Defence has been a problem for the Vancouver Canucks this year, so it's completely understandable that head coach Bruce Boudreau would shake up the defence pairings, especially after two-straight 5-1 losses on home ice.
What's less understandable is who is getting scratched: Ethan Bear.
Bear was the extra skater for the Canucks' line rushes at practice on Thursday morning and put in extra work after practice alongside forward Jack Studnicka, a typical sign that a player is going to get scratched.
That's somewhat surprising because Bear hasn't exactly looked like part of the problem on defence. It's even more surprising because he's being scratched in order to put Riley Stillman, who has looked like part of the problem, back in the lineup.
Bear leads Canucks defencemen at 5-on-5
The underlying numbers paint a pretty clear picture. According to Natural Stat Trick, among the Canucks' regular defencemen, Bear has been on the ice for the lowest rate of shot attempts against, shots on goal against, scoring chances against, high-danger scoring chances against, and the second-lowest rate of expected goals against.
In other words, if there's a defensive metric available, Bear is leading the Canucks' defencemen. If we look at actual goals against, Bear drops slightly, but his rate of 2.89 goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 is just a hair behind Luke Schenn and Tyler Myers in that statistic and ahead of Quinn Hughes and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Stillman, meanwhile, is dead last among Canucks defencemen in almost every metric.
At 5-on-5, Stillman has been on the ice for the highest rate of shot attempts against, scoring chances against, high-danger scoring chances against, and expected goals against. When Stillman is on the ice, the Canucks bleed chances against.
And those chances lead to goals. Stillman has been on the ice for the highest rate of goals against among Canucks defencemen: 4.30 goals against per 60 minutes of ice time.
Among the 202 NHL defencemen who have played at least 200 minutes this season, Stillman's 4.30 goals against per 60 minutes ranks 199th — fourth-worst in the entire NHL.
Canucks' left-right imbalance
One has to wonder why Boudreau keeps putting Stillman back in the lineup and why Bear was the one who came out of the lineup.
Part of the problem is that the Canucks currently only have three left-side defencemen on their roster. When Stillman has been a scratch, Kyle Burroughs — a natural righty — has filled in on the left side but he has struggled in that role.
Without calling up someone from the Abbotsford Canucks, like Jack Rathbone, Christian Wolanin, or Guillaume Brisebois, the Canucks don't have anyone else available on the left side. Boudreau likely wants to get Burroughs back on his natural right side, but his only option is to move someone else to the left side or put Stillman back in the lineup.
That doesn't necessarily explain why Bear had to come out. After all, Burroughs has been a frequent healthy scratch this season, often swapping places with Stillman.
Bear's penalty kill mistakes
Perhaps it has to do with the penalty kill.
Bear has been pretty good on the penalty kill this season — relatively speaking, considering the Canucks are on pace for the worst penalty kill in NHL history — but he had two significant errors on the penalty kill against the St. Louis Blues in the Canucks' last game. Those two errors were partly responsible for power play goals against.
On the Blues' first power play goal, Hughes chased his man behind the net, hoping to win the puck. As he hustled back to this position, Robert Thomas got the puck in the left faceoff circle for a wide-open chance.
In that situation, Bear's primary responsibility has to be challenging Thomas, as he's in a very dangerous area of the ice and is a strong shooter. Instead, he's trying to take away a passing lane that doesn't even exist — there's no one at the backdoor, so his stick positioning makes no sense.
In Bear's defence, he was likely assuming that Hughes would follow the puck to Thomas, temporarily swapping sides with Bear. That's an assumption Bear can't afford to make — that zone of the ice is his responsibility and he needs to assume that pressuring the puck is his job unless Hughes communicates otherwise.
The second power play goal by the Blues was less directly Bear's fault but he still made a confusing play.
There's a clear breakdown by the other three penalty killers, who get bent all out of shape trying to cover for each other instead of trusting their teammates to do their job.
But Bear also completely takes himself out of position, charging across and sliding to the ice to prevent Vladimir Tarasenko from driving to the net. By leaving his feet, Bear is out of the play — he gets boxed out by Pavel Buchnevich, so would be unable to get to a rebound, he isn't at the front of the net to potentially block Jordan Kyrou's shot, and he would be completely helpless if Kyrou had passed to Thomas on the left side instead of shooting.
Those are two mistakes by Bear on the penalty kill but was the answer to scratch Bear, who has been one of the Canucks' most effective defencemen at 5-on-5? Could his minutes on the penalty kill be limited instead?
