[GDT/PGT] Vancouver Canucks Vs. Calgary Flames, Scotia Saddledome, September 24, @ 5PM PST, Preseason Game #1

[Goose]

5 hours ago, JamesB said:

I also liked Studnicka's game tonight. His "high danger Corsi" at 5-on-5 was 5 for and only 1 against, tied with Suter for the best on the team.

 

But I did not think Aman and Joshua were good and, frankly, I think both those guys were over-rated last year. I like Studnicka with Suter or with Bluegar.

 

 

 

Im betting Bluegar will line up w Suter/Garland.  

 

And for a small team NA is 6’2” DJ is 6’3” and when they are on they are easily the team’s best grinders.  You forget both played their first full NHL season last year. Let them develop bc they have some chemistry and attributes this team sorely needs.  

[Canuckleheads Fan]

1 hour ago, wai_lai416 said:

by your logic the regulars shouldn't play a single preseason games coz they are all mean nothing game and all a risk for an injury. playoff roster? they dressed 40% of the regulars.. they missed the playoff last year their players struggled last season they got a new coach.. probably a good idea to play the regulars more to get an idea how the coach wants them to play instead of just practice and figure it out in game 1 of the season. every preseason the coach and management current and past treats it like no big deal.. the regular plays about 2 games in the preseason usually 1 with non regular lineups where they test out combinations.. and 1 final tune up before regular season.. and every year the team starts off like they are still in training camp. is it really that hard to rotate a regular forward line and a defence pairing in each game so they can start building chemistry right away? not much to evaluate when you ice ahl vs nhl.. and not much to evaluate again when you ice ur nhl vs others ahl lineup. i'm sure the management already know whos the first cut even before this game. 

Calgary dressed their top line and their top goalie. The Flames top line has two guys who two years ago were top ten to 15 in the league at their positions. The AHLers the Canucks dressed have nothing like that. I'm not opposed to dressing regulars, but you dress them at home so the fans can see them. What would have happened if they had dressed Petey's line? They would have lost 6-2 instead and everybody would have felt just as angry. Big deal. How stupid would the staff look if they dressed Quinn or Petey and they got hurt. This will be a season of managing workload for the team's top six forwards, top 4 D, and Demko. There is a lot in flux now, a lot of guys on the bubble. The staff still has to figure out who's in the bottom six and who are D6 and D7. So throw them out there and see who sinks and who swims. Hirose helped himself, so did Aman, Hogz, and Karlson. Suter did well on the dot, so did Sasson. Looks like they were trying to see if Studnicka could handle some of the center load. On the other side, I think Dries, Klimovich, Woo, Rathbone, Raty, and sadly Juulsen all get an early ticket to Abby. Irwin probably sticks because of his experience. I'm bothered by Podz stat line, only -1 but with zero hits and shots. There are five more preseason games, I expect to see more regulars, but still a lot of bubble players in the next two games in Edmonton and Seattle, as the bubble guys will be fighting for jobs. They will likely dress half the regulars for the fourth and fifth games and then the last game should be about 75% regulars as it's the final dress rehersal. Based on player interviews and the media reports of those who were there, the top two groups generally looked excellent in camp, very fit, dialed in, and ready to work hard. They deserved a night off. This was game one of six PRESEASON GAMES stop being drama queens!

Edited September 25, 2023 by Canuckleheads Fan

[Canuckleheads Fan]

6 minutes ago, Canuckleheads Fan said:

Sorry, double post

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Canuckleheads Fan

[The Aquaman]

Go back to bed Alf. 

[Alflives]

13 minutes ago, A_G said:

 

Im betting Bluegar will line up w Suter/Garland.  

 

And for a small team NA is 6’2” DJ is 6’3” and when they are on they are easily the team’s best grinders.  You forget both played their first full NHL season last year. Let them develop bc they have some chemistry and attributes this team sorely needs.  

Joshua and Aman don’t make the big club. They are AHL depth players. 

[Odd.]

Jesus the amount of coping in this thread.

 

call it like it is. A 10-0 blowout largely in part due to the lack of effort from majority of the guys. AHL fodder or not, losing 10-0 is not acceptable. Even a 5-0 loss without EFFORT is bad enough. 
 

