Canucks: Finally, a practice to set systems, swagger to bump slump
It’s not one thing. It’s everything.
That’s a stunning and sobering summation of the Vancouver Canucks, who have lost games by losing their way and losing their swagger. It’s why school was in session Sunday.
The first practice in a week looked like the first day of training camp with Travis Green commanding a lengthy whiteboard session. And as the Canucks coach emphasized the erosion of systems play — staples that traditionally made his club hard to play against — he was looking for those building blocks amid the rubble.
“When we play like that, it flows,” said Green. “From our breakouts to our decisions in the neutral zone, to our forecheck, I’d like to think we play an in-your-face style by tracking the puck and how we force teams with back pressure.
“It’s all connected. If your breakouts aren’t strong, your forecheck is not strong. And if your decisions in the neutral zone aren’t right, you’re spending more time in D-zone coverage and your defending tired. Our
overall game just hasn’t been sharp enough.
“I liked how we stuck with it and got it back to 2-2 (in Saturday’s 5-2 loss to Montreal) and if we get that game into overtime or win, all of a sudden there’s a different vibe. But you have build off something and I thought we had a better game for 50 minutes.”
NEXT GAME
Monday
Ottawa Senators vs. Vancouver Canucks
7 p.m.,
Rogers Arena. TV:
Sportsnet Pacific.
Radio:
Sportsnet 650 AM
By losing four of their last five games with uncharacteristic turnovers by their best players, and surrendering a shocking amount of odd-man rushes and breakaways, a three-game set against the Ottawa Senators that opens Monday at Rogers Arena is suddenly a must-win scenario.
Forget winning two of three, the Canucks need a sweep to right their ship and not sink further from playoff contention in the highly-competitive North Division. The struggling and rebuilding Senators should provide the right tonic, but right now, nothing is guaranteed if the Canucks don’t tighten up defensively.
The buzzwords of culture, commitment and confidence always come to the forefront when any team looks like a shadow of its competitive DNA.
Whether that’s a product of no exhibition games, new faces, or thinking it was going to come easy this season after an impressive playoff run, it’s all open to debate. The Canucks believe they’re good enough to overcome adversity, but it has yet to consistently translate into wins.
“We lost players and the leadership group — the older guys — are doing what they aways do to be good examples and help guys out in the room and make themselves accountable,” added Green. “It changes a bit from year to year.”
Canucks captain Bo Horvat acknowledged the lack of practice time has made it harder to clean up play and project the right kind of puck pressure and play instinctively — especially in the offensive zone — where forwards have been turning over pucks at the blue-line for breakaways. Elias Pettersson did it Saturday and so did J.T. Miller.
It has made the Canucks look out of sync and prevented them from getting out of the gate quickly this season, which is imperative.
“We have such high expectations of winning — especially from last year in the playoffs where we played some of the best hockey since I’ve been here,” said Horvat. “It’s frustrating when you want it so bad. It’s just going to take some time with new guys and young guys coming up.
“I’ll keep leading by example and try to pull the guys in the fight with me.”
That fight includes the forecheck where the Canucks haven’t been forcing teams into playing in their own zone, getting tired and turning pucks over.
“The biggest thing is just moving our feet and putting pucks into positions where we’re going to be able to retrieve them,” said Horvat. “Last night (Saturday), we were too much dumping it to their goaltender (Carey Price) and he’s really good at playing pucks and broke up our forecheck and fed their breakout.”
Veteran defenceman Tyler Myers has been paired with rookie Olli Juolevi and the learning curve for any tandem is steep in a compacted 56-game schedule featuring three back-to-back games this month.
It makes trying to quickly help a young D-partner mentally recover from a second-period scenario Saturday where he hit the post and couldn’t get back in coverage quick enough. A Corey Perry cross-ice pass to Jesperi Kotkaniemi deflected off Juolevi’s stick, changed direction, and trickled between the pads of Braden Holtby, just as Myers dove to try and negate the scoring sequence.
OVERTIME: Jay Beagle
took a deflected puck in the face Sunday and didn’t return. There was no immediate update on his playing status.
Zack MacEwen
skated on a practice line with
Brandon Sutter
and
Jake Virtanen
while
Adam Gaudette
, who has one goal in six games, appears to be a healthy scratch for the second-straight game. Said Green: “I just decided to go with a different look (Saturday) — I’m not going to get into things I talk about with individual players.”
bkuzma@postmedia.com
twitter.com/@benkuzma
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