The Vancouver Canucks have a scoring problem. The problem is, they’re not scoring.
Out of 32 teams in the NHL, the Canucks are 27th in scoring through their first ten games of the season, averaging 2.40 goals per game. The most frustrating aspect of their goal-scoring struggles is that three of the Canucks’ six losses have come by just one goal; one more was a one-goal game until an empty-net goal in the final minutes and another went into overtime and was lost in the shootout.
That’s five of the Canucks’ six losses that could have seen a very different outcome with just a little bit more offence.
While the root cause for the lack of offence might be harder to pin down, it’s easy to look at the Canucks’ point totals and see the problem: too many of the Canucks’ top-six forwards aren’t producing.
Yes, J.T. Miller has 11 points in 10 games, newcomer Conor Garland has been a revelation with 10 points in 10 games, and Bo Horvat leads the team in goals with 4, but things drop off precipitously after that. Elias Pettersson’s struggles have been well publicized and he still has just one goal this season but he’s not alone.
Brock Boeser has been playing well but only has 2 goals and 3 points in 7 games. Tanner Pearson, who has been stapled to Horvat’s wing, has 1 goal and 3 points in 10 games.
The most perplexing, however, is a player who has popped in and out of the top six this season: Nils Höglander.
Höglander has been one of the Canucks' best players
Anyone watching the Canucks this season could tell you that Höglander has been one of the team’s most consistent and dynamic forwards through ten games. The “power forward, but tiny” somehow looks even faster than last season and has excelled in one of the areas where the rest of the Canucks have struggled the most: gaining the offensive zone with possession of the puck.
Höglander’s puckhandling and agile skating make him an ideal puck carrier through the neutral zone and avoid the dump-and-chase game that the Canucks have so frequently resorted to.
It’s not just the eye test either. Höglander is second behind Boeser among Canucks forwards in corsi percentage at 54.63%, with the Canucks out-attempting their opponents 112 to 93 when he’s on the ice at 5-on-5. In terms of puck possession, Höglander has been one of the team’s top players and there’s a reason why head coach Travis Green has treated him like a spark plug to try to get other players going.
There’s one player that Höglander hasn’t been able to get going: himself.
Only four Canucks forwards haven't scored a goal
Höglander is one of just four Canucks forwards yet to score a goal yet this season. The other three are bottom-six staples Matthew Highmore, Juho Lammikkko, and Justin Bailey, the latter of which has played just four games.
Every other forward on the Canucks has at least one goal.
Last season, Höglander scored in his very first game, banging home a Pearson rebound. This season, that first goal has been much harder to come by.
It’s not for lack of trying. Only Boeser has a higher rate of shot attempts than Höglander among Canucks forwards at 5-on-5. He’s also getting to scoring areas. According to Natural Stat Trick, Höglander leads the Canucks in high-danger chances at 5-on-5, with 9.
Admittedly, that’s not a ton of high-danger chances and is tied for 46th in the NHL, which speaks to the Canucks’ larger problem of getting to the inside to create scoring chances. Still, Höglander has been all around the net — why isn’t the puck going in for him?
Only luck is bad luck
A 10-game goalless streak like Höglander’s can be partly attributed to bad luck, particularly for a player that is still creating chances like Höglander is. Sometimes that bad luck is a hot goaltender, like on this 2-on-1 chance against Thomas Greiss of the Detroit Red Wings.
Sometimes, it’s a matter of the puck rolling off your stick instead of hooking inside the far post on a wraparound.
And sometimes that bad luck is just plain bad luck, like in the first game of the season when Höglander rang a puck off Mike Smith’s helmet with a laserbeam of a shot.
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There are other factors as well. The Canucks’ power play as a whole has struggled and Höglander has only played about 18 minutes on the power play, 10th-most on the team. In other words, he’s been the least-used player on the power play among the team’s regulars with the man advantage.
More importantly, Höglander’s status as a “spark plug” has seen him rotate through a multitude of linemates, giving him little chance to develop chemistry with any of them. He’s played at least ten minutes at 5-on-5 with seven different forwards.
In particular, the line he’s been on most frequently is with Jason Dickinson and Matthew Highmore, who are far from the most offensively adept forwards. That generally means any offensive thrust with that line on the ice has come from Höglander himself and when a goaltender really only needs to worry about one forward on a line, he’s easier to track and stop.
In recent games, however, Höglander has been reunited with his linemates from last season: Horvat and Pearson. That’s a line that was effective even as the team struggled and could mean more chances for Höglander to net his first goal this season.
The Canucks can't create rush and rebound chances
Then there are the offensive issues that are afflicting the Canucks as a whole. Höglander scored his first career goal off a rebound but the Canucks are creating far fewer second-chance opportunities this season. Last season, the Canucks averaged 2.21 shots per game off rebounds, as tallied by Natural Stat Track.
This season, the Canucks are averaging just 1.30 shots per game off rebounds.
Likewise, the Canucks are creating almost nothing off the rush. Last season, they averaged 1.11 shot attempts per game off the rush, again according to Natural Stat Trick. This season, they’re averaging just 0.40 per game.
Keep in mind, the Canucks were bad last season. That this season's Canucks can't even match last season's Canucks is startling.
For a player like Höglander, who can be so effective off the rush and around the net banging in rebounds, the Canucks’ inability as a team to create those types of chances is a major issue. Of course, it’s not just an issue for Höglander, it’s an issue for the entire team.
If the Canucks want to create more offence, they need to find a way to increase the number of chances they create off the rush and get more pucks to the net to create rebound chances. If they don’t, it won’t just be Höglander struggling to put the puck in the net.
