Nine games into the Vancouver Canucks&#8217; season, the team&#8217;s 4-2-3 record looks <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/stanchies-vancouver-canucks-trick-treat-6-0-defeat-devils">better than the product</a> on the ice has for much of the first month of the season. Professional sports is a bottom-line business, and to their credit, the Canucks have managed to pick up points despite being anywhere close to the top of their game. Thursday&#8217;s 6-0 disaster against the Devils brought October to a crashing halt. With that in mind, here is a look at nine statistics that have defined the Canucks&#8217; first nine games of the new season.
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<blockquote>Kevin Lankinen has been lights out</blockquote>
Kevin Lankinen is 4-0-2 in his six starts and has stablized the Canucks netminding in the absence of Thatcher Demko. Not bad for a guy that wasn&#8217;t even in the mix until the final weekend of training camp. Lankinen has a 2.29 GAA and a 92.0% save percentage with a 26-save shutout in Philadelphia on October 19th. It&#8217;s hard to imagine where the Canucks would be without the kind of goaltending the 29-year-old Finn provided especially early when the team was winless through its first three outings. According to Evolving-Hockey, Lankinen has prevented 3.91 goals above average and 3.13 goals above expected. He has delivered 10 of the 11 points the Canucks have amassed in the early going this season.
<blockquote>Lack of starpower</blockquote>
Jake DeBrusk was signed in the off-season to give Elias Pettersson a proven goal-scorer to play with. That experiment lasted just two games before DeBrusk was shuffled elsewhere in the line-up. Nine games into the season, DeBrusk has yet to score and has just two 5-on-5 points &#8212; both secondary assists. By the eye test or the numbers, it&#8217;s been a highly disappointing start for athe newcomer. Meanwhile, the offensive struggles of Elias Pettersson have been well documented. The first player in the NHL to 25 points a season ago, Pettersson finished October with one goal and three assists. He had single points in four separate games and was held off the scoresheet in five others. It&#8217;s hard to imagine the Canucks taking flight until both Pettersson and DeBrusk start delivering regularly.
<blockquote>Quinn Hughes is on another level</blockquote>
With two goals and six assists, the points aren&#8217;t at the level they were for the Canucks captain a season ago. But make no mistake, he has taken his game up a notch from his Norris Trophy winning campaign. Across the board, the underlying numbers glow when Hughes is on the ice. The Canucks have controlled 62.6% of all shot attempts at 5-on-5, 63% of all scoring chances and high dangers, 65% of expected goals and have outscored opponents 10-4 giving him a 71.4% individual goal share. If those numbers continue, at some point it has to lead to more output for himself and his teammates. Hughes, by himself, is a cheat code for the Canucks almost every shift out. Now he just needs a few others to try to match his level of performance.
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<h4>No one but the captain shoots the puck</h4>
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Quinn Hughes leads the Canucks by a considerable margin with 26 shots on goal at 5-on-5. After Hughes, Brock Boeser, Conor Garland and Kiefer Sherwood are next on the team with 17 shots apiece. So the leading shooters among forwards aren&#8217;t even averaging two shots on goal per game at 5-on-5. There are five forwards in the league who are already in the thirties. Hughes is tied for 12th in the league at this stage. Those others are tied for 106th. Then you get to JT Miller and Elias Pettersson with 10 shots each at 5-on-5 and Jake DeBrusk with just eight through nine games. There has to be more to give from the Canucks biggest scoring threats.
<blockquote>The bottom four has been dreadful</blockquote>
Any way you slice it, it&#8217;s been a really rough start for the bottom of the Canucks defensive depth chart. With Hughes-Hronek on the ice the Canucks have outscored opponents 7-2 at evens. Without either of those two on the ice, the Canucks have been outscored 10-6. Carson Soucy is carrying an individual Corsi For of 36.4% and the Canucks have been outscored 10-3 when he&#8217;s on the ice at 5-on-5. His partner Tyler Myers is only slightly better in CF% (40.9%) and the goals are 10-5 for opponents with Myers on the ice at evens. Neither Vincent Desharnais nor Noah Juulsen has latched onto the opportunity on the right side on the third pair. The Canucks have not controlled play with either of them on the ice and both have negative goal differentials in limited and sheltered minutes. The numbers are slightly better in the three games Derek Forbort has suited up for (51.6% CF with a 2-3 goal differential), however the veteran hasn&#8217;t played since the third game of the season after taking a personal leave. Erik Brännström has offered the lone ray of hope in the bottom four with the Canucks controlling 54.2% of all shot attempts and outscoring opponent 5-2 in the 80 minutes Brännström has logged so far. The Canucks have to find their optimal defensive deployment and hope that the depth guys can improve over their October showing.
