VANCOUVER — With all the talk about structure and the Vancouver Canucks, you’d think the National Hockey League team was trying to reconstruct Machu Picchu with landscaping like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. On Mars.
But all they’re trying to build is a more reliable, less porous team.
You know what structure would help? Not giving away the puck at the blue lines. Backchecking, forechecking with purpose, winning their puck battles, and killing a penalty once in a while. And trying to get more players to support the puck and each other (think Carolina Hurricanes, who just handed the Canucks their seventh straight loss while looking on every shift like they had too many players on the ice).
As far as tactics and systems, coach Bruce Boudreau and general manager Patrik Allvin said Wednesday that not much has changed from how the Canucks were trying to play last season, when the team went 32-15-10 after the organization’s December regime change.
“We do more things in practice about (puck) support,” Boudreau told reporters at Rogers Arena. “And that’s pretty well what we’re talking about: instead of being on an island and getting the puck, we’re trying to do things as three guys, as five guys, and coming up the ice together rather than leaving it as a one-on-one battle all the time. The only difference is our neutral zone is different than it was at the end of last year. That’s the only difference.”
In the neutral zone, the Canucks are a little more “structured,” often dropping into a 1-2-2 formation when the opposition has established possession and is trying to come up ice.
But the fact that both the team’s general manager and head coach held media availabilities on Wednesday, exactly two weeks into the Canucks’ regular season, tells you how successful the team has been so far at whatever it’s trying to do.
Vancouver is 0-5-2, coming off a pointless two-game homestand that featured a Code-Red loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, and now faces back-to-back games against the Seattle Kraken and Pittsburgh Penguins starting Thursday in Washington State.
The structure that actually feels most pertinent at the moment is atop the organization, not on the ice. As president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford reiterated on national TV after the home-opener catastrophe on Saturday, he did not hire Boudreau and discovered only when he joined the team that the coach got a two-year deal (including option) from owner Francesco Aquilini, not a one-year contract as Rutherford had been led to believe.
And so management decided in the off-season “that we just live by the contract he had.”
Seven losses later, here we are.
Allvin was asked about Boudreau at least three times during his press conference.
“The coaching staff, from day one, we have good communication and we’re working together and we’re going to find a way to get out of this,” Allvin said.
Later, he added: “We’re working very tight together here. We’re working close. We’re trying to find solutions. You know what? At the end of the day, we’ve got to start winning hockey games. That’s the bottom line.”
Allvin directed his challenge — let’s not call it blame — not at Boudreau and his re-made coaching staff, but towards Canucks players and especially the team’s young core, who came into the organization when winning was not expected.
“Part of that was finding more structure — structure, accountability and systems play,” he said. “Again, I think we’re a talented team, but we need to get this team and this group to play together.
“I think we need to have kind of our top players to buy in and be our top players every single day you walk into the rink. And I think that’s the difference right now.”
Of the Canucks’ core, only centre Elias Pettersson has played at a superior level this season, although captain Bo Horvat has been good since the first couple of games. But goalie Thatcher Demko and forward J.T. Miller have struggled — both had their best games so far against Carolina, so may be trending the right way — and star defenceman Quinn Hughes is currently out of the lineup week-to-week with an undisclosed injury. Winger Brock Boeser, who missed the pre-season with a hand injury, is also hurt again.
“I haven’t read or heard anything because I don’t read or listen to anything,” Boudreau said of conjecture about his team. “We just come to work and do our job every day. If you just look at practice, the guys are spirited. They’re practising really hard. They’re upbeat about everything, and they know eventually this thing is going to end and we’ll get on the right track again.”
It would be good for Boudreau if this happened soon.
“Why are we going there?” he said when asked about coaching without a safety net. “I’m not worried about anything. I’m just doing my job. I’ve worked without a safety net before and I figure as long as I do my job, I’m going to come to work every day until they tell me not to.”
• Boeser and depth forward Curtis Lazar were moved Wednesday to Injured Reserve. Boeser could play next week, but Allvin said Lazar is likely to miss 3-4 weeks. Forwards Sheldon Dries and Will Lockwood were recalled from the American League.