Vancouver Canucks

What the Quant Says

216 goals, third-fewest in the league, from a club ranked 30th in even-strength expected goals per 60 and 31st in chance share — and it finished 18.4 goals below expectation on top of that, 29th.

Jake DeBrusk scored 23 goals and 19 of them came on the power play — 4 at even strength in 81 games — while taking 62 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet. Brock Boeser scored 22 and finished minus-48, the worst figure in the National Hockey League. Elias Pettersson had 51 points and was on for 26 5-on-5 goals against 55. Liam Ohgren posted the lowest chance share of any regular skater in the league at 37.3 per cent.

The one encouraging page belongs to Linus Karlsson, who scored 15 goals and posted the 57th percentile — the only forward here above the league median, on the worst possession club in the Western Conference.

What the Scout Says

Skill without weight, all the way down. Elias Pettersson's skating is still excellent and it is doing work that the rest of his game used to share; the shot has gone quiet, the location has got worse, and he does not go to the places where a shot like his used to work. Brock Boeser's shooting is genuinely fine — there is nothing wrong with the chart or the conversion — and he arrives at that ice without ever taking it. Jake DeBrusk is fast and does not play on the wall.

The men who do the hard work are the ones further down the sheet. Linus Karlsson shoots from the best ice on the club after DeBrusk and gets there by going to the interior and paying for it — 42 penalty minutes in 12 minutes a night is what that costs. Drew O'Connor is difficult to defend on a straight line and goes to the net. Brendan Gallagher still starts in the blue paint. Marco Rossi wins more pucks than his size suggests and cannot hold the interior against men, and the playmaking is the genuine article. The most alarming page belongs to Liam Ohgren, drafted to be a net-front scorer and shooting from the perimeter, because he is not going to the places where his shot works.

What the Quant Says

32nd in the league in even-strength expected goals against at 2.96 per 60, and 316 goals conceded — the most in hockey by 17.

Filip Hronek played 25:00 a night across 1,617 5-on-5 minutes — the third-heaviest load in this edition — at the 10th percentile, with the goals 41 for and 83 against. Zeev Buium is 20, played 76 games, and was minus-33. Tom Willander is 21 and posted the 3rd percentile across 1,048 minutes.

A blue line asking a 20-year-old and a 21-year-old to absorb top-4 minutes on the worst-defending team in the league is not developing them; it is exposing them. Marcus Pettersson has gone to the Rangers and Tyler Myers to Dallas, so it will be younger again.

What the Scout Says

2 very good young skaters and nobody to protect them. Zeev Buium's skating and passing are already NHL quality — he escapes forechecks by turning through them and the outlet is quick and accurate — and he cannot defend a net front and is moved by anybody who chooses to. Tom Willander has a long, easy stride that defends the rush well, is moved off the front of his own net, and does not win board battles against men. Both of those are the ordinary condition at their age; both of them are being asked for real minutes anyway.

Filip Hronek is the third of the type at a much heavier workload: a genuine puck-mover who cannot clear a crease and loses net-front battles as a matter of physics, with skating that covers a great deal and cannot cover all of it at these minutes. Jack Thompson is a fourth. The counterweight is 2 ageing men and a spare: Jamie Oleksiak is 6-7, clears the crease by occupying it, and skates better than a man that size has any right to, which is why he has played 750 games rather than 200; Luke Schenn's skating was never good and is now poor; Victor Mancini clears and blocks and cannot hold a job. There is no version of this group that defends the paint.

What the Quant Says

27th: 16.1 goals worse than the chances faced — behind the team that gives up more of them than anyone.

Kevin Lankinen took 47 games and stopped .8755. Nikita Tolopilo took 21 and stopped .8814. Thatcher Demko played 20 and stopped .8949, the best of the 3 and by some distance the least used.

3 goaltenders, none above .895, behind the 32nd-ranked defence. There is no version of this season in which the net was going to rescue anything, and Demko's 20 appearances are the one thing here that looks like an answer rather than a symptom.

What the Scout Says

3 goaltenders and one real question. Thatcher Demko is a legitimate starter when he is healthy and the record over 260 games says so; he was a Vezina finalist 3 seasons ago. The health is the entire page — a popliteus injury cost him most of a season, the recovery has been interrupted repeatedly, and this is the second time in 3 years he has not come close to a full workload. Nothing else on this roster works if he cannot play.

Kevin Lankinen is square and quiet and does not steal games, and rebound control is the weakest part of him, which behind a defence that concedes what this one concedes means second chances are most of the workload. Nikita Tolopilo is 6-6 and fills the net standing, with the problems every goaltender that size has and he has them badly: slow getting down, slower getting back, and beaten on the second chance far more often than the first.

What the Quant Says

The only functioning phase. 21st at 7.16 expected goals per 60, on 5:05 a night — 9th in the league in power-play time.

DeBrusk's 19 power-play goals were 3rd in the league, and they are most of what kept the scoreline respectable. Boeser added 6, Elias Pettersson 4. A club that cannot score at even strength getting a near-median power play on top-10 opportunity is the difference between 216 goals and something genuinely historic.

What the Scout Says

The one phase where this roster's shape stops being a problem. A man advantage manufactures the space that Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson all need and cannot take for themselves — DeBrusk in particular does almost all his damage here, because the ice is given rather than won. Pettersson's skating and vision are at their most useful when nobody is allowed to close on him.

The net front is unusually well served for a club this light. Brendan Gallagher has never once been afraid of the front of a net and it is the only ice he has ever worked; Drew O'Connor is 6-4 and goes there; Linus Karlsson takes the punishment for standing in it. Filip Hronek runs the point with a genuine first pass, and Zeev Buium will take that job before long — his outlet is already quick enough to move a killer. It is the part of the roster least in need of an explanation.

What the Quant Says

28th at 7.84 expected goals against per 60 — mitigated only by Vancouver being shorthanded 4:19 a game, 30th, one of the 3 most disciplined clubs in the league.

Drew O'Connor's 2 shorthanded goals are the highlight. Continuity is 63.6 per cent, thirtieth — a club that finished 30th in goals for, last in goals against and bottom-3 in both underlying columns has, sensibly, torn most of it up.

What the Scout Says

Short of almost everything a kill wants. Aatu Räty wins faceoffs at a good rate and that is the most developed part of his game; Marco Rossi wins draws at a fair rate; Max Sasson forechecks with real speed and does not win the exchanges he starts. Drew O'Connor is the genuine shorthanded threat, and Paul Cotter brings size to a fourth line. That is a thin set of forwards for the work.

The blue line is where it fails. Jamie Oleksiak takes the front of the net outright and Luke Schenn will block what reaches him, and after those 2 the club is asking Hronek, Buium, Willander and Thompson — 4 puck-movers, none of whom can win the space in front of the goaltender — to defend the most physical ice on the sheet. Buium's 41 penalty minutes and Willander's 28 are 2 young defencemen competing for ground they cannot hold. A kill built this way concedes the paint and hands the problem to the goaltender, and this club is not equipped to accept that transfer.