Canucks team needs: Top-Six Winger
Cam Charron
May 30 2012 12:04PM
David Booth improved the team on paper, but the Canucks still require more goals.
Despite having a sum total of absolutely zero forwards having a career year offensively, the Vancouver Canucks still somehow managed to be fifth in the NHL in goal-scoring, posting 2.94 goals per game. The Sedin twins took a significant step back this season, and their consecutive scoring titles began to fade in the rear-view mirror. David Booth's injury, and lack of power-play time contributed to him not putting up the counting numbers, Ryan Kesler experienced something called "regression to the mean" (and played tougher minutes than the season previous), while Mason Raymond quizzically played a lot despite rarely threatening to produce much of anything resembling offense.
The Canucks need to jump-start their scoring somehow, especially in the playoffs and frankly, they don't have the prospects to do it. Booth's addition made the team better on paper, but the step back from Mason Raymond, Daniel Sedin and Alex Burrows cost the teams goals. If the Canucks are going to remain elite, those goals are going to need to be replaced.
This week, your faithful (and cerebral) Canucks Army writers are identifying team needs. On Monday Thom let us know that the Canucks needed a top-four defenceman, and on Tuesday he zeroed in on the clubs need in the middle of their third-line. Today, we look at the top-six winger.
Read past the jump for more!
Things about David Booth
Cam Charron
May 17 2012 01:48PM
Yesterday Thomas wrote a very scary post about David Booth's on-ice shooting percentage numbers, where he addresses the possibility that "significantly below average at driving on-ice shooting percentage".
Well, I'm not too sure what I think of that. When we mention "shooting percentage" or "save percentage" around here, which commonly regress to a certain mean, a lot of people interpret that as "shot quality" which means that better quality shots yield higher shooting percentages. I'm not sure whether I buy that. Booth had extremely good numbers if you count "quality shots" explicitly, as Thom and I did throughout this year, as expressed here in our year-end plus/minus scoring chance differential.
Canucks best shot blockers '11/'12
Cam Charron
May 14 2012 03:44PM
Derek Zona, one of our family of websites' new editors, wrote a post at NHLNumbers highlighting the best shot blockers in the NHL, not based on how many raw shots they blocked, but as a percentage of total attempts when on the ice. He did the same thing for the Edmonton Oilers today at Copper n Blue.
Why the discrepancy is important? Well, the Canucks leading shot blocker this season was Alexander Edler, according to NHL.com. He blocked 145 shots. However, he has an unfair advantage. According to Behind The Net, Edler's relative Corsi was +0.9 per 60 minutes, meaning that he was on the ice for many more shots against from the opposition than, say, Dan Hamhuis or Aaron Rome, allowing him to inflate his shot block totals.
So I've looked at regular players this season to compare a player's shot blocking ability:
Former Canuck Mattias Ohlund "uncertain if he can come back and play"
Cam Charron
May 08 2012 02:34PM
"I went through a covered knee surgery ten days ago here in the U.S. that requires half a year of rehabilitation, but it is uncertain if I can come back and play hockey again in the first place" Mattias Ohlund told Expressen, translation to Google.
If this is indeed true, one of the all-time best Vancouver Canuck defencemen may be forced to retire after a season-long battle with knee problems that kept him out of the Tampa Bay lineup. He went there as a free agent after the 2009 season after 11 seasons, 770 games, 93 goals and 325 points with the Canucks.
Only Harold Snepts played more games as a defenceman for the Canucks.
Alain Vigneault's playoff record
Cam Charron
May 08 2012 11:48AM
We've looked at this sort of thing before over here. The Vancouver Canucks' series record under Alain Vigneault, with a loss to the Los Angeles Kings, dipped to 6-5 this season. Overall, they're 33-31 in 64 playoff games since 2007. It's good, but it isn't really good enough to have won the Canucks the Stanley Cup.
The real problem people have with Vigneault is that the Canucks' regular season performance appears not to carry over to the post-season. Vancouver have gone 248-162 in five out of six years the Canucks have made the playoffs under Vigneault, and pro-rated to 64 games, that would make the Canucks 39-25 with the same win-loss record.
So where did those extra six wins go?
