The Vancouver Canucks barely made any changes to their defence in the offseason.
Brad Hunt left in free agency and signed with the Colorado Avalanche and he wasn’t replaced until just before the start of the season when the Canucks traded Jason Dickinson and a second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for Riley Stillman. That’s it for changes on defence — a swap of seventh defencemen.
Up until the Canucks traded for Stillman, it was expected that Jack Rathbone would be on the Canucks’ bottom pairing. The Canucks’ top prospect on defence had already done all he could at the AHL level, with 49 points in 47 career AHL games.
Instead, Rathbone has been a healthy scratch every game this season and is expected to once again be in the pressbox on Thursday night when the Canucks face the Wild.
It seems strange that Rathbone hasn’t gotten a look when you consider that the Canucks have repeatedly given up multi-goal leads in their first four games. With the team struggling so much defensively, it seems odd that head coach Bruce Boudreau and defence coach Trent Cull wouldn’t at least try to shake things up by inserting Rathbone into the lineup.
The Canucks did make changes on defence in their last game, but only because Tyler Myers and Tucker Poolman returned from injury. Both Myers and Poolman, however, play on the right side — they’re not keeping the left-handed Rathbone out of the lineup.
The player who is keeping Rathbone in the pressbox is Stillman. The trouble is that Stillman hasn’t been particularly good through the first four games.
According to Natural Stat Trick, among Canucks defencemen at 5-on-5, Stillman has been on the ice for the highest rate of shots against, scoring chances against, and expected goals against, the latter by a wide margin. It’s obviously a small sample size, but Stillman has not been good defensively in that small sample.
That can be illustrated by the heatmap of shot attempts against when Stillman is on the ice at 5-on-5 via HockeyViz.
When Stillman has been on the ice at 5-on-5, shot attempts have been 25% more dangerous than the NHL average. Again, it’s a small sample size, but it’s troubling how many of those shot attempts are coming from the left side, where Stillman plays.
While Rathbone has some excellent offensive tools, the primary concern for him is his defensive game. That might explain why Boudreau and Cull were reluctant to put him in the lineup to start the season, preferring to go with the more experienced and more physical Stillman.
At this point, however, would Rathbone really be that much worse defensively than Stillman?
In addition, Rathbone could bring more of an offensive game to the third pairing and potentially improve the Canucks’ ability to break out of the defensive zone with possession of the puck. The ability to move the puck up ice effectively might even negate some of Rathbone’s defensive deficiencies, as the Canucks would potentially spend less time in the defensive zone.
If the Canucks are not going to play Rathbone, they ought to just send him back to the AHL so he can get some minutes with the Abbotsford Canucks. Rathbone is exempt from waivers, so can be sent down freely. What’s the point in having him waste away in the press box?