What this game tells me is that unless your name is Suter or Garland, everyone other spot in the bottom 6 is up for grabs.

[DrJockitch]

Felt bad for Woo. Finally starts to progress as player and gets in a game.
Puck pinballs off of him to start game then immediately takes penalty that results in second goal on another lucky bounce. 
 

They got some lucky bounces early and it was all downhill from there. 
Bad start from most of what were going to be the early cuts. 
No excusing the lack of effort and pushback. 
This game made some of the cuts much easier. 

[DownUndaCanuck]

The real L here is why Calgary would play their full squad on the first game? Do they not want to see how their kids will do? Do they not have internal competition? Bit bizarre. Usually you start low and build up.

 

Don't mind the score, we sucked across the board but individually was good to see Studnicka surprise people.

[Alflives]

15 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

The real L here is why Calgary would play their full squad on the first game? Do they not want to see how their kids will do? Do they not have internal competition? Bit bizarre. Usually you start low and build up.

 

Don't mind the score, we sucked across the board but individually was good to see Studnicka surprise people.

We also learned why getting deSmith was important.

[Jeremy Hronek]

8 hours ago, Dumb Nuck said:

What happened tonight isn't good for anyones career.

You might be surprised.

 

Despite the 10-0 shellacking that we received, Akito Hirose was not on the ice for any of the goals.  Not only that, but he had one of the highest ice-time totals and was also on the ice for a few of Calgary's PP's.  

[TNucks1]

5 hours ago, Dumb Nuck said:

Because our identity is that of a soft team, not a good thing in hockey.

boys its first pre-season game, it was awful lol i wont argue about that, but wait till we roster cut and get the real season going, but yeah sh!t was terrible. lets take it easy.

[IBatch]

6 hours ago, Dumb Nuck said:

Our worst shutout loss since March 1, 1992

Do you remember those couple games in the early 90's we stomped CAL, in the actual regular season?   11-1 is one game I remember.   It was delicious good fun, especially given how good the Lames were back then.   
 

This is a pre-season game, AHL/Depth, with Garland as our best forward, a guy who's played third line minutes the last two season with us. 

 

Our D.   Irwin!   A career 6-8th D leading the charge.    Haven't seen you around for awhile.   Was it because you got banned?   Nice to have you back, but let's start out with some manners.    Gleefully pointing out we lost in 1992 10-0, what's the purpose of that other then dangling the hook with some bait.     

 

And this is the best part ... WAIT for it other bait takers - WE WON March 1, 1992 - against the Flames, and the score was 11-0. 

 

 

 

Maybe show a little compassion for our team.    They lost, and lost in embarrassing fashion.    That can be a motivator as well.   Just like back in the early 90's.   IMO the best rivalry we've ever had was CAL 1989-1995ish.   It wasn't bad in the 2000's either.   Had its moments at the end of the Sedin era.   A little spark like this might be good to get it going again.   CAL and VAN should be going hammer and tong this year, fighting for a wild card spot, or possibly the 3rd spot.   

Edited September 25, 2023 by IBatch

[Ghostsof1915]

We understand it's a pre-season game with mostly our prospects. I think why everyone is triggered is it looked a lot like the team last year. It would have been different if it was 4-2, 5-3 or something. And we saw some urgency, and some drive. That game made our prospects look shell shocked. These are supposed to be players trying to push for jobs. You can't expect fans to not be effected by the sub-par results the past few seasons, and not get alarmed at the style of play last night.

[Alflives]

2 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

We understand it's a pre-season game with mostly our prospects. I think why everyone is triggered is it looked a lot like the team last year. It would have been different if it was 4-2, 5-3 or something. And we saw some urgency, and some drive. That game made our prospects look shell shocked. These are supposed to be players trying to push for jobs. You can't expect fans to not be effected by the sub-par results the past few seasons, and not get alarmed at the style of play last night.

Would have been good to see some of our younger guys fight. Show some gumption. 

[Hairy Kneel]

Calgary almost got into bad injury trouble there. But their physicality was imposing on us tonight.  It intimidated our young guys.

