A day after practicing at Rogers Arena Tuesday, the Vancouver Canucks made the long charter flight to Texas ahead of a critical five-game road trip.
The first three games of the trip, especially, will pose a significant challenge. Vancouver will face an unbeaten Stars team Thursday and then take a two-and-a-half-hour overnight flight to Chicago to play the rested (and surprisingly competitive) Blackhawks Friday. The Canucks will then have a Sunday matinee affair against a strong Capitals team that’s already rolling in the early going to cap off this three-game-in-four-days stretch.
Here are five Canucks-related thoughts ahead of this key road trip.
Why a Conor Garland-Elias Pettersson duo is worth an experiment
On Tuesday, the Canucks skated with the same top-six lines they opened the last game with. However, after practice, head coach Adam Foote told reporters that he was leaning toward playing Pettersson with Garland and Evander Kane, with Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser possibly dropping down to play with Filip Chytil — the same top-six set Foote briefly tried in the third period of the Blues game.
This potential top-line shakeup is much needed.
Even going back to last year, Boeser and DeBrusk simply haven’t meshed well with Pettersson. As a trio, in nearly 200 five-on-five minutes since last season, they’ve controlled just 47 percent of shot attempts and driven very little offence, generating a measly 2.18 expected goals per 60 minutes.
Why hasn’t it worked? Well, with Pettersson struggling as a dynamic neutral zone puck transporter, and Boeser and DeBrusk being complementary players rather than drivers, that line hasn’t had a puck carrier who can consistently manufacture rush chances. Couple that with how slow and ineffective that trio has been at winning pucks back on the forecheck, and you’ve got a line that hasn’t had much puck possession and has lacked pace.
Pettersson needs a speedy buzzsaw to play with right now, and with Nils Höglander out of the lineup, it’s a no-brainer to give Garland that opportunity. Quietly, Pettersson and Garland have been a productive, dangerous duo in the past.
Since 2022-23, Pettersson and Garland have driven a commanding 59 percent of expected goals together and outscored opponents 20-11 at five-on-five. Without Garland, Pettersson’s play-driving numbers have taken a hit, with his expected goals for percentage dropping to 50.9 percent.
Garland’s ability to carry the puck up ice, win battles on the forecheck and command possession down low takes a lot of pressure off Pettersson. When he’s playing with Garland, Pettersson doesn’t need to do all of the heavy lifting to drive the top line. In an ideal world, Pettersson would obviously be able to drive a potent line regardless of who his wingers are, but that’s not the reality we currently live in. Think of Garland as the potential training wheels to help get Pettersson back on track.
The only downside of this potential top-six configuration is that it remains to be seen whether Chytil and Boeser can develop chemistry, given their speed disparity and the mixed results they achieved in a small sample last year.
How Adam Foote uses Chytil
Through three games, Foote has been deploying Chytil more like a No. 1 centre than Pettersson.
The first sign is the raw ice-time: Chytil has played the most five-on-five minutes of any Canucks forward. There are only 13 centres in the NHL who are averaging more five-on-five minutes per game than Chytil in the early going. Meanwhile, Pettersson ranks 264th among NHL forwards for five-on-five ice-time per game.
NHL Top 5v5 TOI (Centres)
Pettersson is averaging only 15:58 in all situations through three games, which is nearly a full minute less than Chytil, despite the former logging far more special teams time. Chytil’s been tasked with tougher matchups in two of the Canucks’ first three games as well. In the home-opener against Calgary, Chytil played the most minutes against Nazem Kadri of any Vancouver forward. Pettersson, on the other hand, saw a steady diet of Calgary’s Mikael Backlund-led checking line.
On the road against Edmonton (where the Canucks admittedly don’t have full control of matchups without last change), Chytil spent nearly seven minutes head-to-head against Connor McDavid at five-on-five. Pettersson, meanwhile, only played 2:07 against McDavid. Instead, the three forwards Pettersson played the most against at five-on-five were Kasperi Kapanen, Vasily Podkolzin and Noah Philp.
Foote used Pettersson more often against the Blues’ top line than Chytil in the last game. However, viewing these three games as a whole, it’s clear that Chytil is getting more ice time and facing opposing top lines more frequently than Pettersson. It’s a curious decision because Chytil is a dynamic, offensively inclined player whose defensive game is probably average at best. It’s especially risky for him to handle challenging defensive assignments because he’s prone to turnovers (as we’ve seen the last two games).
With Garland, who’s perhaps the club’s best five-on-five defensive driver, potentially moving up to play with Pettersson, I’d argue that the Canucks need to be more mindful and strategic about the defensive situations and matchups that they expose Chytil to. If Pettersson and Garland are a duo, they need to be fed first-line minutes and absorb the hardest matchups.
