The Vancouver Canucks’ resurgence has been powered by newfound scoring depth and an emphasis on rolling four lines that are a threat to score.
Unable to buy goals a year ago, the Canucks’ offensive production sagged as the club finished a miserable 2013-14 campaign ranked 28th in the league in goals scored.
It’s been a wildly different story this year. With a small handful of games remaining the Canucks are poised to finish the season as a top-10 offensive club — something the franchise hasn’t accomplished since they last won the Presidents’ Trophy three years ago.
That’s quite the turnaround.
Asked to compare this iteration of the Canucks with those he’s faced in recent seasons while a member of the Phoenix Coyotes, Canucks leading scorer Radim Vrbata cited the team’s scoring depth without hesitation.
“It’s more of a balanced team,” Vrbata opined in a telephone conversation with sportsnet.ca on Friday.
“I think that’s something that (head coach Willie Desjardins) wanted to do going in: play four lines and spread the ice time out a little bit more, so you don’t have tired players,” Vrbata continued. “I think he’s done that.”
He most certainly has.
As of Friday morning the Canucks were leading the entire NHL with 11 forwards who had scored 10 or more goals on the season.
Though the Sedin twins’ production has bounced back somewhat from the injury-plagued nightmare of the 2013-14 campaign that was John Tortorella’s only season as Vancouver’s bench boss, it’s scoring depth that has driven this club’s offensive renaissance.
Well, scoring depth and empty net goals.
The Canucks have scored 21 empty-netters this season, a likely NHL record according to Daniel Wagner of the Vancouver Sun. Last year the club cashed in a grand total of two times with their opponent’s net empty.
A 19-goal increase in empty net tallies may account for the lion’s share of Vancouver’s elevated goal totals, but empty-net goals are the product of a team that’s often leading late in games (and partly the result of a league-wide trend that has NHL coaches adopt more aggressive end-game strategies).
To the credit of Vancouver’s new management team, a plethora of new faces are primarily responsible for keying the balanced offensive attack.
Currently the club has three forwards ranked in the top-50 in the NHL by even-strength goal rate where last year they had zero.
Those forwards? Vrbata, Nick Bonino and Shawn Matthias. None of whom were on the roster at the start of the 2013-14 season.
First-year Canucks general manager Jim Benning spoke often this summer of the need to ice a team capable of rolling four-lines. One of Benning’s signature acquisitions echoed that notion in a conversation with sportsnet.ca this week, suggesting that a four-line team is a must in the rough and tumble Western Conference.
“I think that’s the way this league is going now: every team has four lines that have the ability to score, or are a threat to score every night,” explained Bonino.
“Especially playing in the Pacific, I think (having four lines that can create offence) is something that you definitely need.”
It’s not just the depth of Western Conference clubs that makes a four-line attack so crucial. To hear Vrbata tell it, an increased emphasis on detailed pre-scouting and video work league-wide makes it essential for clubs to attack their opponents with a diverse offensive arsenal.
“The season goes on and everybody keeps paying attention to whoever is scoring on a team,” Vrbata said. “If you have that second, or third, or fourth line going and chipping in, it takes some of that pressure off.”
In the Canucks’ locker room this balanced attack has sunk in, the players are adopting it as a mindset rather than something that needs to be revisited by the club’s coaches.
“Willie doesn’t have to say that ‘we need secondary scoring’ or that ‘we need contributions from all four lines,’” Bonino says. “It’s generally known and accepted and guys take that responsibility on themselves.”
For a club that has been plagued by depth issues in recent seasons – even the vaunted 2011 team that went to the Stanley Cup Final didn’t get a single goal from their fourth-forward line in 25 playoff games – that ‘offence by committee’ outlook will be key if they’re to make any noise in the playoffs.