Canucks Deep Dive: Regular Season Finale

After the John Tortorella tire fire era,
there was understandably a lot of apathy amongst the Canucks faithful going
into this season. Let’s face it, they were no longer the team that could run
the table like they did from 2009 to 2012 – a period which will undoubtedly be
remembered as the golden age of Canucks hockey. In all honesty, the 2014-15
edition of the Canucks really couldn’t hold a candle those teams, but you know
what? They weren’t the 2013-14 Canucks either. This team wasn’t the power house
of years gone, but once you adjusted your expectations to be a bit more
realistic, man were they fun to watch this year.

Before we embark on a hopefully long and fruitful playoff journey, let’s take a look back on the regular season that was.

Say what you will about the
intellectually flawed NHL points system, which sees some games worth 3 points
and some points worth 2, but it led to a pretty damn exciting finish for the
Canucks.

After opening the month with a loss
the Blackhawks, the Canucks split one of those aforementioned 3 pointers with
the Jets, losing in a shootout, which ironically helped the Jets fend off the
Kings in the wild card race. After helping the Jets, the Canucks helped
themselves by beating the Kings in a shootout. This wasn’t the final nail in
the Kings coffin, but it was one of them.

After the Kings win, they finished
the season with victories against the tank-tastic Coyotes and Oilers, the former being a
Canucks blowout, and the latter being a glorified game of shiny to help Ryan
Miller shake off some rust. After the Kings game, the real action was on the out
of town scoreboard, which saw the Flames and Jets defy the odds to squeak into
the playoffs, while sending the Kings off to play with their surfboards. You have no idea how
good it felt to type that last sentence. 

The story in net for April, and really for the year for that matter,
starts and stops (but mostly stops) with Eddie Lack. With Miller injured, the
Canucks needed Lack to be good. He was not only good, he was elite. From
February 1st through the end of the season, Lack posted a 0.925 save
percentage. Over the entire season, he posted a save percentage of 0.921 which
was top 15 in the NHL (tied with Roberto Luongo).

If anyone hasn’t noticed yet, the chart above basically shows the
evaluation of Eddie lack from capable backup to one of the top starting
goaltenders in the NHL.

The same evolutionary trend is clear when you look at Quality
Appearances (games played where they goalie achieves a save percentage above
the league average of .911): 

I’d like to say there won’t be a goalie controversy in the playoffs,
because there really shouldn’t be. Miller was very shaky in his return against
the Oilers (0% QA appearances in April), but it’s not about that now.

This is Eddie’s team. He’s earned it.

The table below shows even-strength CF% for each defender, by month:

Dan
Hamhuis had an uncharacteristically poor start to the season for the, before
missing significant time to injury in December. Yannick Weber had always been
considered a power play specialist, who was replacement level at best at even
strength. But since being paired together in the second half of the year, the
tandem has steadily improved to become the Canucks second most effective defensive
pairing at even strength.

The
Canucks ended the season with two strong pairs from the perspective of even
strength possession, the Tanev/Edler pairing (CF 51.99% and CF 51.88%,
respectively), and the Weber and Hamhuis pairing (CF 50.79% and 50.12%,
respectively). If the Canucks have any hopes of playoff success, these two
pairs will need to be clicking.

We
all know that the playoffs is a war of attrition, and I’m sure that the Canucks
management is counting on the Sbisa and Bieksa pairing to wear down their
opposition. I very much hope this is the case, as they really can not be
expected to provide more than that, at least from a possession standpoint.

This
point can be clearly seen when we look at the high rate of scoring chances
against for Sbisa, Bieksa and Stanton, compared to the rest of the Canucks
defensive group. Below is the scoring chances for and against per 60 minutes
for 2014-15:

A
similar pattern can be seen when looking at overall shot attempts for and
against per 60 minutes, where again Sbisa, Bieksa, and Stanton have the largest
negative differential in terms of shots for and against:

Of
the 120 defensemen who played top 4 minutes this year, Bieksa and Sbisa ranked
87th and 94th, respectively, in CorsiFor percentage
(Bieksa CF-48.46%, Sbisa CF-47.18%). That’s a nice way of saying they’ve been
one of the worst top 4 pairing’s at even strength in the league, and if it
wasn’t for an injury depleted Flames defense core I’d say they’re likely the
Canucks largest single liability in the series. Actually, they still are.

