Canucks: Top players should lead in creating scoring opportunities, says Green

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After a particularly poor effort by the Vancouver Canucks in the odd 2013-14 season, then-head coach John Tortorella took a moment to highlight David Booth’s play.

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His work had stood out, the coach said. What he said next has become an iconic line about the player and that season.

“I thought our best forward was David Booth, which is good for him. That’s not good for our team ”, joked Tortorella.

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The same could have been said of Justin Dowling on Tuesday at Buffalo, a miserable 5-2 loss to one of the worst teams in the league. The depth forward scored the Canucks’ second goal of the game, knocking over a point from Luke Schenn, one of his six shot attempts in the game. He also blocked three shots from Sabers and won a pair of matchups.

It was a laborious performance, just what you want from a guy whose main job is to keep things tidy while the stars of the team rest. According to data from HockeyViz.com, Dowling had the best collection of scoring chances against the Sabers, when measured by expected goals, which weights each shot attempt by the probability of it being a goal based on past shots. Taken from that same location over the past decade of NHL play.

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And it wasn’t about him being the best of many good players, aside from Brock Boeser, the rest of the Canucks’ top were almost invisible when it came to measuring the quality of their shots.

Even captain Bo Horvat, who had the other Canucks goal, was hard to find.

There are still four games to go into the season and the Canucks have been on the road, making strategic decisions more difficult to execute, but across four games the Canucks will not be happy with the overall quality of opportunities they have been creating. Both HockeyViz and NaturalStatTrick.com, which also tracks data on teams ‘shooting skills as well as their defensive results, find the Canucks’ shooting quality in the bottom third of the league.

There’s still plenty of time to straighten the boat, to make this first 1-2-1 leg look like a mere bump in the early course of the Canucks season, but it’s still worth noting that this lineup needs to produce more consistently. .

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Horvat acknowledged the Canucks’ difficulties creating scoring opportunities so far this season.

“We can do a much better job,” he said. “I think we can spend a lot more time in zone O, getting the disks and the bodies onto the net. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. It’s where you’re going to score in this league. Last night (Dowling) went to the net, we just fired a puck there and he got a tip. Little things like that, we have to start making it better. “

Green was very frustrated with his team’s overall effort Tuesday, but said they clearly needed to do more on offense.

“I think there is a combination of things. I think some of our players can play better, to begin with, that would be a great help, ”he said. “In the NHL, you don’t just write a script. There’s a reason the guys who make the most money are often the ones who score the goals, it’s not easy to make or create goals. Obviously getting to the net, getting rebounds, is a way to score. There is an art in putting records in the painting, in terms of allowing other people to go there. We can also do a better job on this.

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“I think some of our best guys can probably play a little better.”

Meanwhile, star defender Quinn Hughes is again absent from the Canucks group on ice. Hughes, who signed a six-year contract at the end of the preseason, was not seen at the team’s practice in Chicago on Wednesday, the day before their game against the Blackhawks.

After logging in 27, 26 and 29 minutes In his first three games this season, he was absent from Monday’s practice at Buffalo. One day of maintenance, Green called him Monday.

Hughes participated in an optional morning skating on Tuesday before that night’s game against the Sabers, but did not participate in the game. Green said after the game that Hughes was close to playing and the coach seemed to suggest he would play Thursday.

“There are no updates, we’ll see that tomorrow,” Green said after practice on Wednesday.

When asked about how Hughes might have hurt himself, perhaps due to his heavy play load to open the season at the back of a short preseason that saw him dressing for just two games, Green objected:

“There are many ways to get hurt in a hockey game,” he said flatly.

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