Canucks Army GDT #9: Canucks vs. Hurricanes

The Carolina Hurricanes are not a good hockey team. Cam Ward is a flaming disaster in net. Their #2 centre is injured long-term. Something called a “Riley Nash” is in their top-6 forward group. They are the only team without a win on the year. If the season ended today, they’d stand a better chance of drafting Connor McDavid than Tim Murray’s abomination in Buffalo.

And yet the woeful ‘Canes are a better team than their 0-5-2 record and -15 goal differential indicate, and are due for some serious positive regression. They aren’t good, but they might be better than the Colorado Avalanche team that lay a beatdown on Vancouver just a few days ago. It’s a dangerous game for the Canucks, and it’s far from the guaranteed win night you’d be tempted to expect from the last winless team in the NHL.

Read past the jump for a full preview.

Puck Drop: 7:00 PM PST

TV: Sportsnet Vancouver Hockey

Radio: TSN 1040

Vancouver hasn’t received strong goaltending from the duo of Ryan Miller and Eddie Lack to start the year, as only two teams in the NHL have a lower team 5-on-5 save percentage: the PhoenixGlendaleArizona Coyotes, and their opponents tonight, the lowly Hurricanes. The ‘Canes are also dealing with some awful shooting percentages too, resulting in a league low 918 PDO. To put how awful that is into perspective, 17 teams have a higher 5v5 save percentage than that.

Cam Ward, who will start tonight, is the only goaltender in the NHL off to a worse start than Eddie Lack. Through three games, Ward has an NHL-worst 0.829 save percentage, and NHL-worst 0.814 save percentage at even strength, and an NHL-worst 0.804 save percentage at 5-on-5. Ward has been on the decline for a few years now and isn’t the goalie he once was, but unless his arms and legs have fallen off and he’s just a torso flopping uncontrollably around the crease, he’s due for an upswing in those numbers.

I’m seeing a lot of “trap game” banter this morning, and this is concerning because it’s kinda missing the point of what’s happened to Carolina in the early going. They’re a below average team that’s being sunk by unfavourable percentages and god awful injury luck. The biggest reason why Vancouver could lose this game isn’t because they risk overlooking an inferior opponent. The biggest reason why Vancouver could lose this game is because the margin between awful teams and decent teams is razor thin and anything can happen in a one-game sample.

There’s a reason why the NHL is statistically identical to a simulated league in which 76% of the games are determined by a coin flip: talent gaps between the best teams and everyone except the Buffalo Sabres are small enough that the vast majority of teams are going to fall in between the 30 wins-50 losses to the 50 wins-30 losses range.

All this is to say that even if Vancouver doesn’t overlook a team that has just a 0.9% lower 5v5 Corsi than them and plays their best game of the year, they could still lose because hey, that’s just how hockey works sometimes. I’ll channel Alain Vigneault here and say that past process is more important than the past results, because it’s the process that’s the better determinant of future results. And all we care about right now is future results.

Still, if you’re a betting man or woman, this is a game that the Canucks should win. Despite the teams being quite close in raw 5v5 Corsi%, the ‘Canes have been a hot mess in score close and score tied situations (26th and 28th in the NHL in Corsi%), while Vancouver has been quite good (12th and 5th respectively). I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but it’s still too early to tell if these numbers are truly reflective of team talent. It does, however, tell us that Vancouver’s process has been better than Carolina’s, and we can infer that the Canucks are likely the better team. You already knew that though.

Regardless, a loss tonight would still be embarrassing since no one wants to be that team which gives a winless club it’s first victory, and a win would vault the Canucks into 3rd in the Pacific division, ahead of the Sharks and Flames. It may seem a little early to be looking at the standings, but two points are two points, and if Vancouver wants to make the playoffs (they do), they can’t afford to give up any ground in the tough Western Conference.