Vancouver Canucks: Let’s talk about goals and scoring

Offence was a concern going into the season and the younger players on the Vancouver Canucks have had no issue with that. However, the team is bleeding more goals than ever, without any fix in sight.

I have to hand it to the Vancouver Canucks. Most people believed (including me) that the team would have a tough time trying to score goals this season. Since the Sedins were responsible for so much of last year’s offence, it felt like we were asking a lot for Elias Pettersson to replace the production of both players.

Turns out, Pettersson could do that and more. But it’s not just him. The Canucks have four players with 10 or more goals. Elias Pettersson (17), Bo Horvat (16), Brock Boeser (12) and Jake Virtanen (10). Vancouver has scored 110 goals this season (10th in the NHL).

Last season, the Canucks finished the year with 218 goals (26th in the NHL). At this pace, Vancouver looks like they can finish the season with 250 goals. NHL scoring is up, so it’s hard to say if that will be in the top half of the league, but they probably have a good shot at it.

From an offensive perspective, the Canucks look great, even though the bulk of the offence is so reliant on their first round draft picks and nobody else. But like the Edmonton Oilers, the goals are a double-edged sword.

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The team may be 10th in offence, but they are 29th in defence. Vancouver has surrendered 118 goals (3rd most in the NHL). They are on pace to give up 268 goals this season. How did they do last year? Vancouver gave up 259 goals (sixth most in the NHL). What does that tell me? The Canucks are much better offensively, but are also getting worse defensively. It’s crazy, since the Grit Wars this summer were moves made to improve overall defensive play. That backfired quickly.

But let’s take it a step further. Take out the noise outside of even strength play. That means removing the effects (positive and negative) from the penalty kill and power play. Corsica has a very good expected goals model. At 5v5, the Canucks have scored 71 goals. They were expected to have 58.35. It’s not really surprising that they are overachieving.

Remember our top four goal scorers? Pettersson is converting on almost 28% of his shots. He is an incredible talent, but that will eventually come down to around 18-20% (roughly where most superstars sit). Horvat has a success rate of 17% (career average is 13).

I have mentioned how Virtanen’s conversion rate is nearly double of what he’s shown in his career. The one interesting number is Boeser’s. At 17.6%, he is just a hair above his shot percentage from last year. Boeser could be an elite shooter for most of his career, so it’s good to see he can roughly maintain the success rate.

Goals are not as strong of a predictor as shots, but we can’t ignore when luck is playing a bit of a role.  It doesn’t help that the team still has a negative goal differential despite showing very well at home recently.

This team is trying its hardest to outscore this problem, but when they are struggling to generate shot attempts (26th in the league), they are putting all their eggs in one basket. If one of the big three get injured, this team is going to suffer.

And that’s not a recipe for success. Their greatest strength can become their Achilles’ Heel at the first sign of injury. Two out of three have already missed time this season. The Canucks are riding high now, but for how long? Maybe we should check in again after the All Star break. The team could be closer to the bottom than a playoff spot by then.