SEASON’S BEATINGS
The men paid to stop pucks in Vancouver are struggling mightily to do so, but is it all their fault?
Sometimes, a team needs a big save. The Vancouver Canucks, right now, need a few dozen.
If you think life is cruel, try being a Canucks goalie. In seven games without Bo Horvat, the NHL squad has been outscored 36-15. They’ve lost six of the seven.
For the first six weeks, it looked like the Canucks had a battle in net that was a majestic clash of the titans, two giants, each determined to prove they were ready to be a No. 1.
Currently, it just looks like the Canucks have two backups. And the only thing majestic has been declarations of how poorly they’ve played.
“I was awful,” Jacob Markstrom announced following a 6-1 loss to Calgary on Sunday.
His three words have been a theme.
Since Horvat was lost to a broken foot, 36 goalies have played at least four games. Markstrom’s .848 save percentage ranks 35th. His partner, Anders Nilsson, has a .871 save percentage. He ranks 32nd.
There are the types of numbers that get teams killed — and coaches fired.
Travis Green, obviously, doesn’t have to worry about the latter. But he does have to worry about his team, goalies and what their performances say about his defence.
Because it does feel like a convenient coincidence both netminders are imploding almost identically at the same point in the season.
They have different styles, and wildly different workloads, with Markstrom basically starting twice as much.
Can the biggest problem really be both goalies? At the same time?
“If you’re trying to get me to pin this on goaltending, I’m not going to do that,” Green said.
“We’ve given up some Grade A scoring chances. Our goalies are not going to sit there and say they’ve been standing on their heads. They’re going to sit there and say ‘We need to play a little better.’ ”
But if they are going to play better, they need some help.
The players in front of them can go a long way toward it by eliminating the backdoor plays that have been rotting this team like a dark root system rotting pumpkin patches in Stranger Things.
Generally, tracking backdoor plays are difficult enough when it’s bangbang. Lately, however, opponents have got the puck with space and tons of time to make creative plays that can often make goalies look foolish because they over-commit trying to get in position for the typical cross-ice pass and quick shot.
“They’re very tough,” Nilsson said. “If they have time, they can start moving the goalie again, and that’s usually when you see a goalie start to scramble. It’s tough to to say calm in those situations.
“It’s tough to stay square. It’s probably why it looks like (I’m) scrambling a little more.”
If you break down Nilsson’s six goals against Tuesday, there is one he clearly could have played better. Four of them were on odd-man rushes or at least partial breakaways.
It led to some Montreal players suggesting they had exploited the Canucks’ system. This was something the Canucks summarily dismissed.
Green said by his count Montreal had only five even-strength scoring chances through 40 minutes. That doesn’t sound like a team that had been figured out and exploited.
In those two periods, the Canucks had given up four goals, which is good at the best of times, let alone with Bo Horvat and Brandon Sutter still out of the lineup.
It’s not good enough and the Canucks just aren’t going to win many games when they give up four goals in the first two periods.
Unfortunately, for them it meant a 7-5 loss to the Habs. The Canucks shouldn’t be losing games in which they score five goals.
But, again, that’s not entirely on the goalie.
“Everything is connected,” Nilsson said. “At the beginning of the year, we played really well as a team, structurally.
“Both me and Marky were playing really good. Right now, the team has been struggling. And me and Markstrom have been struggling a little bit, too. It goes hand in hand. It’s a team game. It’s not just a one-man game.
“If a goalie gets a shutout, it’s not just because the goalie played well.”