Antoine Roussel will be an X-factor for the Canucks this season

Antoine Roussel struggled after returning from an ACL tear last year, and a potential bounceback from him will pay huge dividends for the Vancouver Canucks this season.

In his first season with the Vancouver Canucks, Antoine Roussel was a legitimate middle-six winger who did a decent job of driving play while providing a reliable two-way presence.

In only 65 games, he had already set a career-high in points with 31, and was on pace to score 39 over the course of a full season. This level of production is in line with the production of typical middle-six wingers, and according to Hockeyviz, his defensive game was solid as well:

Roussel was also able to adequately drive play, as he controlled shot attempts at five on five 49.47% of the time while owning an expected goals percentage of 49.94% courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.

Unfortunately, he tore his ACL at the tail end of the 2018-19 campaign and was a shadow of his former self last year. Roussel was only on pace to score 26 points over a full season, which is what you’d expect from a third or fourth line tweener.

His largest dropoff, however, came on the defensive end, as he became a liability in his own zone and the Canucks gave up high-quality scoring chances whenever he was on the ice:

His play-driving abilities took a tumble as well; Roussel only controlled shots 47% of the time and had an expected goals percentage of 47.08%.

Simply put, he was a liability at both ends of the rink and struggled even more in the playoffs, averaging only 7:26 minutes of ice time per game while taking lots of unnecessary penalties that hurt his team.

More alarmingly, Roussel’s drop off wasn’t caused by increased difficulty in ice time. On the contrary, he actually faced much stiffer competition during his first season with Vancouver and was one of the most sheltered players last year.

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According to PuckIQ, the Frenchman spent 37.2% of his ice-time against elite players in 2018-19 while only 24.9% against depth skaters. Those numbers were entirely reversed last season, as he played against weak players 46% of the time and only spent 13.5% of his time against the elite.

Outside of Justin Bailey and Micheal Ferland, who both played in a fraction of the team’s games last year, Roussel was ranked first amongst all Canuck forwards in percentage of time spent against depth players while also coming in last in percentage of time spent against elite competition.

In other words, he was the most sheltered forward in 2019-20, only a season removed from being one of the most reliable players for Vancouver.

If Roussel’s play can bounce back to the level it was at during his first season as a Canuck, it would relieve some of the heavy defensive burden placed on Bo Horvat since the third line wouldn’t need to be sheltered as much.

This would allow Horvat to focus more on offence, and we all saw what he was capable of during the playoffs when matched up against second-lines instead of the elite every night.

In essence, a potential Roussel bounce back will vastly help Vancouver on both sides of the puck and provide the team with another reliable option in the bottom six. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!