American Thanksgiving is an important benchmark in hockey given that just over 75 percent of clubs that are in a playoff spot by this cutoff end up clinching a postseason berth.
The Vancouver Canucks who are third in the Pacific Division fall under this category, albeit with three divisional rivals each less than two points back. It’s a precarious, razor-thin edge underlined by Dom Luszczyszyn’s projections which give the Canucks 48 percent playoff odds.
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Vancouver has won just three of their last 12 games while major cracks surface in their defensive game. The Canucks are 29th in allowing 3.88 goals against per game during this stretch with a 30th ranked expected goals against rate to boot. In breaking down the tape, there are clear trends and continuing mistakes that are costing the Canucks crucial wins. The issues begin with defending the rush as the team has surrendered a whopping 59 percent of its 5-on-5 goals in transition since Nov. 7. Naturally, the majority of these transition goals against have been of the odd-man rush variety.
Teams are regularly counterattacking the Canucks with speed, favourable numbers and the rewards are coming for the opposition in droves. A lot of odd-man rushes are preceded by turnovers, but what’s surprising about the Canucks is that three of their 27 goals against have come following a turnover in the neutral zone or near the offensive blue line.
In other words, the Canucks are doing a pretty good job of managing possession and not turning it over, yet they’re still leaking these chances and goals against. This indicates there are deeper and more complex issues at play — the solution isn’t pointing to a fix as simple as managing the puck better. Let’s look into what’s gone wrong and how it can be fixed.
Forwards need to reload faster and with more intensity on the backcheck
To some extent, Vancouver’s issues defending the rush should have been expected. Alex Edler’s foot speed has deteriorated rapidly over the years which means he concedes a lot of space in the neutral zone. Despite his reach and mobility, Tyler Myers has typically held porous neutral zone defence numbers — regularly allowing the opposition to enter the zone with possession.
The key to defending the rush well is limiting the opposition’s time and space in the neutral zone with the goal of being able to force the puck carrier to dump the puck in.
This is a play from last year that serves as a good example of how to defend speed in the neutral zone. Alexander Kerfoot has no space to continue skating the puck because Troy Stecher is just a stick length away and you’ll note as soon as the former tries to make a play, Stecher’s close enough to break the play up.
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“Gap” is the space between the puck carrier and the defender and this is a sequence where Stecher’s tight gap on Kerfoot stymies the rush. On the contrary, the clip below would be an example of a loose gap — notice the time and space Evgeni Malkin has while Edler continues backing up towards the net.
You want your defenders to be aggressive in stepping up at the blue line and consistently playing a tight gap, but in order to do that you need your forwards to reload fast and backcheck hard.
“A big part of defending the rush has to do with our forwards skating hard coming back because then it allows our D to trust our gap,” Stecher said in mid-October. “If the other team chips a puck and there’s another guy coming with speed at least your forwards are back so it doesn’t turn into an odd-man rush. It’s a conscious effort of the five guys on the ice together.”
Let’s go back to that earlier clip where Stecher strips Kerfoot of the puck — this time focusing on what the forward was doing.
This is exactly what Stecher meant when he talked about needing forwards to skate hard coming back. If Nikolay Goldobin wasn’t racing back to catch Mikko Rantanen, Kerfoot would have the option to chip the puck off the boards to Rantanen and beat Stecher. In other words, the defenceman wouldn’t have been able to step up at the blue line in this example if not for the forward’s commitment to coming back.
This commitment has waned in recent times and is a big reason why teams have had lots of success attacking on the rush.
Here’s an example from Wednesday’s game against the Penguins where Zack MacEwen is the first forward back, but he shows no urgency to get low in the zone. Eventually, you can see that Jake Guentzel sends a pass through the slot to Kris Letang where MacEwen should have been to cut the lane off.
Poor support in this department has cost the Canucks numerous times this month.
In the play above, Sven Baertschi is way too lackadaisical getting back into the defensive zone. He’s one of the last forwards back into the zone so his job is to stay with the defenceman who can be the late trailer, yet Taylor Fedun not only gets an initial shot but the rebound without getting checked as well.
Check out the lacklustre backcheck in the same game by Loui Eriksson which leads to another rush goal against.
There have also been a couple of instances where a sloppy change has been responsible for leaving the Canucks’ defence out to dry.
The Canucks forwards make a bad change here and you can see that Jamie Benn has seemingly all the time in the world to make a move with no pressure behind him.
Ironically, the opposite issue plagues them against the Flyers where J.T. Miller needs a change, yet stays on amidst the confusion and subsequently coasts.
Between the confusion of changing and his tired legs, Miller doesn’t apply pressure at the blue line that would have forced the Flyers to dump the puck in. Instead, they retain possession and while it doesn’t burn them immediately, Philadelphia’s able to create zone time and score later on that same shift.
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I’m sure part of this shortcoming is the fatigue of a heavy November schedule with lots of travel, but some of the examples are inexcusable. The blue line’s not a mobile bunch defending the rush as is and inadequate back pressure is making matters worse. In the win against the Predators last week, for instance, Nashville had a 63.8 percent controlled entry rate (meaning they entered the offensive zone with puck possession on nearly two-thirds of their entry attempts) for a total of 30 possession entries at 5-on-5. This was nearly double the 16 controlled entries that the Canucks created according to my tracking.
