Punchless offence puts Canucks in a tough spot this week
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The week ahead is mission critical for the Vancouver Canucks.
J.T. Miller has already been traded, Brock Boeser and Carson Soucy are on everyone’s trade board (including ours), and once-rising star Elias Pettersson has struggled so mightily this season that some fans want him gone, too.
Oh, and supernova defenceman Quinn Hughes is banged up again.
Taking all of this into account, you would imagine the Canucks as one of the biggest sellers at this year’s trade deadline. And yet — surely maddening some of their own fans — they are still in the Western Conference playoff race, with about a 1-in-3 chance of qualifying. Teams in that position don’t typically don’t cut bait and capitulate, even if there’s good reason to do so.
There is no question more pressing for Vancouver to understand right now than what has happened to this team’s offence across the board. The sole reason the Canucks are in this mess is because the offence is absolutely punchless and solely reliant on Hughes to ignite the attack.
It’s been a puzzling downturn for a core group that has been together for years, and it’s at the heart of why players like Boeser and Pettersson are such commonly discussed trade targets right now.
While each player’s trade merit has to be evaluated individually, I think it’s important to highlight the remarkable team-wide distinction in the minutes shared with Hughes, and the minutes played away from him.
First, consider the on-ice goal generation with each skater on the ice. The gap between Hughes and any other skater is the size of the Pacific Ocean:
We know Hughes is a superstar, and it’s not surprising at all that he’s the tip of the spear for Vancouver’s offence. The issue is that without his presence every other skater looks like they are playing for a lottery team. If you set aside Filip Hronek (Hughes’ regular partner), the next closest skater is depth forward Pius Suter, whose on-ice rate scoring is 23 per cent lower than that of Hughes.
The production gap observed here is hard to find virtually anywhere else around the league, but it’s also an issue for the Canucks franchise specific to this season. Hughes was similarly the engine of the offence in years past, but his teammates weren’t solely reliant on his presence to create.
This season, the drop-off without Hughes has been seismic.
Again: it’s not just the size of the gap in production, but the fact that it’s happening to several skaters who previously succeeded in these environments.
With Hughes on the ice this year, the Canucks (and by extension, the same skaters wearing the brunt of the criticism, starting with Pettersson and Boeser) score at a rate that trumps the league-leading Washington Capitals; when Hughes is off the ice, this same remaining group of skaters produces less than the currently dead-last-ranked offence of the Calgary Flames. From No.1 to No. 32 in a blink.
There are likely several contributing factors. Vancouver’s ace top defensive pairing doesn’t leave a lot of offensive skill for their second and third pairings; individual player struggles (a la Pettersson) are incredibly noticeable on tape, and their inability to create on their own accord is a huge deal. And as a collective unit, the Canucks have an impressively difficult time getting inside of the heart of the opposition defence, where heaps of goals are scored (via HockeyViz):
Seller at the trade deadline or not, understanding why this offence has degraded so violently is crucial. Is this merely a down year, or a flashing red indicator of things to come?
Answer that question, and you’ll have a roadmap as to what general manager Patrik Allvin may be thinking about the viability of this team, both short and long term.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey