VANCOUVER – The first quarter of any sprint is the slowest, and yet it usually determines the race winner.
Unless you’re Usain Bolt, there simply isn’t time to make up a significant deficit when everyone ahead of you is running full-out for the finish line. A step behind, maybe. Three steps, and you’re only hope are hurdles ahead. Or banana peels.
In the NHL, you never know when hurdles will appear but the Vancouver Canucks are at least a step behind as they hit the one-quarter mark of their 56-game sprint. Yes, when the Canucks open a three-game series Thursday in Toronto against the Maple Leafs, their pandemic-shortened regular season will already by one-quarter over.
They are 6-7-0 heading to Game 14, facing a mini-crisis for the second time in three weeks after losing another two games to the Montreal Canadiens, who are 4-0-1 against the Canucks this season.
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The problem with Vancouver is not only its results but its spectacularly uneven performances.
Their best game of the season, a 4-1 win in Winnipeg on Saturday (really, just five days ago?), was followed by one of their worst when the Canucks lost 6-2 in Montreal on Monday. The Canadiens’ 5-3 win Tuesday actually represented a moral victory for the Canucks, who have surrendered 28 goals in five games against Montreal and are fourth-worst in the NHL with 3.69 goals-against per game.
But no one picked the Canucks to win the Jennings Trophy, and their biggest problem has been a poor start for Vancouver’s first line, especially J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson, which has contributed to the team’s systems failures.
To be fair to the Canucks, their NHL lane assignment on the outside of the track has not helped their start. The Canucks had to play a league-leading 13 games in the first 21 nights of the season, including four sets of back-to-backs, while trying to incorporate key newcomers on defence and in goal. Nearly half the league hasn’t yet hit 10 games.
With 42 games remaining after Thursday – about equivalent to the second half of a "normal" season – the finish line is already in sight for the Canucks. They need to get moving or hope for some banana peels ahead in other lanes.
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TOP SIX FORWARDS: C
The Canucks are 11th in the NHL at 3.38 goals per game, so they’re getting enough offence to win. But the underperformance of Pettersson and Miller to this point – third member of the Lotto Line, Brock Boeser, has been the most consistent and productive – is troubling. One of the most potent combinations in hockey last season, Pettersson and Miller have been bullied at even strength.
Pettersson led the Canucks last season with a shots-for percentage of 54.3 and his goals-for share was 63.3 per cent. His Corsi through 13 games this year is 42.7, and Miller’s five-on-five shot share of 38.1 per cent is last on the Canucks and ranks 343rd of 351 NHL forwards who have played at least six games. That said, Miller still has 11 points in 10 games, aided by six power-play assists. But if Vancouver’s best players continue to get outplayed at even strength, the Canucks have little chance to make the playoffs.
The reason this group doesn’t get a failing grade is the solid, B-level start of the second line: Bo Horvat between Tanner Pearson and rookie Nils Hoglander. Despite difficult matchups, the players are all above 50 per cent in shots-for and have combined to contribute roughly one goal per game. Hoglander has easily been the most positive story of the Canucks’ start, seizing an NHL roster spot a couple of weeks past his 20th birthday and using his speed and engagement to be one of the team’s most consistent forwards.
BOTTOM SIX FORWARDS: B
Not all the surprises in the Canucks’ wobbly start have been bad. The bottom-six group of forwards was expected to be the team’s weak spot, dead weight to be carried by the stars playing ahead of them. But speedy checker Tyler Motte has five goals and third-liner Brandon Sutter four, outscoring Pettersson (four) and Miller (two).
Almost across the board, the depth forwards have held their own territorially against the opposition, and Motte and fourth-line centre Jay Beagle, especially, have spiked their shot-share from last season. Antoine Roussel, being counted on for a bounce-back season after his 2019-20 campaign was undermined by a serious knee injury the year before, has started slowly with only one goal and a Corsi of 41.9 per cent. But Jake Virtanen is the only bottom-six forward who has truly disappointed so far.
Hoglander seized the top-six opening on right wing ahead of Virtanen, who is stuck on one goal for the season after scoring 18 last year and is currently on his second stint as a healthy scratch.
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DEFENCE: C
It’s difficult to fairly gauge this group for a couple of reasons: half of the top six on defence is new this season and marquee acquisition Nate Schmidt, in particular, struggled initially to make the transition to the Canucks without the benefit of pre-season games; and the forwards have been such a turnover factory in front of them in some games that defencemen have had to rush around trying to put out brushfires.
Yes, it has looked like a fire drill below the blue line at times.
Star defenceman Quinn Hughes, like Pettersson and Miller, has seen his fancy stats largely crater from last season. But the Calder Trophy runner-up has also been playing through an injury and despite the chaos around him, Hughes has still managed a goal and 13 assists to lead NHL defencemen in scoring. At age 21, he also leads the Canucks in ice time at 22:40 per game. Imagine if Hughes gets healthy and the Canucks stabilize their systems play. The defence as a group has been a key driver of the Vancouver offence, combining for 34 points through 13 games.
It hasn’t helped that Travis Hamonic, signed to replace Chris Tanev as Hughes’ partner, has missed the last eight games with an undisclosed injury. But Jordie Benn is having his best spell as a Canuck.
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GOALTENDERS: C+
According to naturalstattrick.com, the Canucks have been the NHL’s most permissive team defensively with an expected goals-against of 26 – two per game at five-on-five. The Canucks are allowing a league-worst 36 shots per game, and there is a lot of quality in the scoring chances Thatcher Demko and Braden Holtby have had to stare down. Demko has handled it better.
The third-year goalie lost his first three starts before finding form and has played like "Bubble Demko" his last four games, nearly replicating his brilliant form from last summer’s playoff cameo in Edmonton by stopping 129 of 136 shots and winning three times. Demko has brought his save percentage up to .909, slightly above NHL average, and for now has taken the Canucks’ starting job.
Signed to help replace Jacob Markstrom, Holtby has struggled to outperform his team. He hasn’t been poor, especially when considering the number of breakaways and 2-on-1s the Canucks have subjected him to. But Holtby has mostly been a cork on the current – playing as good or bad as the team in his six starts. A save percentage of .896 isn’t good enough and, skeptics point out, merely flattens the downward trend that occurred over Holtby’s last couple of seasons in Washington.
KEY SECOND-QUARTER QUESTION: Will the Lotto Line be dominant again?
Pettersson and Miller are not only the Canucks’ leading scorers from last season, they’re influential leaders whose effort and consistency set a tone that the team follows. They simply have to be better, safer and more direct with the puck and as tenacious without it as when they’re trying to score. The Canucks just aren’t at the evolutionary stage where they can win if their best players are getting outplayed.
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