Vancouver Canucks: 2016-17 Special Teams

The Vancouver Canucks struggled mightily with their power play last season but performed decently on the penalty kill. With some notable subtractions and fresh faces this offseason, will the Canucks’ special teams be better overall?

Watching the Vancouver Canucks’ power play was, at times, extremely painful last season. Compared to the smooth zone entries and barrage of shots let loose by other, better teams, the Canucks’ power plays consisted of predictable entry maneuvers, too much passing, and, of course, not enough scoring.

Any successful power play not only needs a proper quarterback to get the play started and a lot of fluid puck movement, but it also needs to remain fresh and creative. Teams watch a crazy amount of video these days. Power-play units can no longer succeed simply by continuously rolling out old strategies that once worked really well. In other words, they must adapt.

A few years ago, the Canucks’ power play was masterful and I don’t think it’s a stretch, by any means, to say that opponents were intimidated by their offensive skills with the man advantage. But the issue is that the Canucks’ tactics have remained much the same, even as various personnel departed, and penalty-kill specialists around the league have adapted and put themselves in a position where they can effectively and quite easily shut down the Canucks.

Proof of this came last season, when the Canucks finished with the 27th-ranked PP.

Here’s Vancouver’s team statistics for 2015-16:

The Canucks scored 39 times out of 247 PP opportunities for a final percentage of 15.79 percent, well below the league average. It’s an understatement but this is an area in need of dramatic improvement for the Canucks, especially if they have playoff aspirations next season.

By contrast, the team’s penalty kill units combined to shut down 81.12 percent of opponent’s power plays, good enough to be the 17th-ranked PK in the league and therefore hovering around the league average for PK efficiency. The Canucks only allowed 249 PP opportunities to opposing teams, which was slightly below league average; however, that means that the Canucks took less penalties than the majority of other teams, which is certainly a positive. Unfortunately, Vancouver allowed eight short-handed goals, higher than most teams.

Going into this offseason, management knew they had to right the ship in a hurry if they wanted to make the playoffs in 2016-17. The Canucks had numerous weaknesses but the most glaringly obvious one was a lack of scoring depth. Finishing at the bottom of the league in most offensive categories, the Canucks needed to add a big-time scorer or two to the roster, as well as shore up the defensive corps and potentially add a puck-moving defenseman to help helm the power play. If the Canucks improve at all offensively, the PP will be a big part of that.

So far, GM Jim Benning has made one particularly large splash in free agency, signed some younger depth forwards for the AHL, and hired a winner of an assistant coach to help stabilize the PP and improve the team’s face-off skills.

Will Benning’s additions help improve the special teams units overall? Will the loss of certain personnel this offseason be detrimental to the team’s success?

Ahead, I’ll take a look at what has happened so far this offseason and assess whether it’s advantage Canucks or not…

Next: The Big Fish: Loui Eriksson