LONG-TERM POWER OUTAGE
Canucks need special teams spark
Everyone in Vancouver has an answer for the Canucks’ power play.
Just ask them.
Daniel Sedin is convinced there needs to be more movement. Sam Gagner keeps saying it’s effort and compete level. If only that was all it took.
The fans? They have their own ideas. And lots of them.
Give Troy Stecher a chance. Make Brock Boeser the primary option. More Bo Horvat. Get Shea Weber?
Travis Green has been the coach for 10 minutes and it feels like he’s broken records in answering power-play questions.
And that’s only at the rink with media. Who knows what he’s hearing from those outside it every day?
Actually, I have an idea. There is one tip thousands outside Rogers Arena have been trying to share with those inside for years.
It’s a logical move loved by fans, but loathed by coaches.
It’s split the Sedins. If there haven’t been T-shirts made, I expect there will be soon.
Green stopped just short with what looks to be his first big lineup upheaval of the season. Separating the twins may not yet be on the table, but everything else is this week.
Not only did he change personnel, he went from one defenceman to two on his power-play units, something we haven’t seen in Vancouver in a long time.
He rolled out three different power-play groups, four if you include the 5-on-3 setup.
He was asked if he’d really go with three power-play groups in a game.
“We might,” the coach said. Is that a new thing?
“No, it’s not a new thing,” Green countered.
Well, it looks new to us.
No one can accuse Green of being afraid to try different things.
Throughout the pre-season the Canucks practised power plays with one defenceman and four forwards. That may change as soon as Tuesday. Green said he plans to lean on two D-men in an attempt to move the puck more efficiently along the blue-line. It could make more room and give his players a better chance to get shots on the net instead of on shins.
“Putting two D on is going to change it up, it’s going to be a different look,” Green said. “We’re trying something else, but it has nothing to do with the short-handed goal we gave up the other night.”
No, it has everything to do with how difficult it’s been for the Canucks to score. This issue goes back years.
To remedy it this time, Green had Markus Granlund with the Sedins, and Bo Horvat playing with Sam Gagner and Thomas Vanek.
The other line was Brock Boeser and Sven Baertschi, centred by Alexander Burmistrov.
This three-line lineup represents a significant shakeup from where the Canucks were on Saturday. But that game was ugly. The Canucks had five power plays in the first period. They got off one shot.
Four games into the season may seem too soon to hit the panic button, but in some ways there’s no other option for the Canucks.
Green’s success — and management’s too — will in many ways be determined by the fate of his power play.
Consider the money alone. The Canucks threw a ton of it, and assets too, at the problem this summer.
They signed Michael Del Zotto for $6 million and Sam Gagner for $9.45 million. Both were billed as special-teams difference makers and that’s after spending $36 million on Loui Eriksson, another hoped-for power play fix, in 2016.
Then, when September rolled round, someone decided all of this wasn’t enough. The Canucks signed Thomas Vanek for $2 million and traded for Derrick Pouliot. Again, both were believed to be power-play difference makers, the team said.
That’s a lot of moves and money invested. If the power play flops yet again, it won’t look good on anyone. And the blame will go right to the top.
The results four games in haven’t been great. The Canucks are already near the bottom of the league — 25th among 31 teams — with a depressing 8.7 per cent success rate.
For anyone who has watched the Canucks in the past five years, it feels like more of the same.
In the past five seasons there have been 150 team power-play units (30 teams multiplied by five years).
Of the 150, the 2016-17 Canucks rank 145th; the 2013-14 Canucks rank 132; the 2012-13 Canucks rank 126th and the 2015-16 Canucks rank 124.
That is about as bad as it gets. In fact, in five years only the Florida Panthers have averaged a worse power play.
The one constant in all of this has been the Sedin twins together on the group that gets the vast majority of ice time.
You can’t help but wonder how long it can last.