Canucks: Youth and inexperience could be an advantage

The Vancouver Canucks are one of the youngest teams and a lot of their stars have no playoff experience. Here is why this could actually be an advantage.

The Vancouver Canucks are making their first postseason appearance since 2015. Many of their young stars will be experiencing playoff hockey for the first time, but in an unconventional season like this one, it could actually be a good thing.

The NHL season has been on pause since March 12 and most players have not had access to ice time for months. While players could work out and do off-ice conditioning, they were unable to skate or do any skill-specific drills. For older players especially, this lack of ice time has a legitimate impact on their level of play.

22-year veteran Patrick Marleau was on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast and talked about how the game has gotten faster over the years and how he trained to adapt to the new league:

“I enjoy working out, I enjoy doing all of those things still. So I think that bodes well for me. But one thing I have changed is I usually take a lot more time off the ice just to stay in it. I know guys are doing it throughout the league where they don’t take time off the ice. They’re skating throughout the summer. I’ve started doing that more, it kind of helps, I kind of like it. I like switching things up just to keep it fresh.”

The biggest reason why the NHL is so fast nowadays is that there is no break for the players. The moment their season is over, they’re off to specialty coaches, constantly doing on-ice training and working for the next season. With everything shut down during the season pause, it will give older players a much tougher time to return to game speed.

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Official training camps are expected to start on July 13, with the postseason hopefully beginning on July 30th. This gives teams roughly two weeks to get back into game shape before they’re thrown into the fire.

For older players, this will be a tough ordeal but for the young, it will be a much easier transition. Both Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson talked about this and were both very confident in their ability to get back up to speed.

“I think maybe the four months here were a blessing in disguise for me because I feel really strong now and think that I can perform better in the playoffs now than I would have three and a half months ago.” Hughes said, via NHL.com.

“Just like when you’re not on the ice every day, you lose timing, you lose your conditioning in your legs, but it will come back very soon.” Pettersson said, per NHL.com.

This could be a massive factor in the play-in series against the Minnesota Wild. If the Canucks are able to come out of the gate strong and take advantage of the older players on the Wild, they will make it a very short series.

Another big factor is experience. This is key in the playoffs, as it’s important to be able to manage emotions and deal with all the aches and injuries that come with it. In a traditional hockey season, no one plays fully healthy and it takes a lot to gain the mental toughness to play through everything.

This time around, experience will not be as important as everyone is starting at square one. No one has ever played in a postseason like this and everyone will be adapting and learning at the same time. Shaking off the rust, playing in an empty arena, all this is new. Not even the most grizzled veterans know what to expect. For an inexperienced team like the Canucks, this is great news.

The Canucks are entering this play-in matchup with no pressure while the Wild understand that they barely made it in and their window is closing fast. The lack of pressure, youth, and inexperience that Vancouver has is actually a massive advantage for this year’s postseason.