If there’s any one area the Canucks can hang their hat on, it’s the neutral zone. While Vancouver bleeds chances in their own end and squanders them in the other, they’ve used their speed to control the flow of play relatively well in the go-between.

It doesn’t hurt that management has emphasized getting younger and on an entirely related note faster, but there’s something to be said for the systems play at work. Vancouver’s steadfast dedication to entering the offensive zone with control of the puck helps an otherwise toothless offence generate rush chances and shots at a rate higher than the available talent might otherwise afford them.

This makes singling out the moving pieces a worthwhile exercise. If Randy Carlyle needs his glass-and-out defenders, the best way to understand the function of his defence will be to single out the safest players on his roster. For Desjardins, it means determining which players advance the Canucks cause between the blue lines and what they make of the puck once they’re on the other side.

If you’re paying close enough attention, you’ll notice two new names entering the foray. First is Linden Vey, he of the rejuvenated career and excessive ice-time. I’d caution placing too much stock in this set, as it accounts for only four games and 45-minutes at even strength. It’s encouraging, though, to see Vey completing a considerably higher amount of entries than he failed through his first month back in the big leagues.

On the opposite end of that spectrum, we find the Latvian Locomotive himself, Ronalds Kenins. Again, there are sampling issues at play here, but there’s a difference between performing poorly or well in a small sample or getting good or bad results in a small sample. Check off the former, then latter of those two options with Kenins.

Not so surprisingly, it’s high risk and high reward with Matt Bartkowski. In a sea of skyscrapers, Bartkowski’s % of Entries with Control stands as the Burj Khalifa. Unfortunately, the percentage of entries that fail on his stick are the Empire State Building. Talk about a high-event defender.

The new kid on the block on defence is Andrey Pedan. Much like his partners up front, we won’t find much in the way of predictive value his data set. It’s a three-game sample we’re talking about and one of them was played at forward, for a grand total of 3:54 in all situations ice-time.

The data bears out that the groundwork was being laid for Bo Horvat’s offensive resurgence long before the results came to the front. Much like the data from a month prior, Horvat is well above his teammates at generating shots on a per entry basis, especially with control.

Horvat’s linemate, Radim Vrbata, appeared to be carrying his own by this same metric. As does Sven Baertschi, who’s been contributing in the neutral zone from day one. 

I keep thinking that, at some point or another, Bartkowski’s neutral zone impact will normalize to levels we might expect from a defender. Yet, somehow, they just keep getting better. Edler continues to roll along nicely, with gaudy shot totals on controlled entries.

If you’re wondering what’s with the asterisk in the title, well… I planned on getting to that. I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the Canucks game against the Los Angeles Kings on the 29th. I planned on recording the game and tracking it later but forgot the recording part. I hope to find some way to gain access to that game and add that data to the pile, but I haven’t as of yet.

Stay posted, as I’ll be posting data at the team level in the not-so-distant future. And once I’ve caught up, all the way to February, this data will have several, more granular facets on display. It’s definitely a work in progress, but we’re getting pretty close to the best of it.