[PGT] Vancouver Canucks at Calgary Flames // November 16, 2023

[spook007]

38 minutes ago, spook007 said:

 

I don't entirely agree with you assessment. Have we been lights out, no, but bar from the game against the Seas, where the best team probably didn't win, I think we've played decently (except for the Leafs game obviously)...

 

Good teams don't play lights out every game, but they find ways to win, and Canucks has done so.... We lost yesterday, but it was blatantly obvious the boys were out of gas and needed a rest... not just Petey but several of the players.

 

It doesn't always have to be your top line/lines that pull the coals out of the fire... I thought taking Garland of the 3rd line and put him together with Petey was a bad move as the 3rd line had been playing really well recently. Should perhaps have given that line more minutes instead. Beau has played well with Petey before, so maybe that would have been better.

 

Regardless, we were never going to valse through the season, without struggles and losses, so I don't think concerns are warranted just yet. Furthermore, I think folks have to remember, where this team came from. At the start of the season we were arguing over, whether it was a wild card team or not... ie this team is in uncharted territory for themselves as well, and as such, there will be ups and downs along the way, especially when they run out of gas and are having to travel away for a back to back game.

 

12 minutes ago, wai_lai416 said:

i dunno what game you were watching if you think we were decent against ottawa.. the only reason we won was they were atrocious goaltending.. 3 total shot in the 1st.. scoring on 2 of them.. 2 more goals on 6 shots in the 3rd.. ottawa outplayed us in pretty much all 3 periods.

the 1st period against the islanders were also bad. i dunno which game you are referring to where the best team didn't win so no comment on that. but let say in the last 15 periods of hockey we were good in maybe 5 periods? 

 

i'm enjoying the wins right now, i'm enjoying the show EP Hughes miller demko hronek is putting up right now, but i'm still not sold on this team yet until they start getting their high danger chances against down.. it's not realistic for the canucks to be shooting at the percentage they are shooting at now nor is it realistic for demko to stop almost every single high danger chance. i want to see their chances against drop to the middle of the league before declaring they are.. really we are looking more organize but we are still giving up the same amount of high danger chance as last year.. and pk wise still needs a lot of work.. we are only like 3% better than last season. 

 

I said, bar from the game against Sens... (auto correct changed it to Seas) and the Toronto game, I though we played well...

 

I don't think they were decent against Sens... Yes it would be nice to see high danger chances against drop, but its nowhere near as bad as you suggest. We are scoring for fun, and as for PK, we are miles better PKing this year compared to last year.

Yes in real terms it may say 3% but in you watch the games, you can surely see the difference... I'll bet you anything that when the season is over this team will have improved its PK at least 5-10% compared to last year, which would be in the middle somewhere. As of now we are 23rd in the league...

[hockeyfan-observer]

Never fun to lose but a good time to re-focus -  teams will bring their A game against them in the next while.

It is also a good opportunity for the Canucks to learn about some problem areas in a long season - hopefully the coaches study the game tapes and maybe devise some adjustments in case upcoming opponents employ similar strategies such as the strong relentless fore-check etc.. PHIL CAL TO all seem to play that way in their wins.

    

Another 3/4 season to go with some of up and downs  but hopefully the team will learn something NEW to improve on from each loss.+ what they can do better. 

 

Teams will adjust to nullify their strengths but they can alter their strategies as well to go after their opponents weaknesses.

 

Go Canucks

[Flipper]

1 hour ago, Dr. Crossbar said:

 

You are correct! The most accurate post ever on this forum. 

Yeah but to be fair, THIS forum is only 2 months old…

[CRAZY_4_NAZZY]

 

[RookieFan]

10 minutes ago, hockeyfan-observer said:

Never fun to lose but a good time to re-focus -  teams will bring their A game against them in the next while.

It is also a good opportunity for the Canucks to learn about some problem areas in a long season - hopefully the coaches study the game tapes and maybe devise some adjustments in case upcoming opponents employ similar strategies such as the strong relentless fore-check etc.. PHIL CAL TO all seem to play that way in their wins.

    

Another 3/4 season to go with some of up and downs  but hopefully the team will learn something NEW to improve on from each loss.+ what they can do better. 

 

Teams will adjust to nullify their strengths but they can alter their strategies as well to go after their opponents weaknesses.

 

Go Canucks

You cant "out learn" injuries to your 3 key guys and fatigue on B2B nights. You cant be sad about a loss either sometimes a loss is just that, an expected loss its okay.

[Jaimito]

 

 

[bishopshodan]

I told you all that we were going to lose last night! Something about the odds, that the bookies are never wrong, and that our guys had too many games in the last little while. I mentioned trying to predict a winning score was silly and...

 

..wait, that wasn't me.

 

nm

 

Go Nucks!

[Bure10Kuzmenko96]

5 hours ago, Alflives said:

Didn’t Hirose get sent back down? 

He was sent down to bring up Karlsson for Kuzmenko. Kuz is looking like he's good to go for tomorrow's game so they sent down Karlsson and brought Hirose up

[Jaimito]

 

 

 

[CanucksJay]

3 hours ago, Alflives said:

We played 5 games in 8 days and in 5 different cities. Guys had no juice. But coach Tocchet pointed out that on those nights the players need to learn to be more careful with the puck. No excuses. 

I think that'll be the next evolution of this team. 

Learning how to manage the game better when they are tired. 

Hopefully we don't see a dumb schedule like that for the rest of the year. 

To come back home from an eastern road trip for 1 game and then play the second of a back to back in another city is ridiculous. 

[grumpyone]

1 hour ago, Jaimito said:

 

 

but that WAS a nice birthday present to give the kid. One game in the show. 

[Jaimito]

6 minutes ago, grumpyone said:

but that WAS a nice birthday present to give the kid. One game in the show. 

