"Sometimes you need to be challenged a bit and step up as a team," said Roberto Luongo after the...

"Sometimes you need to be challenged a bit and step up as a team," said Roberto Luongo after the win over the Oilers. "It seems like we're losing a player every game, but that [defence] is the way we were built from the first year I've been here. We're not a team that's going to win games 6-5 and 5-4. We're always a team that won 3-2 and 2-1.
Especially now with a lot of injuries, we have to go back to our systems even more and have games like tonight where we scrapped one out."

So, the Canucks are not preaching more offence then? I thought Mike Gillis said he wanted more of it. Either way, the current system is getting the job done, boring or not.

10 months ago Sean Zandberg 22 comments 0 recs |

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I think more offense is what he was going for at the start of the season, and after we lost a couple of games he went back to the tried and tested. I hated it when that happened last season where we’d win a bunch of ugly trappy games and then AV would get greedy and try to play a pretty wide-open style and we’d lose.

Bring me Stanley. Alive if possible, dead... just as good.

by King Luongshanks on Oct 26, 2009 10:43 AM PDT reply actions

I see it as a balancing act. Yes. more offense please, but we still gotta play the percentages.

by casual on Oct 26, 2009 10:53 AM PDT reply actions

How true, Louie’s quote above. It was evident during last night’s game that this latest evolution of the defense of the team was taking place.

by Bobby Canuck on Oct 26, 2009 10:58 AM PDT reply actions

The road to success is never a straight line.

I've seen enough to know that I've seen too much.

by Smoboy41 on Oct 26, 2009 11:02 AM PDT reply actions

If you're missing your top scorers,

you can’t play an offensive style and expect to succeed. When Gillis surprisingly retained his coach in summer 08, he said that the players you have determine your style of play. Given that the team lacks scoring talent due to injuries, it’s the only way the team should play right now, until at least Daniel comes back, and more likely they should focus on defense more until every one is healthy.

by SJKel on Oct 26, 2009 11:50 AM PDT reply actions

And then what? Open it up more when those guys come back? This is where I fail to see the point. Keep the “trapping” boring hockey going no matter what. It’s working. We can’t go back to 2 weeks ago. Part of the troubling start had to do with the players not playing defence or ‘buying into the system’.
I’m sure there’s room to open it up a little more, but not much, IMO. Where’s the balance? I don’t want to see any odd man rushes against. Like I said before, we can’t be like Toronto, especially with all the offensive defencemen we have. By the sounds of it, Luongo likes the tight D too, and why wouldn’t he?

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 11:58 AM PDT up reply actions

I don’t think the poor start had anything to do with the more open system, as there was no system that asks players to make bad passes that don’t connect and shots that miss the net or get blocked. That’s their main problem in the beginning. The team simply failed to execute any game plan at all.

As for opening it up more when the players become healthy, I don’t think that the team has to intentionally open it up by abandoning defense, but with better offensive players you will see the puck in the offensive zone more. In anyway, any good coach should be find the right balance of offense and defense from his team, and this season the players, at least on paper, are capable of generating more offense when healthy.

by SJKel on Oct 26, 2009 1:41 PM PDT up reply actions

I hear you mostly, but how many odd-man rushes against in those games? How many failed pinches by D-men? Wouldn’t that categorize a more wide-open system? I saw both your concept and mine in those games.

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions

Or am I being obtuse?

Hyuk hyuk

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 3:46 PM PDT up reply actions

I don’t have the tech to snag an image off that same “bit”, but I believe the response is…

“no, now you are just being acute…”

vancitydan

by vancitydan on Oct 26, 2009 3:55 PM PDT up reply actions

2 months in the hole!

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 4:03 PM PDT up reply actions

I don’t think so. I think those odd man rushes given up were the result of bad execution. Even in the 2-0 shutout I saw D pinching from the point, but I also saw that they did it only when they had a good chance to at least holding the puck there for a battle along the board, plus a forward always dropped back to fill in. In those early losses, the team played poorly in all aspects (both offensively & defensively) and were down by a few goals. Once a team is down by that much, it can no longer afford to play any defensive system because preventing further goals wouldn’t win the game.

by SJKel on Oct 26, 2009 4:00 PM PDT up reply actions

Well said. I see your point there in the last 2 sentences.

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 4:04 PM PDT up reply actions

I still remember a lot more odd-man rushes against because of what I thought was a crazy new high octane offensive system. Regardless, I just watched the highlights from games 1 and 2 and my god they were terrible in their own end. Lou wasn’t so hot either. Calgary and Colorado were skating circles around them

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 26, 2009 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions

Exactly. Once the return to a strong, smart and dynamic defense becomes consistent, and let’s hope that consistency began last night, the offensive consistency will become more evident, especially with Danny’s return and Shiro’s and Grabs’ development.

by Bobby Canuck on Oct 26, 2009 2:02 PM PDT up reply actions

People in Vancity never change. The team starts winning and we start worrying about “style” points.

This is not the same trapping team. Except for the T.O game, they have outshot all their opponents.

Trapping teams don’t usually do that.

Just because there is less of the “did you see that” dangling, the team is a bunch of “pluggers”?

I disagree with the whole thesis. Cancucks are a different team that has played tighter defensively the last couple games. But its not a trap…its an aggressive 1-2-2. They have been sending in the 2nd man forechecking far too much recently for me to call them a “trap” team.

More of a defensively responsible one. Which is good right?

vancitydan

by vancitydan on Oct 26, 2009 12:27 PM PDT reply actions