The Vancouver Canucks impressively held on for another victory against the Nashville Predators to move to 4-2-0, but they can’t sustain this success by having to babysit half of their blueline. It’s simply not possible at the NHL level.
The Canucks were somewhat fortunate that some of the Predators’ best – like Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg – had an off night. And, an overpaid right-shot defenseman by the name of Tyson Barrie was the worst player on the ice. In a 3-2 game like this one, a better performance could have made all the difference.
Tyler Myers would be less of an issue if he didn't like taking penalties so much. #Canucks https://t.co/Jha2Ap2ZNo pic.twitter.com/vGx1FTGEMS
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 22, 2023
Vancouver should learn from Barrie and Nashville and start preparing for life after Tyler Myers early. Once again, the veteran was one of, if not the worst Canucks player on the ice, and achieved that feat in a sheltered role. Myers played only 13:44 against the Predators, which was the lowest amongst Vancouver defenders and barely ahead of most of the team’s bottom-six forwards.
As a result of Myers’ ineptitude, Ian Cole played 23:17, Filip Hronek played an astonishing 27:33. and Quinn Hughes racked up 25:17. Mark Friedman was the only other Canucks defender to even crack 15:00, and he was playing in the AHL two weeks ago.
Most professionals will say that you can’t hide a young defenseman at the NHL level, but you can hide a young forward. The Canucks are successfully doing this with Nils Hoglander, but there’s no hiding the 6-foot-8 Myers. The 33-year-old has been in the NHL for 15 years now, and the Canucks have no reason to hold onto his $6 million cap hit and throw a mistake-prone player out there for a handful of minutes every night.
Instead, that’s an opportunity they should give to a player like Cole McWard, who can at least take it as a chance to learn and improve as a young player. If Myers made the same amount of money as McWard, he’d have been on waivers already. He doesn’t, but the Canucks can take the AHL burial penalty and save $1.15 million against the cap if (when) he clears waivers, excluding a potential call-up replacement.
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At this point, the Canucks have shown tremendous growth as a team, and they shouldn’t allow incompetence to stunt it. It’s time to bite the bullet and waive goodbye to the ‘Chaos Giraffe’.