Canucks vet Vanek making best of reduced ice time
Rookie head coach pushing all right buttons with veterans during Canucks’ superb start
Travis Green knows there’s the buy-in and the checkout.
If you don’t have the former you’re probably going to get the latter, especially with well-travelled NHL veterans who have heard it all and often seen it all.
One of the good-news stories flying under the radar with the Vancouver Canucks’ impressive 6-3-1 start is how the club’s rookie head coach is pushing all the right buttons.
It’s not just balancing lines, adjusting on the fly and measuring minutes so nobody is over-taxed. It’s the manner in which Green is getting through to veterans with a frank communication style.
It’s reminiscent of what he experienced in playing for the late legendary bench boss Al Arbour after breaking in with the New York Islanders in the 1992-93 season.
When you’re trying to reach a wily veteran like Thomas Vanek, there has to be more than a resume that includes 970 career games as an NHL centre and being a successful WHL and AHL coach.
“Sometimes, you could tell with Al if you had a good game or a bad game by being in games where you won 5-2 or 6-2 and maybe you didn’t have a good game,” Green said Friday. “In the back of your mind you kind of wonder if the coach knew.
“He had a way of making sure you knew, whether it was saying hi to the guy beside you — and not to you. You couldn’t fool him. I valued that part of Al.”
Imagine how Vanek reacted when told those 16 to 18 minutes he logged with the Florida Panthers and Detroit Red Wings last season would be chopped dramatically.
The winger logged a season-low 11:48 of ice time Thursday in a 6-2 thrashing of the Washington Capitals. He also scored his fourth goal of the season in true Vanek style, knocking a rebound out of mid-air after missing a check in his own zone — which is what you often get with the 33-year-old Vienna native. Some bad. Some good.
“The best coaches I’ve had, it goes two ways,” Vanek said. “You need the trust from him and he needs the trust from you. The biggest thing is honesty. Greener has done a real good job of that and we’re winning, so the message is sent well.
“But talk to any player. You want to be around that 15- or 16-minute mark. Right now, that’s not happening, so you just try to make the most of what you get.”
What Vanek is getting is what Green is willing to offer in a reward-based system. The winger gets that the Brandon Sutter and Bo Horvat lines are often in matchup roles and the trickle-down effect is less ice for other alignments.
Vanek is never going to be a Corsi king and his 47.3 per cent rating
at even-strength puck possession reflects a game that is lacking in puck retrieval. But he is on pace for 32 goals.
“Their knowledge of the game is sometimes higher and sometimes it’s not,” Green said of dealing with veterans, especially Vanek. “You have to find out. We’ve had some meetings. I have an open-door policy if you’ve got questions.
“I don’t think it’s good for players to go home and wonder. If they want to know how they’re playing it’s important to come in and ask and it’s important to tell them how you feel.”
How Green feels about Vanek is obvious.
He was signed to a one-year, US$2-million deal to not only buy time for younger players to develop, but to keep the club competitive and keep interest in the club from waning.
It can be as simple as getting pucks to Vanek around the crease because he’s either going to show off a good release or somehow get his stick on floating rebounds with his remarkable hand-eye co-ordination, like he did Thursday.
“I’ve always enjoyed being around the net for tips and getting shots, but I don’t know why I’m good at it,” Vanek said. “As a kid growing up in Austria, I played a lot of ping-pong. Who knows if that has something to do with it. I have no answer how to practise that.”
As long as Vanek makes as much effort without the puck as he makes with it, his ice time could creep up. That’s the carrot Green has to dangle to keep everybody engaged — even a former 40-goal scorer often labelled as a one-dimensional dilemma.
“Everybody wants to play a lot,” Green said. “I don’t go into a game thinking it’s 12 minutes for him. It depends. His play around the net is very strong.”
If it’s strong away from the puck, the minutes may alter. Overtime: Rookie winger Brock Boeser left practice Friday after feeling the affects of blocking a shot on Thursday, although he wasn’t credited with a block on the final scoresheet.
“It’s just precautionary,” Green said. “It was a good day to test it out and we just felt it wasn’t worth pushing through it.”
Meanwhile, centre Michael Chaput has been re-assigned to the Utica Comets.