Controlled entries, of course, matter because they yield roughly twice the number of shots and goals compared to dump-ins.
The second forechecker (F2) needs to be more consistent in cutting off lanes
Speed through the neutral zone is really hard to contain and a huge part of denying that is an effective forecheck. For their part, the Canucks employ a 1-2-2 formation.
F1 is the first man in on the forecheck and his job is to angle the defenceman to one side of the ice. The second forechecker, F2, is responsible for cutting passing lanes off and sealing the boards — pucks shouldn’t get past him up the wall. F3, meanwhile, is usually the centre and his job is to stay above the opposition’s centre to ensure there isn’t an odd-man rush coming back the other way.
Last season, I noticed that Vancouver’s F3 was too aggressive whenever they used a different 2-1-2 formation. They’ve fixed that in the 1-2-2 setup, but the issue they’re facing now is the F2 isn’t as consistent in cutting off lanes and sealing the boards. I was very impressed in October with how cohesive the Canucks forecheck was and the F2’s success was a big part of that. Opposing teams were rarely able to hit their streaking weak-side forward on the breakout and that meant they usually didn’t have speed through the neutral zone. The Canucks’ additions over the last several months in the likes of J.T. Miller, Tanner Pearson and Josh Leivo were integral for that.
That consistency has since dwindled.
Jake Virtanen gets part of his stick on the pass, but he needs to be more decisive and ensure the puck doesn’t get past him in a breakout like this. What’s disappointing thereafter, is his lack of effort on the backcheck getting back into the defensive zone — the type of sequence that encapsulates the issues the forwards are causing.
The former sixth-overall pick isn’t fortunate later in the game as he makes a bad read to jump the play which opens a lot of space for a stretch pass leading to a goal against.
Virtanen as the F2 has two options on a play like this. Contain mode would mean allowing Jamie Oleksiak (No. 2) behind the net to corral the puck to ensure he stays in the middle of the ice — in a position where he can react to whatever the Stars decide to do next.
Instead, Virtanen tries jumping the route behind the net. If he’s taking that risk, he needs to disrupt the puck before Oleksiak can make a pass and in this case, he gets burned. There’s no doubt he’s not the only player at fault in this sequence, but the primary fault begins with his mistake.
On the other side, here’s an example of the opposite — a play where the F2 is too conservative.
There are lots of players that are at fault here. Elias Pettersson gets spun around as the F3 and there’s a horrible miscommunication between Benn and Myers. The trouble starts, however, when the Canucks can’t grab the initial banked puck.
Tim Schaller starts as the first forechecker and does a good job of forcing the Nashville defender to Tyler Graovac’s side of the ice. Graovac, however, is way too passive — he needed to be closer to the boards.
Graovac needs to be closer to the forward along the boards for two reasons. For one, you don’t want that forward to be able to turn his body and skate up the ice — if Gravoac has a tight gap, the forward will be forced to make a play on his backhand. In this instance, the pass is off and so if Graovac was in a better F2 position, he would have easily scooped up the puck when it was banked off the boards and before Viktor Arvidsson could get to it.
Aside from this, there have been a few examples where the second forechecker in the neutral zone isn’t able to seal the boards off. Watch how the puck gets by Pettersson allowing Bryan Rust (#17) to get full possession in the example below which leads to a goal against.
Tanner Pearson makes a nearly identical mistake against the Avalanche which leads to quality rush chance for Colorado.
The Canucks have seen a really sharp downturn in their defensive form in the last few weeks. They’re allowing goals against at an alarming rate and the underlying numbers show that the issues go far beyond goaltending. What I find interesting is the way in which opposing teams are creating offence. Last season, the Canucks saw a significant proportion of their goals against start with turnovers which makes sense when you consider the minutes the likes of Erik Gudbranson and Derrick Pouliot logged. In January last season, almost half the Canucks’ goals against began with either a failed zone exit or icing.
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Those problems have subsided as very few of the goals against this month have come from failed breakouts — we’re seeing different problems this time around. One issue that we didn’t cover in this piece was that the Canucks are losing a ton of puck battles that are directly leading to goals against — opposing teams are burying Vancouver with rebound goals.
The biggest concern, however, is how the Canucks are defending the rush, which accounts for a staggering 59 percent of the opposition’s 5-on-5 goals since Nov.7. For reference, rush goals represented just 29 percent of the goals against in the tracked January sample from last season.
Part of this is because of the defence’s composition, but the forwards have been a lot worse this month in providing support. They’ve been very lackadaisical in backchecking which makes it impossible for the defencemen to play tight gaps, while the F2 on the forecheck has been a lot less consistent compared to October in cutting off passing lanes on the opposition’s breakout.
Maybe it’s a result of an exhausting schedule, maybe it’s a lack of attention to detail, or maybe it’s because of some of the more responsible players are injured. Whatever you want to chalk up the issues to, the Canucks forwards need to be a lot better away from the puck to patch up the team’s transition defence woes.
(Photo: Glenn James/NHLI via Getty Images)
