It’s going to be hard to remove Yannick Weber from the Canucks lineup
8 years ago
Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA TODAY Sports
Since returning to the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup four games ago, and staying out of the press box all week partly as a result of Dan Hamhuis’ lower-body injury, depth defender Yannick Weber has been crushing it.
The 27-year-old blueliner has been dynamic at 5-on-5 and particularly effective on a pairing with Ben Hutton. He’s opened things up on the power play and, lo and behold, the first unit is suddenly humming with Weber manning the right point.
Throughout his NHL career, Weber has managed more auspicious on-ice results than the meagre opportunities generally afforded him. And once again he’s taking full advantage of a defensive injury, and establishing himself as a useful blueliner. Once Hamhuis is back to full health, you have to think it’ll be extremely hard to remove Weber from the lineup.
The samples are small, but here’s a quick sampling of why Weber should stay in the lineup even once Hamhuis is ready to return.
Power-play calibration
Early on in the season the Canucks’ first power-play unit was generating a tonne of shots and scoring chances with their initial four forward layout (which included the Sedin twins and Brandon Sutter, with Radim Vrbata joining Alex Edler on the point), but the goals weren’t coming. They were snake bit.
Now the floodgates have opened and the fact is: having a right-handed shot from the point is just so crucial for the Sedin twins. It just opens up so many options, and the dual threat of the Sedin’s cycle game with Weber’s heavy point shot – which he can get off quickly when receiving passes from the right-side half wall where the twins work best from – pulls opposition penalty killers way off kilter.
Looking at the power-play shot rate, the Canucks’ first unit was actually generating more looks when Sutter was playing with Vrbata, Edler and the twins in early October. Since Weber bumped Sutter to the second unit, though, the first unit has scored three goals in four games.
Not all of that is Weber. The goal Daniel Sedin scored on the rush against Anders Lindback on Friday night was just a smart sniper taking advantage of a sub-par NHL goaltender. The goal Radim Vrbata scored to ice the game against the Montreal Canadiens was just an example of a veteran scorer with excellent hand-eye coordination taking advantage of Montreal’s ridiculously aggressive penalty-killing system.
The one that sticks out to me though is this Edler power-play goal against the Dallas Stars:
(Courtesy: NHL.com)
Weber picked up a primary assist on this play, but what I want to focus on is what Weber’s very presence on the power play did to Dallas’ penalty-killing structure long before the goal was manufactured.
Essentially the Stars’ forwards – Jamie Benn and Cody Eakin – were so preoccupied with the possibility of the Weber point shot from the middle of the ice that they remained in the high slot and repeatedly cheated to deny passes from the right-side half wall to Weber.
You can see what I’m talking about with the Stars forwards staying high and in the slot – more concerned about being burned by a Weber point shot than whatever damage Edler might do – in the screenshot below. Here’s what Edler was looking at after receiving a pass from Weber:
(Courtesy: Fox Sports)
Time and space for days, with the Stars’ forwards trying to deny a cross-seam pass to Henrik, and two deflection options in the slot. Edler tried a slap pass that Vrbata deflected just wide.
Here’s another example just seconds later. After Vrbata’s deflection attempt missed far side, Henrik Sedin recovered the puck. Benn comes in with an opportunity to check Henrik, but look at how he keeps his stick in the potential to-Weber passing lane, rather than just taking the man. This provided Henrik with the space and time to executive a slick, but simple stop-and-go deke and reset:
(Courtesy: Fox Sports)
Shortly thereafter the puck comes back to Weber, who again swings it out to Edler, who again is looking at a Stars penalty kill that have picked their poison and have opted to allow the Swedish defenseman to beat them:
(Courtesy: Fox Sports)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You can see that the Stars are so preoccupied with denying the Weber point shot that they’re willing to give Edler all of the time and space he needs. Edler is staring down the barrel at a man unguarded at the net front AND a softly checked forward higher in the slot looking for a deflection. I suspect on his eventual shot Edler was once again looking for a deflection, but no one gets a stick on it, and the shot attempt misses far side.
Now here’s where Dallas’ cheating gets a bit ridiculous. Henrik recovers the puck, and look at the lengths to which Eakin will go to deny the pass to Weber. Literally almost all the way out to the blue line…
(Courtesy: Fox Sports)
Despite Eakin’s solid work denying the pass – he did a good job, partially deflecting Daniel’s attempted to feed to Weber at the end of the above .gif – the puck gets to Weber, who feeds Edler. Edler is once again looking at a glorious chance with all of the time and space in the world. He gets a good screen from Vrbata and especially Daniel, and Niemi had no chance.
(Courtesy: Fox Sports)
Scoring on the power play is about more than just shot volume. Weber’s presence on the point, even if he’s just a decoy and the club opts to run a number of consecutive looks through Edler as they did on the sequence broken down above, just creates so much havoc. If you’ve forced your opposition into making a choice like ‘we’ll let Edler and Vrbata beat us!’, that’s nearly half the battle.
And the numbers back it up. The Canucks are scoring goals more efficiently with Weber on the ice than they are with any other power-play regular this season except for, oddly, Chris Tanev. The first unit has now scored in three consecutive games and the Canucks are five-for-12 on the power-play since Weber re-entered the lineup (though, obviously, we shouldn’t credit him for the two goals the second unit has chipped in).
Weber hasn’t scored a power-play goal yet this season, and it doesn’t even matter. Even if Weber weren’t playing very well at 5-on-5, the Canucks need his point shot on the power play.
Improved 5-on-5 play
There’s something about the idea of Weber as a top-four defenseman that makes hockey people sneer skeptically. He’s never been used that way with any consistency in his career, and the prevailing wisdom is that he’s best suited to a third-pairing role. He’s widely considered to be a power-play specialist in need of sheltering.
I generally defer to the opinion of coaches and executives when it comes to player deployment. By the underlying numbers though, Weber has had the sort of impact on his team’s shot attempt differential that we might expect from a low-end second-pairing D.
In my opinion: you’re probably not going to ever see Weber playing top-four minutes on a Stanley Cup contender, but I suspect he could do it for a playoff team.
Since being reinserted into the Canucks lineup, for example, Weber’s 5-on-5 impact has been mammoth. The sample is still really small, but the Canucks are generating way more shot attempts for with Weber on the ice than they are with any other defenseman. And while no one will ever confuse Weber’s defensive abilities with Tanev’s, he’s been the best shot attempt suppressing defenseman not named Tanev or Edler on the club in his short stint.
Most interestingly, Weber has seemed a really good fit with both Dan Hamhuis and Ben Hutton at even-strength. With Hutton and Weber on the ice together for about 40 minutes at evens over the past three games, the Canucks have controlled over 55 percent of shot attempts and haven’t surrendered a goal against. In comparison, when Hutton has played with Sbisa, Vancouver controlled 45 percent of shot attempts and was outscored two-to-one.
I thought Weber and Hamhuis had decent chemistry last season, and they had a nice game against the Detroit Red Wings last weekend before Hamhuis went down with injury. I’d be tempted to give Hutton and Weber some serious run though when Hamhuis gets back. The early returns have been excellent, and that pair would give the club a defensive duo that could theoretically be quite productive offensively.
Conclusion
Weber is one of Vancouver’s six best defencemen. He makes the power play tick. He’s found an intriguing and instant level of chemistry on a pair with Vancouver’s youngest blueliner.
The Canucks’ coaching staff will face a tough decision about who to remove from the lineup when Hamhuis is ready to return. Whatever they decide, Weber should stay in the lineup.
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