<blockquote>The power play has also been dreadful</blockquote>
Don&#8217;t get fooled by the overall conversion rate of 17.2%. The power play has been a massive issue for the Canucks. It went 0 for 10 on the three game homestand that wrapped up on Wednesday night. More than that, it surrendered a shorthanded goal to New Jersey&#8217;s Dawson Mercer. So it was a net negative over the past three games. On the season, the power play has scored five times while allowing a pair of shorthanded goals. The power play scored twice in the first period of the season opener against Calgary and has not scored since at Rogers Arena. On the season, the Canucks are 2 for 19 (10.5%) on the power play on home ice. Maybe it&#8217;s a good thing they&#8217;re headed out on the road again.
<blockquote>Home (not so) sweet home</blockquote>
The power play is a big part of why the paying customers haven&#8217;t really got their money&#8217;s worth so far this season. Last year, the Canucks won 27 of their 41 games and were a dominant home ice team in the regular season. This season they have one victory in the five games played so far at Rogers Arena. Sure, they&#8217;ve managed to squeeze points out of four of the five games (1-1-3), but haven&#8217;t provided one example yet of being a team that makes life difficult for opponents coming through Vancouver.
<blockquote>Struggles in games beyond regulation</blockquote>
Four times the Canucks have gone to overtime and only once have they managed to snag the bonus point up for grabs. JT Miller scored a brilliant goal off a set piece in Florida to give the Canucks their first win of the season. Otherwise, they lost in overtime to Calgary and Carolina and fell to Philadelphia in a shootout. A team with the reigning Norris Trophy winner, a pair of 100-point producers and a 40-goal guy to choose from should be far better than it is when games go beyond regulation time. All points matter. And the Canucks have flushed three additional points available to them with subpar performances in games that require extra time. With it&#8217;s top end personnel, the Canucks should be so much better than they are in those situations.
<blockquote>Elias Pettersson&#8217;s NHL Edge data</blockquote>
The numbers don&#8217;t lie. Elias Pettersson doesn&#8217;t look anything like the same player that roared out of the gates last season. According to NHL Edge data, both his skating and his shot velocity are down considerably from a year ago. Last season, Pettersson clocked a season-high skating speed of 22.4 miles per hour and registered 111 bursts over 20 mph including three over 22 mph. His hardest shot was 97.67 miles per hour, with 15 of them topping 90 mph mark. Compare that to the first nine games of this season when Pettersson&#8217;s top skating speed was measured at 21.7 mph and his hardest shot has been 82.9 mph &#8212; the only shot over 80 so far this season.
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Nine games into the Vancouver Canucks' season, the team's 4-2-3 record looks <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/stanchies-vancouver-canucks-trick-treat-6-0-defeat-devils">better than the product</a> on the ice has for much of the first month of the season. Professional sports is a bottom-line business, and to their credit, the Canucks have managed to pick up points despite being anywhere close to the top of their game. Thursday's 6-0 disaster against the Devils brought October to a crashing halt. With that in mind, here is a look at nine statistics that have defined the Canucks' first nine games of the new season.
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<blockquote>Kevin Lankinen has been lights out</blockquote>
Kevin Lankinen is 4-0-2 in his six starts and has stablized the Canucks netminding in the absence of Thatcher Demko. Not bad for a guy that wasn't even in the mix until the final weekend of training camp. Lankinen has a 2.29 GAA and a 92.0% save percentage with a 26-save shutout in Philadelphia on October 19th. It's hard to imagine where the Canucks would be without the kind of goaltending the 29-year-old Finn provided especially early when the team was winless through its first three outings. According to Evolving-Hockey, Lankinen has prevented 3.91 goals above average and 3.13 goals above expected. He has delivered 10 of the 11 points the Canucks have amassed in the early going this season.
<blockquote>Lack of starpower</blockquote>
Jake DeBrusk was signed in the off-season to give Elias Pettersson a proven goal-scorer to play with. That experiment lasted just two games before DeBrusk was shuffled elsewhere in the line-up. Nine games into the season, DeBrusk has yet to score and has just two 5-on-5 points -- both secondary assists. By the eye test or the numbers, it's been a highly disappointing start for athe newcomer. Meanwhile, the offensive struggles of Elias Pettersson have been well documented. The first player in the NHL to 25 points a season ago, Pettersson finished October with one goal and three assists. He had single points in four separate games and was held off the scoresheet in five others. It's hard to imagine the Canucks taking flight until both Pettersson and DeBrusk start delivering regularly.
