How Zadorov fits in to the Canucks' suddenly beefy blue line
The Vancouver Canucks have made another acquisition, trading with the Calgary Flames for defenceman Nikita Zadorov. He’s a player that the Canucks have reportedly been interested in for a while and now Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford have got their man.
The Russian has six points in 21 games so far this season. He’s 6-foot-6 and has no problem using his frame to separate opponents from pucks. While you may assume that he’s slow due to his large frame, that is not the truth as he is quite fleet-footed for his size. He leads the Flames in hits this season with 41.
Being a physical presence isn’t the only thing that Zadorov brings to the table. He scored a whopping 14 goals last season and while that was a bit of an outlier, he has managed at least 100 shots in each of the past two seasons.
While you may have heard a lot about the Canucks’ PDO this season, the advanced stat is also significant to add context to Zadorov’s play thus far. The defenceman has a 0.946 PDO, the lowest of any Flames defenceman. This means that he’s been the recipient of some bad puck luck.
Thus, there’s less reason to worry about the fact that the Flames have scored just 37.93% of the goals while Zadorov was on the ice at five-on-five this year. In fact, the Flames controlled 54.35% of the expected goals during Zadorov’s minutes according to NaturalStatTrick. That’s the best mark of any Flames defenceman this season and indicative of a strong process, even if the results are not there.
As a left-handed player, adding Zadorov means that the Canucks’ best six defencemen will likely contain an imbalance. Ian Cole has shown the ability to play both sides in the past but it’s an experiment the coaching staff has been wary of taking on so far this season. It’s something to keep an eye on over the coming weeks.
When everyone is healthy, the Canucks could deploy pairings that look like the following.
Quinn Hughes – Filip Hronek
Zadorov – Ian Cole
Carson Soucy – Tyler Myers
That’s a very strong defence corps on paper. The acquisition of Zadorov pushes everyone down a spot, including players like Mark Friedman and Noah Juulsen who have been forced into playing top-six roles.
The Canucks now have three defencemen that stand 6-foot-5 or taller in Zadorov, Carson Soucy, and Tyler Myers. When all are healthy, they’ll be able to trot out a massive group of blueliners, albeit one that is still quite mobile.
Outside of Hughes and Hronek, #Canucks suddenly have a pretty beefy blue line:
Zadorov (6-foot-6, 248 pounds)
Myers (6-foot-8, 229 pounds)
Soucy (6-foot-5, 208 pounds)
Cole (6-foot-1, 225 pounds)— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) December 1, 2023
The big defenceman will be an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and is represented by Dan Milstein, the same agent as Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev. Come next summer, the Canucks are going to need to get creative to re-sign Zadorov, Elias Pettersson, Hronek, and others while still improving. That is a future problem and there are solutions to be found.
For now, the Canucks should be happy they acquired another legitimate NHL defenceman who can step into the lineup right away and deliver results, especially considering the cost which Flames fans are not happy about.