Goldobin starting to earn coach Green’s confidence
New Swedish linemates counteract young Russian’s defensive liabilities
When you see Nikolay Goldobin in person, you are immediately struck by his youthful enthusiasm.
He carries a smile on his face. He’s clearly at ease with his teammates. He’s not shy to wear an outfit or shoes or a hat — like a bright orange toque — that stands out.
Put a voice recorder or a reporter’s note pad in front of him, and he gets a little cautious.
You can understand why. Young players don’t want to rock the boat. They’re conditioned to not stand out too much, to not take too much for granted.
And so, he’s quick to say he’s not taking anything for granted, that simply being on the team is enough.
“Win and score goals,” he replies, simply, when asked what he’s set as a personal goal for the season.
Proving himself to the coach is not a new thing, he says.
“I came to America when I was really young,” he points out. “I had to battle for a spot every year.”
When he first arrived in Vancouver in a trade for Jannik Hansen from the San Jose Sharks, at the end of the 2016-17 season, he scored some sensational goals but also drew the ire of Willie Desjardins, the Canucks’ coach at the time.
There was more to hockey than just scoring goals, Desjardins insisted.
The numbers bore out the criticism as opposing teams were simply getting too many shots on the Canucks’ net.
The knock against the Russian was what it had always been, that he’s not always as conscientious as he could be away from the puck.
Before being picked up by the Canucks, the Sharks’ coaches, both in the NHL and the American Hockey League, had the same criticisms.
But as the 2018-19 season begins, the criticism has dimmed, replaced by expectation.
Canucks coach Travis Green has put him on Elias Pettersson’s wing. His offensive talents are seen as a good fit.
His defensive deficiencies matter less.
There’s ongoing dialogue between Goldobin and Green, the coach said.
“We talk a lot. There is so much more than goes into being a good offensive player than just getting a loose puck and putting it in the net. How does he make sure he gets more of those chances and doesn’t give up more than he gets? That’s important,” Green said.
“I’ve seen more from the guy and more in practice the last two weeks. A hard-working player and driving the net away from the puck. He’s definitely working harder and trying to get himself in different spots than he has before.”
His defensive problems have showed up loudly on paper.
In a trend that stretches back to his early NHL tastes with the Sharks, his shots-against data, as visualized by Micah Blake McCurdy at HockeyViz.com, shows an enormous deep-red stain covering almost the entirety of the “home plate area”; that is, the area between the crease out to the faceoff dots and up to the top of the faceoff circles, where the best scoring chances are found. That indicates that when Goldobin was on the ice, teams were getting shots at a far higher rate than the league average.
For a player who wasn’t playing top-line minutes, that spoke badly.
But the data also showed he was generating scoring chances at the other end of the ice at a fine clip, lots of red in the offensive zone too. You can see what the Sharks and the Canucks see in him.
Last season, though, he started to pull things together defensively. The shot attempts battle became an almost even proposition when he was on the ice (previously Goldobin’s team was getting only about 40 per cent of the shot attempts when he was on the ice.)
Clearly there was improvement and perhaps paired with strong defensive players, he could flourish.
Green’s deployment of Goldobin with Petterson and Loui Eriksson makes a ton of sense, as a result.
A ferocious backchecker, the young Swede is an incredible defensive force, as we’ve seen through just two games. And on the other wing is Eriksson, who has a long-held and well-earned reputation for being a stout player in his own end. Combined, they ’ve more than made up for whatever defensive deficiencies Goldobin may have in his game.
The trio combined to terrorize Mike Smith over the first two games of the season. They were the Canucks’ best in their own end too.
At practice Monday in Raleigh, N.C., Pettersson’s was the only line left untouched, as Green chose to bring Brendan Leipsic up to the first line to skate with Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser, who struggled to control possession in the twogame home-and-home seasonopening series with the Flames.
That meant Sven Baertschi was dropped to the third unit, with Brandon Sutter and Jake Virtanen. Sutter and Virtanen had been playing with Tyler Motte, a trio that had done reasonably well.
In the past, Goldobin might have found himself in the line blender too. But he’s earned the coach’s trust, for now.
He’s definitely working harder and trying to get himself in different spots than he has before.