Studnicka lots of hype, however that one on one vs Kadri towards the boards and lost badly. If he wants to change his game to a physical defender, (he's only scored 5 goals in his 87 nhl games). He needs to find that toughness in Abby.

 

We need to  streamline the roster down right away to get the 2 or 3 marginal additions into the fold. Some young guys deserve a mulligan but not many.

 

Raty, looks stronger than last year. He's a young guy that got the message about coming back fitter, stronger. Stays for now.

(I didn't care for Raty last year but he's come in steady ready).

 

Everybody hates Hogs. So he must be doing something right. The makings of a superpest. He's a magnet for defenders. If he can add some shots in there, definitely needs another look.

 

Irwin, vet presence like Benn, 7 or 8 spot for him.

Juulsen, we need to see more of him.

McWard, his shooting is very good. Deserves another look.

 

Akita Hirose, steady and fast, stays up for now, high hockey IQ.

 

Joshua, doesn't look in shape? needs to prove it, again. Stays with the big club for now.

 

Podz, I saw one amazing game he played against NYR last year. He needs to find that again. Find his swagger. I don't think he has the highest hockey IQ so he should keep his game extremely simple. And he's getting targeted like Hogs; he needs to get stronger. Its amazing he got 14 g's his first year, maybe he should watch his own tapes? Gonchar should explain this to him in Russian,  slowly.

Abby for now, first call up.

 

Rathbone looked great on the pp but that's it. Abby.

Woo; Abby bound, he needs to contend for 8-9 spot. 

Johannson - Abby

 

Joshua, Irwin and Hogs were on an island out there, fighting with the big Calgary D. Then the refereeing also intimidated us, making us hesitant to take a bad penalty. (But we've seen that before). It was a clusterfrump of a situation.  I think this rivalry with Calgary could get ugly this year, we are both fighting for the wildcard. They will use their size against us.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Hairy Kneel

[Canuck You]

Icing an AHL team was probably a good thing. It put things in to perspective, Showed what this group is made out of and who wants it the most.

[HorvatToBaertschi]

10 hours ago, Riddikulus said:

Because that's how things generally are early in the pre-season. Teams dress more regulars in the home games than the away games. Its not just the Canucks, other teams around the NHL do the same. Its disappointing that some of the kids didn't step up but people need to chill.

I'm chill about the fact we lost 10-0 to be honest. I just don't understand why we are sticking to the status quo when everybody in the entire franchise has emphasized the absolute dire need to start the season strong. It's almost like we have a tendency to start seasons off on the wrong foot, and force ourselves to play catch up all season, to inevitably miss the playoffs altogether.

 

One singular conventional playoff appearance in the last 10 years. (The 2nd one was helped by the play-in, as we weren't in a conventional playoff position). 

[Mrwipeout]

yea im also stumped abt this huge loss but as mentioned its the very first preseason game with prospects vs skilled NHL pros and their top players to add to that mountain. id rather just take it as a training shift that went bad then anything else. 

[Rypien-Punch]

ive noticed in previous seasons other teams playing almost their full roster right from the beginning with the Canucks not playing their full roster until the last game or two of pre season and being a step behind during the first game and struggling to get a good start to the season. I hope we dont do that again this season. 

[Dizzle]

8 hours ago, Canuckle said:

yeah, you’re right  I’m sorry I changed the meaning of your post and then used it to buffer my own point  

It’s fine, it happens. Water under the bridge. 

[AatuD2]

9 hours ago, JamesB said:

My take:

 

1. It is not as bad as it looks.

 

2. First, the shots were equal 26 to 26. Of course, people will say that Calgary had better quality shots, which they did. But not that much better. Natural Stat Trick has the expected goals as 2.96 for Calgary vs. 2.21 for the Canucks, so roughly 3 to 2.

 

3. The Canuck goaltending was, obviously,  terrible. It is hard to give up 10 goals on 26 shots. That is a significantly higher scoring rate (10/26 = 38%) than you get with penalty shots or breakaways.  Some of it was bad luck but both goalies struggled badly as well.

