Tuesday, Feb. 1 - Nashville Predators 4 - Vancouver Canucks 2
When the Vancouver Canucks visited Music City two weeks ago, they were able to skate away with a 3-1 win thanks to some help from the schedule-maker.
This week, the schedule favoured the rested home side. The Nashville Predators were able to start Juuse Saros and ride their stars to a 4-2 win over Vancouver, as both teams now head into their All-Star Break.
Filip Forsberg scored his 23rd and 24th of the season. Heading toward unrestricted free agency, he's in the top 10 in the NHL's goal race even though he has missed 13 games this year — nine with an upper-body injury in November, and four in Covid protocol in January. Ryan Johansen chipped in his 13th of the year at the tail end of a first-period Nashville penalty kill. Early in the third, Tanner Jeannot finished things off with his 14th of the year, taking the lead in the rookie goal-scoring race.
It was a decent effort for the Canucks, who outshot the Predators 32-28. They took a first-period lead with a fourth-line goal from Matthew Highmore, just his second of the year. And for the second-straight game, they got a goal from a defenseman. Oliver Ekman-Larsson connected for his third of the year to pull Vancouver into a 2-2 tie, late in in the first.
But the Canucks lost the special-teams battle, going 0-for-2 on the power play while Nashville was 1-for-3. And Saros was able to out-duel Thatcher Demko, who now heads to the All-Star game in a 0-1-1 mini-slump following his return from Covid protocols.
Nevertheless, the Canucks wrapped up their road trip with five of a possible eight points in their pocket. And while the road ahead isn't easy, they've managed to stay in the playoff mix in the Western Conference.
For years, I've had a hard time finding snapshots of the NHL standings from past dates. But it looks like
Quant Hockey has now added this feature, with searchable dates — and a ton of supplemental data, too. Very cool.
According to their info, the Canucks were 15th in the Western Conference standings when Travis Green was fired on Dec. 5, with 18 points in 25 games and nine points out of the second wild-card spot.
As of Wednesday morning, they're 12th, sitting at .500 with 46 points in 46 games, and four points out of that eighth spot. That position could still get worse on Wednesday. With five games on the schedule, seven Western Conference teams are in action, including Edmonton, Calgary and Los Angeles.
So I'll save the rest of the playoff math until the next blog, when the dust has fully settled. But I will say that it was nice to see the Flames pull off their comeback win over the Stars on Tuesday in regulation time, and to see the Jets go down to the Flyers in regulation as well. The Sharks, however, picked up a loser point in Tampa Bay on Tuesday, as did the Oilers in Ottawa on Monday night.
Let's take a look at what the Canucks have accomplished under Boudreau's watch.
The new coach has now been at the helm for 21 games — nearly as much time as Green had before he was let go in December. Under Boudreau, the Canucks are 12-5-4 for 28 points — a much better record, to be sure. It's 12th-best in the NHL during that timeframe, but a far cry from Colorado's league-leading 20-1-2.
If we sort by points percentage, the Canucks are still 12th. There's a bit of shuffling: Toronto and Minnesota have played fewer games, so they move above Vancouver, replacing the busier Kings and Rangers.
How have the Canucks achieved this turnaround? The short answer is, with a plus-nine goal differential. Under Green, that number was minus-20.
When you watch the games, I'm sure you're well aware that on many nights, the Canucks' undoing is a lack of offensive punch. They're averaging 2.52 goals a game under Boudreau, 28th overall since he came on board. And they scored less than that on both losses on this trip — nothing in Calgary, and just two in Nashville.
However, Vancouver's 2.10 goals allowed under Boudreau is the best mark in the league since Dec. 5 — and it's not particularly close. Only three other teams are below 2.5 goals against — the Islanders (2.21), Carolina (2.42) and Colorado (2.48).
I want to give the defense and Boudreau's structure some shine for pulling this off, but a closer look at the advanced stats suggests that it really does come down to goaltending. Vancouver's expected goals against at 5-on-5 under Boudreau is 2.36, but they're actually only giving up 1.66.
But meanwhile, their expected goals for is 2.49, but they're only actually managing 1.83.
So the good essentially balances out the bad. Their expected goals share is 51.29%, tied with the Islanders for 14th-best. But they've been so stingy that their actual goals share is 52.46%, which bumps them up to 13th spot in the league.
All very respectable and playoff-team-like, if they can just gain enough ground to get in the mix!
As for special teams, the power play was at 17.4% when Green was let go, and the penalty kill was at 64.6%. That number really is incredible.
Under Boudreau, they've hit on 21% of their power-play opportunities — still a not-great 19th overall. And the penalty kill is at 78.4%. Also still not great, at 17th, but a massive improvement considering there have been no meaningful personnel changes.
Put those pieces together, and the PK still ranks last in the league for the season, at 69.9%. But watch out, 31st-place Arizona (72.7%). They're comin' for ya!
Only four Canucks players have suited up for all 21 games of the Boudreau regime — Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, Tyler Motte and Tyler Myers. Vasily Podkolzin and Nils Hoglander were also in the mix, but Boudreau chose to sit both youngsters in one game each of this week's back-to-back. I don't hate that — it's a chance for them to watch and learn, and to bring more energy to a grinding part of the schedule. And it's probably the first time since Boudreau's arrival that he's had the luxury of making those sorts of bigger-picture lineup decisions, with more than enough healthy bodies to fill out his lineup.
If you want to take a peek at the Canucks players' advanced stats under Boudreau, you can try
this link from Natural Stat Trick, which should show the player rates per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 through a bunch of different categories.
I'll dig into that data further in the next blog!
While the Canucks action is on pause for All-Star weekend, the women's Olympic hockey tournament is beginning — and that side does feature all the best players in the game. Canada's opener against Switzerland is on at a reasonable time, too — Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. PT, on CBC.
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