Defence and Discipline – FIX IT!

After 2 straight loses to start this season, there are two obvious issues with the Vancouver Canucks. They need to drastically improve both their defensive play and their discipline. They need to identifty the problem, address it and FIX IT!

The Canucks are already starting to make a habit out of taking bad penalties and are having a LOT of trouble killing too many penalties.

They are also playing very poor team defense. Not only are the defencemen themselves not up to speed yet, but the defensive efforts of the forwards needs to improve quickly. Poor backchecking and lackluster efforts have led to a few goals against already.

First and foremost, with all the depth that the Canucks have on defense, some of the players better start improving their play quickly. Shane O’Brien is the leading candidate to be replaced. He has been undisciplined (as usual) and has looked slow and out of place in these two games. Brad Lukowich would be a welcome steady hand to replace him.

Furthermore, it’s time to start looking at Rick Bowness. He’s the defensive coach and has failed miserably to lead his troops effectively. With the skill and depth that the Canucks have on defense, their sub-par play thus far simply should not be happening.

Somebody has to be culpable for a general failure on defense, and you need to start looking at the shepherd instead of blaming every sheep in the flock.

If this is how the Canucks road games are going to turn out, it’s going to a long few months for Canucks when the team plays 14 in a row away from GM Place. There’s no time to try to wait this out. They need to fix it now.