North Division: How the Canucks stack up against the Flames
The Vancouver Canucks have been placed in an all-Canadian division for the upcoming season, but how do they compare against the Calgary Flames?
With the Canadian division officially set, The Canuck Way will be taking a look at how Vancouver stacks up against every other team in the division over the next several days.
Consisting of all Canadian teams, the Vancouver Canucks will enter the North Division for the entire duration of the 2021 NHL regular season. With a 56-game schedule slated against six other teams, you just know that the Canucks will get real up-close and personal with their Alberta rivals, the Calgary Flames.
Both teams defeated their opponents during the 2020 Play-in round, but it was only the Canucks that managed to make it out of Round 1. Vancouver downed the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues, but the Flames lost out to the Dallas Stars (who made the finals).
Notable changes were made to both rosters over the course of the offseason, but for the Canucks, they lost a lot of talented players because the Flames swooped in and were able to offer them more money. In fact, Calgary signed MVP goalie Jacob Markstrom, veteran defender Chris Tanev, a depth forward Josh Leivo and backup goalie Louis Domingue. So you know this rivalry is going to be jam-packed!
How the offence stacks up
The Canucks were the eighth-best offensive team in the NHL last season after averaging 3.25 goals per game. The Flames, on the other hand, struggled to produce and were a “middle of the pack” kind of team finishing 20th overall with 2.91 goals per game average.
However, not only did the Canucks lose offensive talent in Tyler Toffoli and Leivo, but they lost good players at each position who added salt to the wound of their departure by inking multi-year deals with the team’s closest geographical rival, the Flames.
It’ll be very interesting to see these teams battle it out offensively through the course of eight, nine or 10 games. Vancouver should be expecting a drop in goals per game, as the Flames should expect a slight increase, making for some entertaining hockey between these two clubs.
Both teams have an electric top-six that can pop-off at any given time, but the winner of this season series likely comes down to which team’s star players provide more offence?
How the defence stacks up
Although the Canucks lost Tanev in free agency and are likely to be rolling out a rookie defender on their bottom pairing, management believes the team got better on the blueline with the addition of Nate Schmidt. He instantly becomes the team’s second-best defender and gives Vancouver a deadly 1-2 punch on the back end that they’ve truly never had before.
As for the Flames, they’ll be happy to not be up against the puck-blocker himself, but they’ve lost five defenders this offseason and their blueline may take time to adjust. T.J. Brodie, Erik Gustafsson, along with Travis Hamonic, Derek Forbort and Michael Stone. However, they’ve still got Mark Giordano and Noah Hanafin.
It’s clear both teams have a pretty solid top four blueline and the advantage might come down to which bottom pairing can outplay the other. Either that or whichever blueline can stay healthy. I give a slight advantage to the Canucks, but with Markstrom in goal for the Flames, that can change very quickly.