Where Brandon Sutter’s Absence is Most Felt

News broke last week that the upper body ailment that has lingered for much of the season for Brandon Sutter will require surgery. The Canucks big ticket, off-season acquisition has since undergone successful sports hernia surgery and is expected shortly in the new year. 

In the interim, though, the Canucks have been left without a key cog in their not so finely tuned offensive machine. While some might argue that Sutter’s absence at even strength has had a more or less negligible impact on the Canucks fortunes, the same cannot be said of his stay from the penalty kill.

A traditional staple of the Willie Desjardins era in Vancouver, the Canucks penalty kill has done wonders to help mitigate some of the club’s glaring shortcomings at even strength. Vancouver boasted the second best penalty kill efficiency in the league last season and were well on their way to replicating that success this season – if the first month-plus was any indicator. 

Of course, the near top-flight on-ice Sv% didn’t hurt the Canucks cause. I’d hardly suggest that was carrying the weight, though, as some traditionally meagre penalty killers blossomed into some of the league’s elite by that reckoning in the course of a season. Surely there is something to be said for the system in place.

One such player that turned the tables on this symbiotic relationship last season was Brad Richardson. Entering the fray in Vancouver with a well-deserved reputation as a defensive specialist, Richardson did much to enhance the Canucks efforts shorthanded in his two-year stay in the Lower Mainland. As the curtain came to a close on the Richardson era in Vancouver, it was either assumed that this loss could be mitigated by the development of two-way forward, Bo Horvat or not remarked upon entirely.

The Horvat prophecy has been more or less fulfilled, but due in large to the absence left in the wake of Sutter’s injury. It might run contrary to the linear logic one might apply to the suggestion that Sutter was a replacement, or rather an upgrade on Nick Bonino, but this has in effect reinforced the ideas put forward by Thomas Drance in the immediate aftermath of the blockbuster announcement.

In that vein, Sutter surpassed even the wildest of expectations. While the offense (due in large to some cushy assignments) was a welcome wrinkle to the Canucks lineup, his prowess on the penalty kill proved the most reliable contribution. 

At the time of Sutter’s injury, the Canucks had the sixth most effective penalty kill in the NHL. They hovered closely around the 86% mark in terms of penalty kill percentage. From the date of Sutter’s injury forward the Canucks have the 23rd ranked penalty kill, at 76.4%. The sample is hardly conclusive (a month’s data) but the discrepancy is large enough that it bears monitoring.

The decline extends well beyond the more pedestrian counting numbers we evaluate special teams success with. Vancouver is also surrendering an extra 6.4 Fenwick, 10.1 shots and 4.6 scoring chances against per 60-minutes. This goes a long way in explaining the 11 shorthanded goals the Canucks have surrendered in the fourteen games they’ve played without their presumptive second line centre.

One of the more unfortunate, if unintended consequences of this injury has been the burden placed firmly on Horvat’s shoulders. It’s no secret that the Canucks ask a lot of their 20-year old pivot, but in no one state of the game is this more pronounced than the penalty kill. The extra 36 seconds a game Horvat has been asked to kill penalties with since November 10th may not seem substantial, but it really, really is. 

It’s no coincidence that Horvat’s underlying data has declined in concordance with the Canucks shorthanded. Vancouver no longer can pick and choose their matchups and are left throwing the house at the opposition’s first unit. Short their “foundational” piece, it’s no surprise they’ve crumbled.