 

4. Some of the Canucks were good. The underlying stats were consistent with my view of the eye test. McWard had excellent numbers. His Corsi was 13 shot attempts for and 5 shot attempts against. His expected goal differential is even better at 1.04 xGF and only 0.18 xGA.  I won't quote the numbers but Suter and Studnicka were both very good and Podz was good. Suter, Studnicka and Podz played a lot together so it might be hard to isolate individual contributions but all those guys looked good in my view.  And they did not have particularly easy minutes.

 

5. Somehow Hirose managed to get a 0 plus/minus although his expected plus minus (xGF - xGA) was not good.  Irwin had an ugly +/- of -4 but his expected plus/minus was a solid positive.

 

6. I have been pulling for both Woo and Juulsen, both both guys did not look even close to being NHL players tonight and the underlying stats bear that out. Juulsen looked slow in straight line  skating and slow in response time and also exhibited poor decision-making.

 

7. I think Aman, Joshua, and Dries will have a hard time making the team. Right now I would bet against all three of them.

 

8. I don't think Hogs hurt his chances tonight. He plays a hard, aggressive, high-energy game. 

 

9. Of the guys playing tonight, I still think Suter and Hogs are the only locks to make the team. I think Podz has a good shot (better than 50-50) and I think Studnicka keeps improving his chances. On D, both Irwin and McWard helped themselves tonight. Obviously the Canucks expect McWard to play in Abby, but I think he will get a fairly close look in preseason. And Irwin plays well (although he is slow) and standing up for Hogs helped him. The Canucks need someone who projects some toughness. Irwin helps on that and Joshua contributes less in that dimension that you would hope.

 

9. Anyway, we will see a few more regulars in the next game. 

 

 

 

- Yes, Vancouver was fairly even with Calgary past the 15 minute mark of the first period. The problem is that all the shots kept going in through both goalies. They couldn't stop a beach ball. Arty had a particularly bad game, starting with the first goal trickling through him at a snails' pace. 

 

- I haven't looked at the numbers, but those stats pretty much match my eye test.  Hirose, McWard, and Irwin march on while Woo, Juulsen, and Rathbone have taken a significant blow to their NHL chances. 

 

- Dries at least put a few Flames on their ass tonight. Joshua and Aman didn't impose themselves and played as if their NHL jobs are guaranteed. 

 

- Hogs was one of our few bright spots next to Raty, but then he made some really lazy plays in the 3rd period. Mind you, it was probably 9-0 at that point. 

 

- I don't think we will see more regulars in the next game. Looks like Johansson and Loewen are the only other guys who made the trip and didn't dress. You think that they'll fly some more guys out? 

 

Last point for everyone complaining about this game: it's not a disaster, it's just a disappointment that nobody else stepped up. Hopes of McDonough, Juulsen, Woo, Klimovich, and a few others took a big hit today. 

 

Huberdeau and Kadri sliced our team open and our goalies were just awful. 

[Locke Lamora]

Amazing how quickly this place feels like the old place. 

[AatuD2]

42 minutes ago, Rypien-Punch said:

ive noticed in previous seasons other teams playing almost their full roster right from the beginning with the Canucks not playing their full roster until the last game or two of pre season and being a step behind during the first game and struggling to get a good start to the season. I hope we dont do that again this season. 

 

Just to play devil's advocate, if Huberdeau's injury proved to be serious, we would be singing a different tune. 

 

They did also lose Gilbert, who may or may not have been in their opening lineup. 

 

I am okay with one more game for rookies, and then games 3, 4, 5, and 6 for our regulars. 

[AatuD2]

1 hour ago, Hairy Kneel said:

I think this rivalry with Calgary could get ugly this year, we are both fighting for the wildcard. They will use their size against us.

 

 

 

It will get ugly against a lot of teams.  We could've solved that with one simple 1 million contract to Lucic for 1 year. 

 

Joshua solves nothing on the physical front except for standing up to Garland in practice. 

[AatuD2]

1 hour ago, IBatch said:

This is a pre-season game, AHL/Depth, with Garland as our best forward, a guy who's played third line minutes the last two season with us. 

 

Our D.   Irwin!   A career 6-8th D leading the charge.

 

Garland didn't even play in this game. 

 

I think that we had our 11th, 12th, and 13th forwards in the game. 

 

For our D, I think we had our 7th and 8th d-men in the game.