Monday Mailbag: How to score in NHL 21, a taxi squad, and who will the Vancouver Canucks lose next offseason?
3 years ago
Another week, another mailbag. Let’s see what you wonderful people asked this week!
There were a lot of non-hockey related questions, so be prepared for that!
Last week, we wrapped up our complete rankings of the top 16 prospects in the Vancouver Canucks organization, and a name you didn’t see on that list was goaltender Matthew Thiessen.
Thiessen was selected in the seventh round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft but really hasn’t done anything to make anyone believe he’ll ever be an NHL calibre-goalie, let alone a future number one goaltender.
Last year with the University of Maine, Thiessen played just seven minutes before getting relieved of his duties by 2017 Boston Bruins 4th round pick Jeremy Swayman. Thiessen did not see a single minute of game action from that point on.
With Swayman moving on from the University of Maine, this next season will be a great opportunity for Thiessen to show he belongs in the conversation as someone who could one day forge out a respectable career at the professional level. It’s hard to judge a goaltender properly when they don’t play for an entire year, so to answer the original question, I’ll say no, there’s just not enough evidence that this could ever become true as of right now.
If you couldn’t care less about video games, scroll past the next two questions. This could take a while.
To answer your question, the best way to score in NHL 21 is undoubtedly cross-crease one timers, and it’s not particularly close. While that’s all fine and dandy, the bigger issue is that defending against this is at times seemingly impossible. Defending in the NHL consists of much more than laying down in the middle of the ice or leaving shooters open in order to clog the middle and ensure a pass can’t get across. But even when doing that — which is absolutely necessary when playing online if you don’t want to get absolutely lit up — there are countless instances where pucks go through defender’s skates, sticks, or bodies and get to a shooter seamlessly. Then, with a defender draped all over them, that shooter somehow pulls off the same one-timer animation as they would if they were wide open receiving the one-time pass.
It’s certainly frustrating for players who play the game online, who now hope that EA will release a patch to make the use of cross-crease one-timers less frequent.
As of right now? If you want to score, look for the one timer. If your opponent is taking that away or is standing close to the intended receiver, go for it anyway, because there’s about a 30% chance the puck will go right through their defender’s legs or stick. There’s also the option of walking out in front from the side, (left side if your player shoots right and right side if your player shoots left) and shooting short side. This seems to be another popular way to score and has a high chance of going in.
On that note, I noticed that in play now and online versus play, Alex Edler is an 84 overall, while Nate Schmidt and Tyler Myers are both 83 overall players. Let that sink in.
I’d say for sure Schmidt deserves to be at least 85 overall, seeing as Drew Doughty is still rated at 91 overall. Also, Quinn Hughes at 86 overall seems low, especially when you consider Doughty’s 91, Erik Karlsson’s 89 overall rating, and Kris Letang’s 88 rating.
Elias Pettersson is fairly rated at an 89 overall, and is the Canucks highest overall player in NHL 21.
This is an interesting question for a couple of reasons. First of all, I’m not sure if there will be a spot for Alex Edler on the Canucks by the start of next season.
The Canucks believe in Olli Juolevi and his defensive game, and Jack Rathbone appears to have the makeup of a legit top four defenceman. That means that if the Canucks were to reunite with Edler, it would have to be in a third-pairing or depth role, but I’m not so sure they’ll even feel the need to. Money will be tight, and with Juolevi and Rathbone both on ELCs, the Canucks will be more than happy to have a competitive cost-controlled left side blue line consisting of Hughes, Rathbone, and Juolevi in the 2021-22 season and beyond.
As for Pearson, that’s another name that I’m not sure the Canucks will be rushing to re-sign. With Vasili Podkolzin, Nils Hoglander, and even a guy like Kole Lind just around the corner, Pearson may be a player the Canucks walk away from next offseason.
In an ideal world, they flip him at the deadline, but that all depends on where the Canucks are in the standings by the time the trade deadline rolls around. My guess is both of these players will hit unrestricted free agency, where they will inevitably be signed by the Calgary Flames to enormous contracts.
Stephan Roget examined all the players on the Canucks whose contracts expire at the end of the 2020-21 campaign,
Major League Baseball used taxi squads this season. Prior to the 2020 season, the term was an informal term for the group of players who are often sent up and down from the farm team and MLB team. To put it in perspective, the Canucks “taxi squad” last season would consist of players like Ashton Sautner, Guillaume Brisebois, and Zack MacEwen.
During this season however, the term was officially added to the MLB rule book. This from Baseball Reference:
In 2020, it became an official part of the rules, as every team was asked to have three players not on their 30-man roster accompany the team at all times to serve as ready substitutes should a player be unavailable. That group, which had to include at least one catcher, was known as the taxi squad. When rosters were reduced to 28 players on August 6th, the taxi squad was in turn increased to five players. With players at risk of being sidelined at very short notice by a positive test for COVID-19, it was felt necessary to have such a pool of players readily available to step in with little notice. Since there was no minor league baseball being played, the players on the squad were not losing any playing time or development time with this status.
With the AHL announcing an intended start date of February 5th, and news that the Utica Comets will be staying in the Unite States, things could get tricky for Canadian teams such as the Canucks who need to call players up in a pinch.
In order to get around the two-week quarantine required for individuals arriving from outside of Canada, teams may keep a taxi squad of players while playing in Canada.
Assuming the Canadian teams will all travel into the US once completing their season series against one another, the taxi squad won’t be really necessary, as there are no quarantine laws for those arriving from outside the country in the States.
This is a situation we’ll closely be following and one I’ll be able to say more about once more details arise. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the NHL allow teams to carry extra players on their roster during the regular season in order to limit the amount of travel for AHL players.
Sorry Garrett, not only do I think I can’t help you unsee that, I now think I’ll be unable to see it as well!
That’s all for this week folks! Thanks to everyone who asked questions this week. In order to ask a question in a future mailbag, be sure to follow me on Twitter @QuadreIli, and keep an eye out for the weekly mailbag tweet.
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