If there was an area of concern for the Vancouver Canucks entering this season, it was on their back end.
They lost Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole, replacing them with clear downgrades in Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais.
It hasn’t gone well so far.
The Canucks were able to distribute minutes rather evenly between their bottom-four defencemen last season. Tyler Myers (18:57) ranked third in average ice time, with Cole (18:41), Carson Soucy (17:29), and Zadorov (17:04) not far behind.
If one of them struggled, like Cole did in the playoffs, they could be bumped down the lineup.
That’s not a luxury Canucks Rick Tocchet has this season, as the Canucks coaching staff has been hesitant to shuffle their defence pairs. There doesn’t appear to be a realistic Plan B.
The Canucks have had to live and die with Soucy and Myers as their second pair. They were really good together last season, but this season it’s been a struggle.
No Canucks players have been on the ice for more goals-against at even strength than Soucy (16 GA, 8 GF), while Myers is close behind (15 GA, 9 GF). Both defencemen also rank dead-last in expected goals-for percentage among Canucks with at least six games played.
The coaching staff has been reluctant to juggle the defence pairings thus far, which is understandable given how good Hughes and Hronek have been together. They don’t want to split up their top pair, and they don’t seem to trust their bottom pair guys to play tough minutes.
The result has been more difficult minutes for Myers and Soucy, regardless of how they’re playing.
Tocchet did admit that he has thought about making more changes to the back end after practice on Wednesday. But it certainly didn’t sound like major moves were coming soon.
“We’ll see,” Tocchet said. “We might have to go that route if it doesn’t get better. I’m not blaming anybody, but sometimes, maybe a fresh guy or something might help. Myers and Soucy were a really good pair for us in the playoffs — high-pressure games. We gotta get better, and we might have to switch it. But whether it’s next game or not, I’m not sure.”
Erik Brannstrom has been a pleasant surprise, and if there’s someone who deserves a shot to play bigger minutes, it’s him. The problem is the 5-foot-10 and 185-pound blueliner is undersized and more known for offence than defence.
Tocchet said he feels that Myers has “come along the past couple games,” and he’s hopeful for Soucy.
“Soucy, we gotta get his confidence up. Everything is magnified, everything he does, it’s in our net. I talked with him today… he’s close. I would like to see him, and I told him, is to get into people a little bit harder. That’s when he’s at his best. I could say that about every player. I’m a big believer… you gotta take his stick. You can’t just be with a guy. I think that’s one thing we gotta get better at, whether it’s Soucy or Räty or whoever, Petey, you gotta get into people. We haven’t been as good as getting into people, but we have been getting better.”
Tocchet won’t control the matchups on the road, where the Canucks are set to play the next six games, beginning Saturday in Ottawa. Perhaps it’s worth trying something new, whether that be Brannstrom-Myers and Soucy-Juulsen, or Hughes-Myers and Soucy-Hronek.
But long term, that’s not the answer. The Canucks are clearly a defenceman short and will need to address that before the season’s end. Is Marcus Pettersson the answer out of Pittsburgh? What about Mike Matheson in Montreal?
We know Patrik Allvin isn’t shy about making trades.