Yeah.  He almost scored too.  Too bad didn't get one.  

[Googlie]

4 hours ago, JayDangles said:

I think your post is mostly accurate. To canucks credit we have not lost 2 in a row, so they know not to let things start sliding.

I will say I agree that the team is not playing like a 12-4-1 team the last 5-6 games.

Honestly I don't know if the canucks technically were the better team in any of the last 4-6 games. Maybe the Montreal game. 

I think it started going back to the last edmonton game. Canucks did not start the game looking sharp and ready. Edm really took it to us if I'm being honest.

Ottawa definitely outplayed us, we just got a couple quick ones on them.

Toronto outplayed us. Montreal was a close game. NYI had us hemmed in a lot, and we desperately needed all 6 of our powerplays to stay in that game.

Last night the Flames were definitely controlling the game. We could barely enter the offensive zone successfully in the 2nd or 3rd.

To summarize, I think the team has been playing some clunkers for a while, and folks are noticing that. We are making excuses for each individual game, but the fact is they have not been the better team in any of those games despite winning most of them. That isn't sustainable by any means.

 

I'm not criticizing the team or the players. We are still among the league lead, but if things don't turn around quickly that will start to change, and it can change very very quickly if other teams start rolling.

 

Just pointing out ..... 6 games ago (or 5) Canucks weren't a 12-4-1 team

[Ghostsof1915]

[DownUndaCanuck]

I like Hirose coming in, would have preferred more of a veteran like Wolanin but Hirose and Myers have had success together. Crazy to think that we have the best defensive pairing in the league in Hughes - Hronek, and then our bottom-2 defencemen are two of the worst in the league. The middle guys (Cole and Myers) are pretty decent/average.

[PhillipBlunt]

15 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

[Ghostsof1915]

I've been a supporter of Juulsen because I want him to get a fair shake.

It's not like he's doing bad, he's just not doing great either.

Maybe it's time to go to the AHL and get some time in.

 

[CanucksJay]

14 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

I've been a supporter of Juulsen because I want him to get a fair shake.

It's not like he's doing bad, he's just not doing great either.

Maybe it's time to go to the AHL and get some time in.

 

The problem with him is his skating. He's too slow for the NHL. He can fill in in a pinch as 8D but the fact that his ceiling is a poor man's Luke Schenn does not bode well with me. 

[CanucksJay]

24 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

I like Hirose coming in, would have preferred more of a veteran like Wolanin but Hirose and Myers have had success together. Crazy to think that we have the best defensive pairing in the league in Hughes - Hronek, and then our bottom-2 defencemen are two of the worst in the league. The middle guys (Cole and Myers) are pretty decent/average.

Yeah I wonder if Wolanin is starting to feel like his NHL dream is closing and he'll be a career ahler... I feel like we should have given him a shot but maybe this is the new regime. They're giving shots to kids that they think will turn out to be special even if it doesnt seem "fair" to guys like Wolanin. 

[Googlie]

3 hours ago, CRAZY_4_NAZZY said:

 

 

But still a nice $9k payday (ELC AHL pay of +/- $70k for 72 games vs NHL pay of $883k for 82 games)

 

 

[Googlie]

2 minutes ago, CanucksJay said:

Yeah I wonder if Wolanin is starting to feel like his NHL dream is closing and he'll be a career ahler... I feel like we should have given him a shot but maybe this is the new regime. They're giving shots to kids that they think will turn out to be special even if it doesnt seem "fair" to guys like Wolanin. 

Per Tocchet a few days ago, Wolanin is dealing with minor tweaks

[Bure10Kuzmenko96]

1 hour ago, CanucksJay said:

I think that'll be the next evolution of this team. 

Learning how to manage the game better when they are tired. 

Hopefully we don't see a dumb schedule like that for the rest of the year. 

To come back home from an eastern road trip for 1 game and then play the second of a back to back in another city is ridiculous. 

We have another 5 games in 8 nights starting Saturday

[RolexSub]

This game sort showed us what we looked like last year and definitely lacking toughness once again. Huggy Bear was hit and so did Petey but no one to the rescue. If we were to make the playoffs this year we definitely need to address the toughness. We don't need a goon but just need guys to show up and stand up for each other. 

[BC_Hawk]

1 hour ago, CanucksJay said:

I think that'll be the next evolution of this team. 

Learning how to manage the game better when they are tired. 

Hopefully we don't see a dumb schedule like that for the rest of the year. 

To come back home from an eastern road trip for 1 game and then play the second of a back to back in another city is ridiculous. 

Shorty said last night that the Canucks have 9 BtBs this year; down from 11 last year. We have played 3, so only have 6 the remainder of the year. And, a back to back is one thing, but 3 games in 4 night is BS. 

 

As Toch said last night, loved the effort, but they can do a better job of controlling themselves when tired; can't always play at 110% (homerun was his term). IF this team loses A game when they play 3 games in 4 nights (very rare) because they give 110% all the time and go for "Home Runs", I am fine with that. In the Playoffs, both teams will be on equal schedules.

Edited November 17, 2023 by BC_Hawk

[BC_Hawk]

10 minutes ago, RolexSub said:

This game sort showed us what we looked like last year and definitely lacking toughness once again. Huggy Bear was hit and so did Petey but no one to the rescue. If we were to make the playoffs this year we definitely need to address the toughness. We don't need a goon but just need guys to show up and stand up for each other. 

Good clean hits happen...its hockey. I didn't see any unacceptable runs that garnered a reaction...minus that hit by Posipol on Friedman. The "toughness" card is over used; I hate instigator penalties! "Hard to play against" is better, and this team is showing that this year. Once again, look at LVG and how they play...composure is king.