Mikheyev's ice time has fallen off a cliff with Canucks this season
Ilya Mikheyev has clearly found his way into Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet’s doghouse.
The Russian winger got the least ice time of any player in last night’s 5-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken. He played a total of 7:07, including just 1:11 in the third period. The Canucks were outshot 5-0 and had a negative goal differential while he was on the ice for 5-on-5.
It was the fewest minutes he’s played in a game across his entire career where he was fully healthy. He did play 4:39 in a February 2022 game but left midway through due to illness.
The winger averaged 16:54 per game last season and through the first part of this year was comfortably over 15 minutes per night. In February, that number has fallen to 13:29 as he’s been relegated down the lineup.
In the first period against the Kraken, Mikheyev had the puck on his stick in the defensive zone but failed to get it out with a solid clear. That led to the Canucks surrendering a goal just seconds later. These are the types of plays that Tocchet despises.
in-VINCE-ble š«” pic.twitter.com/pSJjLSZStc
— Seattle Kraken (@SeattleKraken) February 23, 2024
Mikheyev hasn’t scored a goal since December 17, marking more than two months and a total of 27 games without finding the back of the net. This is despite spending a lot of time stapled to Elias Pettersson’s wing.
To give him some credit, the forward is recovering from a torn ACL that he played through last season. That is a tough injury for anyone to recover from. For a player that relied heavily on his speed to make an impact, it’s even tougher. However, the past few months of play have been far from good enough.
The numbers show that he doesn’t have the same burst this season. He’s in just the 66th percentile among forwards for speed bursts above 20-miles-per-hour and in the 73rd percentile for top skating speed per NHL Edge data. Two years ago before the injury he was in the 95th percentile for both.
While he was expected to be a solid penalty killer when signed, he’s been just the team’s eighth-most-used forward when short-handed this season.
As far as solutions go, it’s hard to see an obvious path out of this situation.
With a cap hit of $4.75 million for two more seasons, it would likely be difficult to facilitate any type of trade.
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