The Canucks first game this season without Chris Tanev could not have gone worse. In Tanev’s strongest areas, the Canucks struggled: they were too permissive at their own blue line, allowing too many controlled entries. The Ducks repeatedly pinned the Canucks in the defensive zone, stymieing any attempt to break up ice. And the penalty kill was a disaster, giving up three goals on six power play opportunities.
It was undoubtedly the Canucks’ worst game of the season and, while one game shouldn’t make anyone panic, it’s hard to avoid when it looks like Tanev will be out for several more games.
Tanev reportedly has a broken thumb, which could keep him out of the lineup for several weeks. He will, at the very least, miss the rest of this road trip.
Tanev’s absence has a trickle-down effect on the rest of the Canucks’ defence. It doesn’t just take one defenceman out of the lineup, but takes away the Canucks’ most reliable defence pairing. With Tanev, Ben Hutton is a top pairing defenceman who can match up against the best forwards in the NHL. Without Tanev, Hutton is a second pairing defenceman without a steady, reliable partner.
The loss of Tanev caused a scramble to the entire Canucks’ defence corps. Travis Green and Nolan Baumgartner matched Hutton with Erik Gudbranson, a pairing that has at least played together before.
Hutton and Gudbranson ended up as the most reliable pairing against the Ducks, which admittedly isn’t saying much in a game where the entire team got so soundly outplayed. But Hutton and Gudbranson mostly held their own, with shots 6-5 for the Ducks when they were on the ice at 5-on-5.
Where Gudbranson struggled, however, was on the penalty kill, where he and Alex Edler led the Canucks’ in ice time. Gudbranson and Edler were on the ice for all three Ducks’ power play goals and were directly at fault in some way each time, whether it was Edler chasing the puck to the boards too aggressively or Gudbranson making a bad defensive read on a play in front of the net.
That shouldn’t be surprising: Tanev is the Canucks’ most important penalty killer, leading the Canucks in shorthanded ice time and allowing the lowest rate of goals against among Canucks penalty killers. WIthout Tanev, the penalty kill crashed and burned.
At even-strength, Edler in his return from injury was paired with Alex Biega. They played briefly together last year, but struggled, getting massively out-shot and giving up a lot of scoring chances. That was once again the case against the Ducks: shot attempts were 23-7 for the Ducks when Edler was on the ice at 5-on-5 and 23-8 for Biega.
So both Edler and Biega were hurt by Tanev’s injury. Edler ended up with a defence partner that he doesn’t gel with, while Biega, who has excelled in a limited role on the third pairing, ended up in a larger role alongside Edler and struggled.
With Tanev out and no other right-side defencemen, someone had to play their off-side. That task fell to Derrick Pouliot, who moved to the right with a defenceman he had yet to play with this season, Michael Del Zotto. The pairing seemed out of sync all game, with shots on goal 12-4 in favour of the Ducks when Del Zotto was on the ice.
Derrick Pouliot has been a pleasant surprise this season, but the larger role on his weak side with an unfamiliar partner put a spotlight on all the weakest elements of his game.
There were likely ways to mitigate the impact of Tanev’s absence, but they all come with the benefit of hindsight. Perhaps it would have been better to keep Pouliot and Biega together, as that pairing has seen success together this season. But if Pouliot was the most willing to play on his off-side, breaking them up would be necessary.
Maybe Pouliot should have played with Hutton to give the Canucks a dynamic, puck-moving pairing. But that pairing would also have some major defensive question marks and would force some unfamiliar pairings further down the lineup.
Some called for Edler to play on his off-side with Hutton, keeping the other two pairings intact from previous games. But Green and Baumgartner had already broken up the Pouliot/Biega and Del Zotto/Gudbranson pairings in the previous game and seemed to not want to go back to those pairings.
In the end, it’s hard to second-guess the coaching staff. Tanev’s injury put them in a tough position and they went with what seemed best. Perhaps a little more attention paid to the numbers from last season would have lead to them avoiding the Edler/Biega pairing, but so many things from last season have already been thrown out given the change from Willie Desjardins to Travis Green.
But it’s something the coaching staff will need to figure out and quick. Tanev could be gone for several weeks and the Canucks can’t afford a losing streak if they have hopes for the playoffs.
