Canucks look to power past the Kings
GAME DAY: VANCOUVER AT LOS ANGELES, 7:30 P.M.
EL SEGUNDO, California — You can always write about the power play.
It warrants attention for any National Hockey League club because in what has become a special-teams game, it can make or break your season. And whether it’s functioning properly, requiring tweaks in deployment and personnel or is a tire fire, it’s always a story.
The Vancouver Canucks are writing their own sorry story.
It’s bad enough that the penalty kill has sunk from a perfect fourgame, 11-for-11 efficiency span last month to now be ranked 25th in the NHL. But that’s a story for another day.
The story that won’t go away is the 29th-rated power play that has been blanked in five of the last six games — including an 0-for-5 showing on Saturday in San Jose — and is operating at a paltry 14.1 per cent.
That’s Willie Desjardins territory and we know how that played out last season. An identical 14.1 per cent lack of efficiency and resistance to changing the first unit torpedoed a club that lost 462 man games to injury.
The current Canucks are also 27th ranked at even strength with 2.53 goals per outing and that only makes the power play problems more severe.
However, even though Henrik Sedin doesn’t have a power play point, he was quick to point out Monday that this power play is not last year’s power play.
He believes the addition of Loui Eriksson to his unit — and two more traditional three forward, two defenceman alignments — Bo Horvat between Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund between Thomas Vanek and Sam Gagner — are reasons for optimism. And past symmetry with Eriksson should help.
“Teams are so good now killing, you can’t guess out there,” said the Canucks captain. “You have to know where to put pucks and get the second chances and even after scrambles. That’s been our biggest problem.
“We’ve had games where we’ve scored and last year it felt like we would never score on the power play. We have three units and enough guys and it feels better than the last two years.”
As the Canucks prepared to face the Los Angeles Kings today — and their ridiculous top-rated 91.9 per cent penalty kill — the only way to salvage this fourgame trip with a .500 record was to either stick with what hasn’t worked the last half dozen games or get creative.
Newell Brown was brought back into the coaching fold to help rekindle the glory days. He was the architect of the No. 1 ranked power play in 2011 (24.3 per cent efficiency) and No. 4 in 2012 (19.8 per cent), but the league has either caught up to Brown and his varied formations or the Canucks simply don’t have the personnel to execute.
The Canucks don’t have a power play hammer threat or a proven point guy. But they still have Henrik and Daniel Sedin, who have been staples of manadvantage play in good and bad times.
“It’s not like we step on the ice now and feel pressure to score,” added Henrik. “It’s a different feeling. We have stuff going and are doing things off the rush. But it’s when we get into scramble mode. We should be able to make plays, but we miss passes and lose pucks. “That can’t happen.” If you subscribe to the theory that you need a net-front presence, shooter and playmaker on all units, then at least the Canucks are taking a harder look at what they’re doing. They can’t keep saying it’s about execution or simplifying or doing the right things — whatever that means.
It’s going to be power play goals by committee and the elements are there.
Eriksson has been a net-front presence for years, while Horvat and Vanek can handle that role on their respective units. You can argue there isn’t a true trigger guy from the slot of the first unit, but Brock Boeser and Vanek certainly bring that to the other formations. And Henrik, Baertschi and Gagner can certainly move the puck.
As for the points, the power play pairings of Michael Del Zotto and Ben Hutton along with Alex Edler and Derrick Pouliot have potential. Del Zotto cited consistency as being a hurdle the Canucks have to clear today.