<blockquote>Quinn Hughes is on another level</blockquote>
With two goals and six assists, the points aren't at the level they were for the Canucks captain a season ago. But make no mistake, he has taken his game up a notch from his Norris Trophy winning campaign. Across the board, the underlying numbers glow when Hughes is on the ice. The Canucks have controlled 62.6% of all shot attempts at 5-on-5, 63% of all scoring chances and high dangers, 65% of expected goals and have outscored opponents 10-4 giving him a 71.4% individual goal share. If those numbers continue, at some point it has to lead to more output for himself and his teammates. Hughes, by himself, is a cheat code for the Canucks almost every shift out. Now he just needs a few others to try to match his level of performance.
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<h4>No one but the captain shoots the puck</h4>
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Quinn Hughes leads the Canucks by a considerable margin with 26 shots on goal at 5-on-5. After Hughes, Brock Boeser, Conor Garland and Kiefer Sherwood are next on the team with 17 shots apiece. So the leading shooters among forwards aren't even averaging two shots on goal per game at 5-on-5. There are five forwards in the league who are already in the thirties. Hughes is tied for 12th in the league at this stage. Those others are tied for 106th. Then you get to JT Miller and Elias Pettersson with 10 shots each at 5-on-5 and Jake DeBrusk with just eight through nine games. There has to be more to give from the Canucks biggest scoring threats.
<blockquote>The bottom four has been dreadful</blockquote>
Any way you slice it, it's been a really rough start for the bottom of the Canucks defensive depth chart. With Hughes-Hronek on the ice the Canucks have outscored opponents 7-2 at evens. Without either of those two on the ice, the Canucks have been outscored 10-6. Carson Soucy is carrying an individual Corsi For of 36.4% and the Canucks have been outscored 10-3 when he's on the ice at 5-on-5. His partner Tyler Myers is only slightly better in CF% (40.9%) and the goals are 10-5 for opponents with Myers on the ice at evens. Neither Vincent Desharnais nor Noah Juulsen has latched onto the opportunity on the right side on the third pair. The Canucks have not controlled play with either of them on the ice and both have negative goal differentials in limited and sheltered minutes. The numbers are slightly better in the three games Derek Forbort has suited up for (51.6% CF with a 2-3 goal differential), however the veteran hasn't played since the third game of the season after taking a personal leave. Erik Brännström has offered the lone ray of hope in the bottom four with the Canucks controlling 54.2% of all shot attempts and outscoring opponent 5-2 in the 80 minutes Brännström has logged so far. The Canucks have to find their optimal defensive deployment and hope that the depth guys can improve over their October showing.
<blockquote>The power play has also been dreadful</blockquote>
Don't get fooled by the overall conversion rate of 17.2%. The power play has been a massive issue for the Canucks. It went 0 for 10 on the three game homestand that wrapped up on Wednesday night. More than that, it surrendered a shorthanded goal to New Jersey's Dawson Mercer. So it was a net negative over the past three games. On the season, the power play has scored five times while allowing a pair of shorthanded goals. The power play scored twice in the first period of the season opener against Calgary and has not scored since at Rogers Arena. On the season, the Canucks are 2 for 19 (10.5%) on the power play on home ice. Maybe it's a good thing they're headed out on the road again.
<blockquote>Home (not so) sweet home</blockquote>
The power play is a big part of why the paying customers haven't really got their money's worth so far this season. Last year, the Canucks won 27 of their 41 games and were a dominant home ice team in the regular season. This season they have one victory in the five games played so far at Rogers Arena. Sure, they've managed to squeeze points out of four of the five games (1-1-3), but haven't provided one example yet of being a team that makes life difficult for opponents coming through Vancouver.
<blockquote>Struggles in games beyond regulation</blockquote>
Four times the Canucks have gone to overtime and only once have they managed to snag the bonus point up for grabs. JT Miller scored a brilliant goal off a set piece in Florida to give the Canucks their first win of the season. Otherwise, they lost in overtime to Calgary and Carolina and fell to Philadelphia in a shootout. A team with the reigning Norris Trophy winner, a pair of 100-point producers and a 40-goal guy to choose from should be far better than it is when games go beyond regulation time. All points matter. And the Canucks have flushed three additional points available to them with subpar performances in games that require extra time. With it's top end personnel, the Canucks should be so much better than they are in those situations.
<blockquote>Elias Pettersson's NHL Edge data</blockquote>
The numbers don't lie. Elias Pettersson doesn't look anything like the same player that roared out of the gates last season. According to NHL Edge data, both his skating and his shot velocity are down considerably from a year ago. Last season, Pettersson clocked a season-high skating speed of 22.4 miles per hour and registered 111 bursts over 20 mph including three over 22 mph. His hardest shot was 97.67 miles per hour, with 15 of them topping 90 mph mark. Compare that to the first nine games of this season when Pettersson's top skating speed was measured at 21.7 mph and his hardest shot has been 82.9 mph -- the only shot over 80 so far this season.

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