Price is Right: Boudreau's Canucks are surprisingly boring, but effective
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Please don’t take this the wrong way Canucks fans, but… your team is boring.
And, I for one, am shocked. If you had just typed this out at the start of the season, there’s no way you’d believe it. The Vancouver Canucks, with an improved top nine, and with noted offensive coaching guru Bruce Boudreau taking over, will not entertain you?
But the truth is, they don’t. The top nine is not having the season that people hoped. The Canucks are not outscoring their deficiencies like we thought they’d have to do. Down years for Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser, Nils Höglander, and most notably Elias Pettersson, have changed the day-to-day expectations of the team.
The defence is holding up surprisingly well, and the goaltending has been out of sight. So seeing that, Boudreau has done what any coach would do. Play to the strengths. Boudreau wants to win games.
Ideally, he’d like to make the playoffs, and the best route to victory for Vancouver is playing like they’ve played the last couple games.
The Canucks are now tops in the league in allowing the fewest goals at five-on-five. They do that by slowing things down, keeping teams outside, and taking few risks along the way. And since Christmas, the Canucks have scored 29 goals, not including empty netters, in 14 games.
That’s not even 2.1 goals per game.
It’s unlikely to change, especially if Jaroslav Halak remains a Canuck. That would mean the Canucks remain deep and strong in goal, and likely able to withstand any market correction on the play of the blue line.
Not to mention, as much as we all would like Pettersson to return to a level of his normalcy, a true heater that would change this narrative is apparently unlikely. He’s getting better, but showing no signs of utter dominance.
So without that, these are your Vancouver Canucks. With a match-up line that includes the likes of Matthew Highmore and Juho Lammikko? Not exactly what we thought we’d see this season.
Not exactly what we thought we’d see with Boudreau. They’re better alright, and they’re boring AF.
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