Over the course of the season, the ebbs and flows that are par for the
course when it comes to offensive production begin to even themselves out. At
even strength, we begin to see an interesting story emerge:

When Ryan Kesler was traded, much of the fan base bemoaned the loss for
a number of reasons, not the least of which was the perceived loss of secondary
scoring. As we see from above, at even strength three of the Canucks top five
leaders in terms of points per 60 minutes of ice time played their first games
as a Canuck this season. By many accounts, Radim Vrbata was likely the top free
agent signing of last summer, and he’s been in many discussions as a potential
Canucks MVP candidate.

Although he hasn’t received nearly the same amount of fanfare as Vrbata
as a result of the second power play unit never really clicking this year, Nick
Bonino’s contribution to even strength scoring has helped create a balanced
scoring attack for the Canucks. Bonino’s 2.01 points per 60 minutes
of ice time at even strength ranks 30th in the league amongst
centers. For those counting, Ryan Kesler ranked 126th in the league
at 1.34 points per 60 at even strength. This isn’t to say Kesler doesn’t add
incremental value on special teams as compared to Bonino, but its clear that at
least in terms of even strength play, Bonino’s first year with the Canucks has
turned out just about as good as the Canucks could have possibly hoped.

Ronalds Kenins also ranks right atop the Canucks list of even strength scoring
per 60 minutes of ice time, albeit in much few games (23 games played). Now, we
definitely need to keep this limited number of games in mind, but it is
interesting to note, that his P/60 minutes is right in between likely calder
nominees Filip Forsberg from Nashville (2.21 P/60) and Calgary’s Johnny
Gaudreau (1.74 P/60). For that matter, Bo Horvat’s P/60 is also right in that
mix at 1.75 P/60. 

This isn’t to say that either Canuck rookie has the same offensive
talent or flare that Gaudreau or Forsberg do, but their scoring efficiency in
3rd/4th line ice time has provided excellent depth for
Coach Willie to utilize this year, and could likely turn out to be a huge
advantage for Vancouver come playoffs, given the importance of being able to
roll four lines that can score.

Over the course of the year we see on-ice shooting percentage fluctuate
significantly from to month, however this tends to even out to roughly 7-8% at
even-strength, as we see in the table below: 

The chart below displays the scoring chances for, against, and the
difference between the two per 60 minutes at even strength:

Again, we see Nick Bonino near the top of the list along with Alex
Burrows and Chris Higgins in terms of the positive differential between scoring
chances for and against. In this view, the Canucks rookies Vey, Horvat and
Kenins don’t fair quite as well as they did when looking at P/60 along, but
this makes sense especially for Kenins and Horvat as they received amongst the
highest defensive zone starts amongst the Canucks forwards along with Jannik
Hansen and Nick Bonino.

Zack Kassian in particular struggled to minimize quality chances for the
opposition, which would go a ways to explain why his occupancy of Coach
Willie’s dog house throughout the course of the season if not for the
Miller-esque contract recently bestowed upon Derek Dorsett, who happens to have
the next worst scoring chance differential among the forwards. I look forward
to the playoffs where we will get to see if Derek Dorsett will make that type
of series changing physical impact the Canucks apparently think they bought.

The view of total shot attempts for and against per 60 minutes is below:

It’s
interesting to note that Alex Burrows positive differential in scoring chances
aligned consistently with shot attempts, as you would expect. However, the
Sedins, put together another excellent season in terms of CF%, but that didn’t
really translate to a positive scoring chance differential or overly impressive
(by Sedin standards) P/60 minutes at even strength. While the Sedin’s
resurgence has been widely celebrated, the true success has come on the power
play, where they rank among the top 26 players in the league in terms of
points per 60 minutes on the power play (note: minimum 1.5 min/gm, minimum 30
games.  Henrik 6.28 P/60 at 17th,
Daniel 5.93 P/60 26th).

