Canucks: Is Carson Soucy the only answer to what ails team? (2024)

Defensive breakdowns at key times killed his team’s chances at winning on Thursday night, Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet lamented.

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His team, he said, hadn’t played badly — except in a few crucial moments.

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His players, he said, were going too hard, too “all-in,” in key moments. He wanted control. Not over-exuberance.

The result, he said, was disturbing.

“They didn’t have many chances,” he said of what his team gave the Los Angeles Kings in a 5-1 loss, “but they’re egregious chances.”

Defensively, his team is a mess. Offensively, there are concerns too, losing body position battles, mostly, but the real issue is how the team is defending. They’re not giving their goalies much of a chance of late.

And so it shouldn’t be a surprise this team has won just three times in regulation in the 13 games they have played since the All-Star Break.

For this week’s mailbag, let’s take a look at what fans are seeing.

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It seems to be about Soucy — Griffiths Way via X

A very succinct summation of an under-discussed element of the Canucks’ recent slide: the absence of Carson Soucy.

The lanky blueliner has been out of action since before the All-Star Break with an apparent fractured hand.

He has been skating away from the team, but his return to the lineup does seem imminent. He was scheduled to meet again with a specialist Thursday to discuss how his hand is healing, and Tocchet expressed cautious optimism Soucy would be back playing soon.

And that can’t come quickly enough, since Soucy has proven to be the team’s best defensive player this season.

When he’s on the ice, for instance, the opposition’s shot quality goes down 75 per cent, according to HockeyViz.com’s shot-quality model. That’s a big deal.

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He is outstanding at using his reach to disrupt opposing attackers and is adept at using his size to take away attacking lanes as well.

He’s been even better than advertised.

And more than anything, the Canucks’ recent slide is about struggles in defensive consistency.

It all started after Joshua and Soucy both got injured — Bill K via X

The “look how important Joshua is” angle is one I’ve heard from a few people, and certainly there’s a kernel of truth in this. Joshua is far and away the team’s most impactful forechecker, driving the team’s third line in a way that was perhaps underappreciated before he got hurt. But the team’s slump is much broader than just forechecking.

As noted above, there’s the absence of Carson Soucy and the knock-on effects his absence creates, like asking other defenders to fill a systemic role that they are less well-suited to. In similar terms, so is Joshua’s absence impactful.

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Instead of Joshua, now you’re handing more ice time to Sam Lafferty and Phil Di Giuseppe. Both wingers started the season brightly, but are now showing up less and less. There’s a reason they are career fourth liners: they have bursts now and then, but overall the level they can sustain is lower.

Joshua has grown into more than that.

There’s also Ilya Mikheyev’s struggles. The winger has been demoted down the roster. His game is a mess — his speed hasn’t returned and his shot has turned into a muffin. He hasn’t scored in almost three months.

He’s not hurting the team defensively, but on attack he’s turned in a pumpkin.

Joshua, on the other hand, has been a strong scorer, the very opposite of Mikheyev. But on pedigree, unlike Lafferty and Di Giuseppe, you’d think Mikheyev would be able to replace at least some of Joshua’s offence.

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He hasn’t. So it’s not just that the Canucks miss Joshua, it’s that the replacements have performed so poorly trying to fill the gap.

But there’s still an even bigger problem: Elias Pettersson’s defensive game is underground. Normally a strong two-way player, Pettersson has struggled to make an affect offence. Even worse, the Canucks are bleeding goals against: since the beginning of February the Canucks’ five-on-five save percentage has been rock-bottom with Pettersson on the ice, an abysmal 82.9 per cent.

Given how well most of the season has gone, a large portion of this is simply bad luck.

That said, Pettersson needs to find a way to turn his offensive game around. Do that, and you know his defensive struggles will disappear.

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This team has been suspect for some time. Other than Miller, the rest of the team has no drive. However crazy this sounds since Joshua’s fight and subsequent injury, this team has lost whatever mojo they might have had. It does not bode well for the playoffs! — Unknown via TheProvince.com

There’s little doubt the overall confidence from this team is gone right now. They’ve been tested hard this month and they’ve often looked inadequate.

As noted above, getting Joshua back will certainly help. He’ll add energy to their overall game. But it’s not just him. His teammates need to rediscover within themselves the execution they had before.

They need to get back to outplaying the opposition.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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