Canucks Army Roundtable: No Squad Goals

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Canucks are having a hard time scoring goals. They have been shutout four times in five games, and though they have been getting some chances, there is major cause for worry if you’re hoping to turn things around. Will it be a proven veteran notching the next one? A lucky bounce? Who knows. I decided to have some fun with it and ask our writers who they think will be the next to light the lamp.

Question:

Because this team is confusing and ridiculous, here is a question that asks you all to blindly guess: who breaks their goal scoring drought and why?

Stecher, because it’s fun

Nolan Patrick

For personal scoring droughts, I’m going to say Baertschi just because I’ve been saying it for a while now. He’s had a ton of really good chances in the past games and everyone can see that he’s soooooo close to being there. However, given the fact that the entire team is unable to score, I’d say either Jannik Hansen or Bo Horvat would be the players to finally put it in the net. Both of them leave it all on the ice every night, regardless of the score and how everyone else is playing. If you’re looking for any positive sign, it’s these two because they’ve arguably been the team’s MVPs so far.

I’m going to say Loui Eriksson because they paid him a bunch of $$$ and at some point I don’t want to cry anymore. I’m hoping he finds flubber or bugs bunnys special water from space jam or something. Just end the drought. We beg you!!

Markus Granlund. He can play left wing, he can play centre, he’s a good penalty-killer. He has got good skill. For his time in the American league, if you look at his stats, he’s almost a goal every two games player. He has got good skill. To be a goal-scorer at the NHL level, where the players are bigger and stronger and faster, you need the strength to get to the net and the good goal-scorers in the NHL have a good release on their shot.

Matthew Tkachuk. He’s been having a crazy good rookie season!

Based solely on shot volume, I’m going to say
Daniel Sedin. It might not be much of a stretch to suggest that the
franchise’s all-time leader in goals scored will be the player who ends
the streak, but even Daniel hasn’t looked particularly dangerous this
season. He is averaging under 3 shots a game and only 3.9 shots attempts
per game, which is nearly one shot attempt less per game than last
season, and 2 shots attempts less per game than his career high in 2009.
He needs to get back to the level from last year, at least. That said,
Daniel is the Canucks’ leading shooter again this season and on that
metric alone I’m placing my bet on him. But let’s be honest, it will
probably end up being someone pretty random.

Jared McCann.

My gut is telling me that it will be Loui Eriksson – he’s been playing like a guy who will finally get one. ‘Doing the little things’ right, as they say. He is also leading all the  ‘goal-less’ forwards with 19 shots on goal, so the usual argument of, he is due, plays into it. Surprisingly Philip Larsen leads the Canucks without goals group in shots with 20 -but since defence man’s shooting percentage are usually lower than forwards, Eriksson gets the nod.If you had told me before the season began, that 11 games in – Jake Virtanen, Sven Baertschi, and Loui Eriksson had zero goals combined, I would’ve laughed. But unfortunately here we are.

Alex Burrows because he likes to snap streaks

Personally I think Ryan Miller is gonna get tired of wasting his time trying to keep this team in games and will go down and score himself.