WWYDW: Making The Sedins More Entertaining

Jawn Jang said some dumb things this week, and we all rightly got upset. The Sedins have been two of the most exciting players in franchise history, and anyone who suggests otherwise is bound to make equally unfounded statements about, say Ben Hutton. I digress.

What is true is that the Sedins have flown under-the-radar this season. They’ve won matchups and controlled play successfully in limited ice time, put have just 8 points combined in 11 games. The team has been winning games, but this is something that’s bound to become a story if that stops. What would you do to get the Sedins going? More minutes? A new linemate? Anything goes.

Make it mandatory for the Sedins to shoot the puck during a power play or take them off it completely. They lead the team in PP TOI (34 minutes each) yet have attempted only 3 shots total (Daniel 3, Henrik 0). Not surprisingly, they only have 1 PP point between the two (Daniel 1, Henrik 0). To contrast, Vanek, Baertschi, Gagner, Hutton, Del Zotto, Horvat and Boeser have averaged 27 minutes PP TOI (ranging from 23 to 30 minutes, next best is Pouliot @ 16 minutes) and each of those 7 players have 5-7 shots each, 9 points collectively. It’s not a man advantage when you only have 3 players shooting vs. 4 defending players.

I’m not the first person to say this and won’t be the last. Boeser hovering around the left wing hash mark as yer trigger man ala Ovechkin. And please keep Gagner off the point. He’s a defensive liability and better suited on the halfwall

maybe green should get on the powerplay’s ass about “moving their feet” too…i think it’s pretty evident that the powerplay isn’t doing enough to open up shooting lanes from the point for screened shots/tip ins

The Canucks lack high end talent (which is bad for a PP) but have respectable depth (which is good at even strength).

The PP will improve as the talent improves.

But for now…maybe stick Boeser with the Sedins and hope that cycle-cycle-shoot works out.

I won’t claim to know where each player should be due to their strengths and all that….

But I do think one of their biggest problems is a lack of movement. As someone already said, “move your feet”. Seems to me there is a lot of standing around and waiting for the “other guy” to make a play.

The Beichler piece gave some excellent insights into what isn’t working in terms of PP strategy and what might work better. He touches briefly on personnel but I think that’s still the main issue, or at least a mismatch between personnel and strategy. When I watch the Canucks PP (not just this season but really at least since 2012), it has become far too easy to defend against it. Either you stand them up at the line and deny entry into the zone, or when the Canucks do set up, the defenders overload the puck carrier and both deny options and force turnovers. Or weak shots from the outside. Anecdotally at least my sense is that a significant number of goals scored in the last few years on the PP have been on broken plays which the defense can’t anticipate as well.

My number one suggestion would be to either break the Sedins up and use each as a playmaker on separate units, or use them as #2a/b option. Each unit should have at least one F and one D that can carry the puck in, a playmaker, someone who could retrieve the puck, and a shooter. It would be the roles that would be better defined rather than the specific personnel who could be more interchangeable. You’d then have Baertschi/Granlund/Henrik/Daniel/Burmistrov as playmaker, Gagner/Vanek/Boeser as the triggerman, Virtanen/Horvat/Sutter to carry the puck in or retrieve it, and Pouliot/Hutton/Tanev/Del Zotto on the points, with hopefully Stetcher/Edler replacing Tanev when they return. What you can’t do is continue to let the Sedins squander 1.5 minutes of a 2 minute power play not gaining the zone or losing the puck on the half wall. They have neither the strength nor the speed to make this work, especially when opposition teams can just zero in on them and ignore the rest of the team.