Need for ‘speed and skill’ gets recycled
Canucks will yet again centre efforts on more offence, Jason Botchford writes.
There’s a buzz-phrase you will hear often this off-season from the Vancouver Canucks.
We know this because you heard it when the season ended, at the trade deadline, at training camp, during free agency and at last year’s NHL Entry Draft.
You’ve heard it from the Canucks pretty much any time they aren’t talking about Erik Gudbranson, Brandon Sutter or Loui Eriksson.
The Canucks are chasing “speed and skill.”
It’s a noble pursuit, one underscored already in the playoffs and in their own division.
The faster, more skilled teams from Vegas and San Jose wiped out “big-boy hockey,” each sweeping their respective firstround opponents in Los Angeles and Anaheim.
Vegas gets all the hype for its depth and skating, as well it should.
But the San Jose Sharks are making it look easy without Joe Thornton, and a part of that is the money and assets they’ve invested in “speed and skill.” They added players like Tomas Hertl, Chris Tierney, Evander Kane, Mikkel Boedker and, of course, Marcus Sorensen.
That’s the Sharks’ small but fast fourth-line winger who is keeping Jannik Hansen out of the lineup. He just scored three goals in four playoff games against the Ducks and weighs less than 175 pounds. Does that perk you up, Elias Pettersson fans?
But as Vancouver discovered last summer, pursuing “speed and skill” and actually improving it are entirely different animals.
The Canucks thought they were getting loads of the good stuff when they signed six free agents in a 24-hour stretch that kicked off last year’s free-agency period.
Alex Burmistrov was pitched as a great gamble, Sam Gagner was billed as a bargain, Michael Del Zotto was going to add wheels and power-play points, goalie Anders Nilsson was viewed as a potential starter and Anton Rodin represented the scoring depth.
It all looks crazy now, but that’s the promise of July.
None of it worked out anywhere close to what was hoped.
And if Thomas Vanek hadn’t been signed in September, the post-draft off-season would have been a face plant.
The Canucks head into this offseason again looking for “speed and skill.”
Most importantly, they need a middle-six centre. They have to find one who can skate and help replace some of the offence that retired with the Sedins.
Less than a year ago, it looked like Gagner was going to be this guy.
At least, he had a chance. Coming off a 50-point season on Columbus’s fourth line, Gagner arrived in Vancouver looking for a bigger role.
The Canucks saw him as a versatile forward who could play either wing or centre. They signed him for three years in part because they hoped he could be one of the answers to a long-standing question that now confronts the team.
Who will succeed the twins in the lineup?
But Gagner and head coach Travis Green never really seemed on the same page this season. He’s a player who does best in a defined role. As an example, see how John Tortorella used him with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Tortorella sheltered Gagner at even strength, gave him chances to be offensively productive and handed him big power-play minutes where he could use his creativity in the middle of the ice.
Green, meanwhile, moved Gagner all over the lineup, lining him up with Sutter and Burmistrov as often as he had him with the Sedin twins.
The Canucks took him out of the slot on the power play and made him the left-side trigger man which didn’t play to his strengths, mostly because he lacks the type of shot a player needs to be successful there.
Gagner’s best attribute, which is his versatility, became one of his biggest problems. He struggled to find chemistry and rhythm. The player many believed was a bargain last July started looking like a buyout candidate.
It was frustrating for him with how things were playing up until the final few weeks of the season when he had a consistent opportunity to play with the Sedin twins.
The results were disappointing. He put up only 31 points. And whatever you think of Gagner, there’s more “speed and skill” in him than what a 31-point season suggests.
It is now on the Canucks to figure out how to get more of the good stuff out of him.