speaks volumes. It tells us that Räty, 21, will have an awfully long leash if he can continue to be that reliable in the faceoff dot.
2. Desharnais draws out of the lineup for Juulsen: As we’ve already covered, Vancouver’s third pair struggled in the season opener, and Tocchet appears to be wasting no time trawling for some answers. Noah Juulsen was a regular for Vancouver last season and excelled on the penalty kill, in particular. He’s a similar player type to Desharnais overall, however, and while he’s a slightly more dynamic puck carrier, there’s cause to be skeptical about whether this lineup change addresses the breakout issues that afflicted the third pair on opening night.
3. Höglander moves to the fourth line: The combination of Nils Höglander and Conor Garland — a duo that’s had some chemistry in the past and performed well together throughout training camp, the preseason and in the season opener — never seems to stick together for very long. Höglander had a solid performance on opening night, but with Suter returning to the lineup, Tocchet decided to break up the third line and bump Höglander down to play with Teddy Blueger and Sherwood on the fourth line. While that seems like a demotion, it’s probably not that significant. The way Tocchet manages his bench, the fourth line and the third line are given similar minutes, and various bottom-six players will likely get opportunities with top-six teammates as the game develops and the bench shortens somewhat. Truthfully, on this team, a player’s role isn’t best described by where they take line rushes during the warmup skate. On opening night, for example, Heinen, Sprong and Räty played the fewest five-on-five minutes among Canucks forwards despite opening the game on the first, second and third lines, respectively. Sherwood, meanwhile, may have opened the game on the fourth line, but finished fifth among all Canucks forwards in five-on-five ice time, which could be fairly described as holding down a top-six role.
4. Åman the odd man out: For much of Game 1, Åman appeared to have carved himself out a larger-than-expected role. He played significantly in the first and second periods. He was, along with Blueger, on the first penalty killing duo over the boards. As the game drifted away from Vancouver, however, Åman was on the ice for two of Calgary’s key goals — MacKenzie Weegar’s game-tying goal on the power play, and Huberdeau’s go-ahead goal late in the third. On the first of those goals, Åman drifted into the mid-slot and provided a crucial flash screen that hid Weegar’s release from Artūrs Šilovs. On the second of those goals, Åman drifted too aggressively up high in the zone, displacing Sherwood from his assignment. That decision led directly to Vancouver being outnumbered in the blue paint, where Huberdeau found the devastating 5-4 tally. Where Höglander moving from line three to line four feels like a move that we shouldn’t read too much into, Åman moving out of the top 12 seems like something more significant. He’ll need to make sure he’s tighter defensively when he gets back into the lineup.
DeBrusk’s speed and the Canucks’ new rush-attack style
The Canucks looked fast, dynamic and dangerous off the rush offensively against Calgary. It’s only one game, but it felt like a night and day difference compared to last year when they were one of the league’s least effective teams at generating rush offence.
Why did the Vancouver look so much more threatening?
There are several reasons, but one trend we wanted to spotlight is that weak side players seem to have the green light to join the rush if they see a promising play developing and that the puck carriers are often looking for that extra passing target.
Watch how deep Carson Soucy is at the start of the clip and then pay attention to how aggressively he hustles up the ice to turn an offensive entry where Heinen is swarmed without passing options into a quality scoring chance.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Soucy jumped up in the rush several times like this in preseason too. He’s probably the only defender besides Quinn Hughes or Filip Hronek who has enough speed and a decent enough shot to benefit from a philosophical change that encourages defencemen to join the rush.
Of course, the club’s speedy forward signings help the rush attack cause too. DeBrusk, in particular, adds a new gear to the club’s top-six transition scoring potential. Watch how quickly he activates up the weak side. He turned an ordinary two-on-two into a three-on-two. From there, Sprong fired a diagonal cross-seam to hit DeBrusk on the backdoor for a Grade-A scoring chance.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
The speed and intention to attack the weak side are key, but it’s also noteworthy that the puck carriers have the freedom to try these diagonal east-west passes too. Vancouver was very conservative in managing the puck on entries and almost exclusively moved the puck north, rather than experimenting with higher-risk, higher-reward lateral plays. It seems like the forwards are allowed to make some calculated gambles if the risk-to-reward ratio makes sense.
Here’s another example of that, where Höglander lobbed an aerial diagonal pass to hit Garland streaking on the weak side.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Activating the weak side seems like a key part of Vancouver’s attempt at a more dynamic rush attack.
Why Sherwood is going to become a fan favourite
The Canucks’ fourth-line wingers lacked a distinct identity during the second half when Höglander got promoted from the fourth line to the top six. Sure, the likes of Sam Lafferty, Phil Di Giuseppe and Åman were defensively responsible and good skaters, but they couldn’t manufacture offence, weren’t very physical and overall struggled to generate energy and momentum for the team.
Sherwood, presuming he doesn’t work his way up the lineup at some point, is the antidote for that. He’s a relentless ball of energy, playing every shift like it’s his last in the NHL. He hits, wins battles, has above-average offensive touch for a fourth-liner and gets under the skin of the opposition. Sherwood was one of the Canucks’ only players who had jump the entire game against Calgary.
The feisty winger drew cheers from the Rogers Arena faithful in the first period when his dogged solo forechecking effort on the penalty kill delayed the Flames’ power-play regroup.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
There were countless examples of his speed and pressure causing havoc. Here’s another one where he came off the bench and took away the passing option back to the defencemen. Huberdeau was subsequently forced to play the puck up the wall where the Canucks had numbers. Sherwood fished the puck free with one arm and set up Blueger for a slot-scoring chance.
Video courtesy Sportsnet
Don’t be surprised if Sherwood becomes a fan favourite or unsung hero this season.
(Photo of Vincent Desharnais and Ryan Lomberg: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
