Were The Canucks Lucky Or Good During Their Six-Game Point Streak?

The Vancouver Canucks recently put up their best segment of the season to date—earning points in six straight games between December 6 and 16, and scoring a ton of goals while doing so.

The Canucks have been a mercurial team in 2018/19, seeming to vacillate between scorching hot streaks and ice cold losing skids, and that raises the question of how indicative this recent streak was of the team’s overall ability level—and how much can be chalked up to puck luck. As some of the stats from those six games suggest, the real answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.

 

To say that the Canucks’ penalty kill during their six-game point streak was perfect isn’t an understatement—the PK unit was successful all 11 times the team was shorthanded. This represents a drastic improvement on the team’s season total of 78.1%, but it’s also the first time that the entire PK corps—minus Brandon Sutter—has been available, so this is probably a truer indication of the team’s shorthanded ability than the previous months of the season.

Vancouver’s penalty killing obviously won’t continue to be impeccable, but this is still a dramatic gain in an area that looked like a major weakness just a couple of weeks ago. A healthy Jay Beagle, Chris Tanev, and Alex Edler certainly make a difference, and they can elevate the Canucks’ PK to one of the league’s best—as long as they remain in the lineup.

 

During their six-game point streak, the Canucks scored 26 goals on 152 shots for a ridiculous team shooting percentage of 17.1%. Even more eye-popping numbers were achieved by Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser, who each scored on exactly 40% of these shots.

For Pettersson, this represents a moderate bump from his season average, but Boeser more than doubled his average shooting percentage over these six games. As a team, the Canucks’ shooting percentage increased by more than 50% during the hot streak, which indicates that they were getting a little luckier than usual on their shots—especially those taken by their two scoring stars.

It’s reasonable to expect both Pettersson and Boeser to continue scoring at an impressive rate, but not quite as impressive as they did during the six-game streak. As the rest of the team also experiences a return to the median shooting percentage around them, the wins will be more than a little harder to come by.

Jacob Markstrom put up a .937 save percentage during the six-game point streak, which dwarfs his season total of .904—and that might seem to indicate that Markstrom, too, was receiving some serious puck luck. However, when one breaks down his stats by situation, a different picture emerges.

In terms of five-on-five play, Markstrom’s save percentage only increased from .910 to .929 during the period from December 6 to 16. His shorthanded save percentage, on the other hand, rose from a dreadful .858 to a flawless 1.000. It seems that as the penalty kill has improved in front of him, Markstrom’s overall stats have started to reflect his quality of play more closely—and it’s a quality of play that is further solidifying him as a legitimate starting goaltender in the NHL.

Vancouver’s special teams have been on point of late, and there was little to complain about in regard to their five-on-five play during the six-game streak—at least, on the surface. The underlying stats, however, paint a slightly different picture that backs up what the “eye test” and common sense suggest—that an offensive outburst by the Canucks helped to paper over some of their defensive inadequacies during their point streak, and that they can’t count on that continuing.

Shockingly, the Canucks’ Shot Attempt Percentage—also known as Corsi For Percentage—was actually lower during their hot streak than their season average. Their Zone Start Percentage—a similar measure of the amount a team starts in the offensive zone versus the defensive zone—also dropped a bit during the streak.

This means that the Canucks were actually doing a worse job of controlling the puck and dictating the flow of play than they usually do, despite all those goals, and sooner or later that is eventually going to catch up with them—as it did last night against Tampa Bay.

As was previously discussed, the Vancouver offense was definitely the beneficiary of some lucky shooting during the period of December 6 to 16, but that’s not the only reason that the powerplay came to life. Both PP units set up quicker and used their time more efficiently, with the team nearly increasing their rate of goals-per-powerplay-minute to an astonishing 0.19—nearly double their season average, and impressive by any standard.

It doesn’t really matter when a team puts up points during a season—all that matters is their final place in the standings when April rolls around. That being said, when it comes to optics, the Vancouver Canucks couldn’t have picked a worse time to go on a 5-0-1 streak. While the Canucks were putting up points in six straight, five other teams in the Pacific Division were putting together streaks of their own, ensuring that the Canucks didn’t make up much ground in the overall standings.

This could be seen as bad luck, but it’s also a reminder of how difficult it will still be for the Canucks to make the playoffs in 2018/19—even if they put up another six-game streak or two.

The Canucks demonstrated some great things during their six-game point streak, including a special teams performance that hints at a dominant powerplay and penalty kill of the future. The underlying stats aren’t a perfect picture for the team’s overall defense, but most fans could see that already via the “eye test”—and it’s not exactly a secret that the roster is in need of some upgrades on the backend.

Were the Canucks lucky during their six-game point streak? Absolutely. But they were also pretty damn good, and that can only be looked at as a thrilling indicator of what this team will be capable of in a few years—once it gains consistency, maturity, and another top-end asset or two.