Overall,
as we’ve seen throughout the year, the offense has the ability to roll four
lines which can all contribute offensively, but we’ve also seen the forwards
get hit with extended droughts at even strength, particularly in December and
January. At its core, it’s a very average offensive forward group, so they’ll
definitely need more than their fair share of good bounces if their going to
make any significant run this post season.

The table below shows key statistics for the Canucks when at even-strength,
on the power play, or on the penalty kill, year-to-date:  

I’ve discussed the mediocrity of the Canucks extensively above, but it
really is interesting to see them land between right in the middle of the pack
of each significant team metric noted above.

The power play is another matter altogether, in that they rank in the
bottom third of teams in the league in terms of shot attempts and scoring
chances (defined by shots from higher risk areas), yet they somehow manage to
end up in or around the top third in terms of goals for and shooting
percentage. The answer may likely be in the value of Sedinery. 

Or to put it more
analytically, there is an ongoing research project led by Ryan Stimson and a
group of other volunteers who are manually tracking passes from all hockey
games this season. The early results seem to indicate that shot attempts
arising from a higher number of quality passes, particularly those that make
the goaltender move from one side to the other (across the “Royal Road”) seem
to drive an increased the shooting percentage. The project is not yet complete,
but it very well could be early quantitative evidence of the value of passing,
or what Canucks fans have to come to refer to over the past decade as Sedinery.

The penalty kill is perhaps Vancouver’s greatest strength, as the Canucks PK unit
has been nails this year. In terms of defensemen, the three primary penalty
killers, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler and Chris Tanev are all amongst the top 40
defensemen in the league for lowest scoring chances against per 60 minutes, and
top 20 in the league in terms of lowest shots against per 60 minutes (minimum
30 games). 

Similarly, the primary penalty kill forwards used this year, Alex
Burrows, Shawn Matthias, Jannick Hansen, Brad Richardson, and Chris Higgins
rank within the top 85 for scoring chances against per 60 minutes, and top 46
for shot attempts against per 60 minutes. Obviously, this is excellent, but as always the most important penalty
killer is the goalie, and this year the Canucks goalies have combined for the
3rd best save percentage in the league on the penalty kill.

Fans really have had a lot to be excited about this year.
The Sedins have bounced back in a major way, thanks to an effective Sedinery-injected power play this year. Eddie Lack has emerged from the shadows of first
Luongo and now Ryan Miller to not only be a legitimate NHL starter, but for the
last few months anyway has been performing at a borderline elite and he somehow
keeps getting better.

Up front, the Canucks are starting to see meaningful
contributions from young, exciting forwards like Ronalds Kenins and Bo Horvat, not
to mention the best player available in free agency last summer, Radim Vrbata.
On defense, two of their pairings are worthy of being considered “top four”,
which I suppose is better than nothing.

Perhaps most importantly, they’re going into the postseason
healthy for the players that really matter, and they’re facing off against a
team they can and should beat, which is really something considering how
average this Canucks team has been this year.

Throughout the course of this season, I’ve tried to break
down this team in depth in order to hopefully help shed some insight into this
team, but this is playoff time now. 

This is a period dominated by unsustainable
shooting percentages, both good and bad. This is the season where otherwise mortal
goalies can for a short period of time channel their inner Patrick Roy or
Dominic Hasek. This is the season where injuries can kill or they can crown. Every
once in a while a rookie or a former back up emerges out of the shadows to win
the Conn Smythe. Stranger things have happened than a Canucks Cup run.

As we conclude this regular season’s deep dive series, I
sincerely hope you found this series informative and entertaining. However, as
we go into the post-season, don’t be afraid to put the data aside, because this
is the time of year where magic really can happen. Go Canucks Go!