Canucks Army Postgame – A Luu-sing Performance

Highlights

Quick Hits

• First of all, a big thank you to the Vancouver Canucks for hosting us in their Save On Foods Social Suite night (gotta work in that #branding, you guys). We had a great time actually watching the game, though it was a bit traumatic without our spreadsheets at hand. The reception for Roberto Luongo was pretty spectacular first-hand, and it was fantastic to see him post a vintage Luongo performance in front of the Vancouver faithful, even if it did result in a Canucks loss.
• One of my favourite sub-plots to the night and to the last few days has been watching Florida Panthers beat writer Harvey Fialkov get literally everything about Vancouver’s relationship with Roberto Luongo wrong:

• Though to his credit, Fialkov eventually figured it out:

• This man is basically McScoop the News Dog.
• One thing that doesn’t really come across with the lack of depth to a TV broadcast is just how tightly the Canucks collapse in their defensive zone. The centre is really low and both wingers are below where the ringette line would be, with the weak side winger actually standing in the strong side faceoff circle. This is great for out-manning forwards down low, but it essentially leaves 75% of the ice in the defensive zone uncovered, especially up high.
• This setup leaves the opposing D completely uncovered most of the time, which is dangerous if your opponents have a guy as talented a puck mover as Brian Campbell. Campbell was a +2 on the night, and a game-high +9 Corsi as well (62.2%), and I thought he and some of the other Panthers were able to generate some quality shot attempts by moving Vancouver’s tight box-plus-one laterally, then reversing the play to catch them off guard. Here’s a good example from Nick Bjugstad and Shane O’Brien:

• It should be mentioned that Campbell and Ekblad were able to do most of their damage against the Horvat-Dorsett tandem, going +10 against each. Horvat was also above only Tomas Fleischmann in Corsi% on the night, and the only Canuck in the 30% range at 31.6%. This was Horvat’s 39th game of the season, so Vancouver can still preserve one more RFA season should they decide to send him back to London this season, otherwise he’ll become a UFA one year sooner. I would bet on him staying though.
• Derek Dorsett looked to get under Roberto Luongo’s skin tonight, and Luongo took exception, throwing blocker shots at Dorsett in a 3rd period scrum. Either that or Luongo, like me, still has hard feelings towards Dorsett and Willie Desjardins about the 2007 WHL Finals Jordan Bendfeld incident, chronicled here by Steve Ewen. Not mentioned in that article: Dorsett allegedly biting fingers and allegedly making fun of Milan Lucic’s scoliosis.

Conclusion