Why better puck support is key to faster, cleaner hockey
Every team in the NHL wants to play fast and be clean with the puck through the neutral zone. Not only does it allow you to create more controlled entries and rush chances, but it’s also important for dump-and-chase teams. When you have speed as a team before you dump the puck in, there’s a significantly better chance that you’ll retrieve possession back in the attacking end because you’ll be quicker to hound the opposing defencemen on their retrievals. On the other hand, if you’re choppy with your passing and disjointed getting to the red line, there’s a much higher chance that the opposing team will have time and space to beat your slower-paced forecheck.
After the Canucks’ last two games, I wrote that poor first puck touches, sloppy passes and questionable decision-making were hindering the team’s breakouts, speed and overall ability to control puck possession. In chatting with DeBrusk after Tuesday’s practice, he noted that the team hasn’t been able to get to the higher tempo, more aggressive playing style that Foote is trying to implement through three games, in part because the club’s transition game has been so disjointed. He said that players without the puck need to provide better support, be more closely connected and that short, quick passes are the big key to the Canucks playing faster through the neutral zone.
“You need not just a puck carrier himself, you need other guys in there (to support),” DeBrusk told The Athletic. “It looks faster, like ‘Whoa, they’re flying around,’ usually because you’re connected and you’re supporting in the right areas. It’s actually funny, they might not actually be (skating) that fast, but it looks fast.”
Look at the clip below from a Ducks game earlier this week as an example of how smart, connected puck support can allow a team to play fast in transition. When Olen Zellweger has the puck behind the net, Frank Vatrano races to the defensive half-wall to give him a quality passing option. Vatrano is able to make a slick, short one-touch pass because Ryan Poehling is correctly in the centre pocket. As soon as Poehling gets possession, Alex Killorn, the weak-side winger, starts slashing across to make sure that Poehling has an option to kick the puck out to the wing once he reaches the offensive blue line for an entry. The whole breakout and entry sequence is fast and clean because all five players are closely connected and provide good puck support.
Executing exits like this will be key to the Canucks playing faster and having more puck possession.
Could defence reshuffling mean bigger role for Elias Pettersson (the defenceman)?
With Derek Forbort out of commission, Victor Mancini drew into the Canucks’ lineup against the Blues. Obviously, this is a big opportunity for Mancini to prove that he deserves to stick as a full-time NHL player. Quietly, though, it could also be an intriguing test for Elias Pettersson, the defenceman.
Vancouver’s coaching staff likely doesn’t want two rookies together on the third defence pair, so against St. Louis, the D pairs were reshuffled, with Elias Pettersson lining up with Myers and Mancini playing with Marcus Pettersson. This way, each rookie had a veteran, experienced partner to play with.
Elias Pettersson has been a promising and exciting story for the organization. It’s worth remembering, though, that he’s been heavily sheltered to this point. Pettersson averaged just 12:49 in 28 games last year, and his matchups were ultra soft. However, if Elias Pettersson continues playing with Myers, he needs to be prepared for an increased workload, both in terms of ice time and matchups.
Against the Blues, Pettersson played 16:11, which is a significant bump from the 11- to 13-minute range he played in through the first two games. Matchups-wise, he spent more than five minutes head-to-head against their best forward, Robert Thomas, which is ordinarily never the case for him. This isn’t a reckless jump for the coaching staff to ask for — he’s insulated by a veteran partner, and the 16-minute ice-time range is still relatively low. Still, it’s undoubtedly an increase in difficulty compared to what Pettersson has experienced in his NHL career thus far. It will be very interesting to see how he holds up if the increased usage continues.
Why the Ducks are a team for the Canucks to keep an eye on in this year’s playoff race
The West is stacked with a high volume of teams that look poised to contend for a playoff spot this year. Just three games in, it’s fair to wonder if the Ducks (2-1-0) could sneak their way into that conversation, too.
I’ve watched a couple of Anaheim’s games in recent days, and they already look like a completely new team under Joel Quenneville. The Ducks appear significantly faster, more dynamic and creative offensively compared to last season. They’ve shifted away from former head coach Greg Cronin’s low-event, defence-first approach and embraced a fast, track-meet style of play that suits their young, high-end skill infinitely better. It’s honestly been a blast to watch.
Through three games, the Ducks rank third-best in the NHL at generating five-on-five shot attempts and fifth-best at expected goals for per 60. Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, and Mason McTavish all look like potential breakout stars this year, and 19-year-old rookie Becket Sennecke, the No.3 pick in 2024, already has two goals and two assists in three games. On top of that, the Ducks’ power-play, which ranked 32nd in the NHL last year, is clicking at 36.4 percent in the early going. Both power-play units’ passing is slick and decisive, and the arrival of Chris Kreider, an elite net-front finisher, has been a game-changer, as he’s already scored three power-play goals individually.
Am I saying the Ducks will for sure be in the playoff race? Not necessarily. Anaheim is sketchy and inexperienced defensively, and you do have to take the early offensive results with a grain of salt because two of their games were against the Sharks and Penguins. However, there are many promising early signs in SoCal, and you can’t rule out the possibility that they take a huge step and emulate what the Canadiens or Blue Jackets did last year.
