The Vancouver Canucks’ penalty kill has a problem. Or, rather, it has several problems.
Through 13 games, the Canucks have the second-worst penalty kill in the league, killing off just 64.4 per cent of the power plays they’ve faced — just a fraction ahead of the 63.3 per cent Los Angeles Kings.
If that continues, the Canucks could set a record for the worst penalty kill in NHL history, at least since the league started tracking the statistic in the 1977-78 season, surpassing the 1979-80 Los Angeles Kings and their 68.2 per cent penalty kill.
There’s plenty of time for the Canucks to avoid that fate, but they’re not exactly trending in the right direction. They gave up another two power play goals on Sunday night to the Minnesota Wild, which proved to be the difference in a 4-2 loss.
They’ve managed to keep the opposing power play off the board in just three of their games, and they’ve given up 16 power play goals against, three more than the next-worst teams.
“It’s not pretty”
A penalty kill doesn’t get this bad for just one reason.
“I don’t even know what our percentage is right now, but it’s not pretty,” said Luke Schenn. “Whether it’s a breakdown, or not blocking a shot, or losing a battle, or sometimes we’re just getting picked apart on seams — it’s hard to point to one thing, for sure. But all in all, it’s not even close.”
Head coach Manny Malhotra acknowledged that there are multiple issues to address, and it’s a combination of effort and systems.
“There’s the element of winning battles and the willingness to get in shot lanes,” he said. “That being said, there’s the structural component of just making sure you’re in the right place at the right time. A lot of the breakdowns in our penalty kill have been a deadly combination of those or a lack of those two.”
Some might say that this is to be expected for a team embarking on a rebuild that is tanking the season.
Here’s the thing: just because a team is tanking doesn’t mean their penalty kill has to be terrible.
Just look at the Chicago Blackhawks last season, who finished 31st in the NHL, just ahead of the Canucks. They had the second-best penalty kill in the league behind only the Colorado Avalanche at 83.6 per cent.
That’s because a team doesn’t need to be exceptionally talented to kill penalties. The success of a penalty kill comes down to defensive reads, following the system, and good-old-fashioned hard work.
Malhotra is well aware of what it takes to succeed on the penalty kill. He was an adept penalty killer as a player. So far, it doesn’t seem like he and his coaching staff have been able to impart that knowledge to the current team.
“For those guys, just an understanding of positionally where they need to be, what their roles are within those specific positions, as well as ramping up the tenacity and coming up with loose pucks and forcing triggers and getting pucks down the ice,” said Malhotra.
Deep diving into penalty kill problems
Malhotra, the coaching staff, and the players will be poring over video to try to figure out what’s going wrong. So, let’s do the same.
Here are all 16 goals the Canucks have given up while on the penalty kill this season.
Sometimes, a power play is just going to beat you. It’s a collection of the best offensive players on the opposing team with a manpower advantage, who have specifically studied how to pick apart your penalty kill. The Canucks do need to work on closing up passing lanes to avoid giving up cross-seam plays, but sometimes great passers can get the puck through anyway.
There were also some bad bounces amongst these goals, that can’t be helped. At the same time, there are some common denominators.
One thing that stands out is how frequently the Canucks overpursue players and the puck to the boards, leaving openings behind them.
The most egregious was the Hurricanes’ first power play goal at 3:16 in the video, where Paul Cotter overcommitted to taking away the pass to the point, leaving a massive passing lane open behind him, while Victor Mancini chased a hit with Andrei Svechnikov wide open at the side of the net.
Obviously, there are times to pursue and outman the puck while on the penalty kill to get a clear, but recognizing when to do that requires making the right defensive read. Too often, the Canucks are chasing when there’s no chance to win the puck, which puts a lot of strain on the remaining penalty killers.
Another consistent theme is the Canucks getting outnumbered below the hashmarks, leaving them vulnerable to cross-crease, backdoor plays.
The worst of these is the Detroit Red Wings’ goal at 9:20 in the video. Jamie Oleksiak gets pulled up too high in the zone, while Drew O’Connor doesn’t rotate back to compensate, leaving Filip Hronek defending a 3-on-1 below the hashmarks. Hronek ties up one man, but he’s simply outnumbered.
Again, that requires more awareness from the penalty killers to track the opposing power play’s rotations and protect the most dangerous areas of the ice.
The one aspect that won’t be captured by just looking at the goals is any lost battles or failed attempts to clear the puck well before the goal.
The lost puck battles also relate to another issue for the Canucks: faceoffs.
The Canucks are actually doing reasonably well in faceoff percentage shorthanded, winning 50 per cent of their draws, which is ranked tenth in the NHL, as the faceoff system favours the team on offence.
The trouble starts after the faceoff. The Canucks have struggled to get clears off won faceoffs and have struggled to manage the chaos that follows lost faceoffs.
An example of the latter is the Calgary Flames goal at 2:02 in the video. Paul Cotter, who has won 75 per cent of shorthanded faceoffs, loses one and it’s an immediate fire drill. Aatu Räty can’t get out to the point thanks to some light interference, so Cotter overcompensates, taking himself well out of position. That leaves Matt Coronato with time and space to pick a corner.
“It’s a number of things”
So, how can the Canucks fix this?
Several of these problems are eminently fixable. A little more discipline in the defensive structure, a little more effort on puck battles, and a little more urgency on clears will help.
“It’s a number of things,” said Malhotra after the game against the Wild. “It’s structurally, being better on our triggers and knowing when to go, doing a better job with our sticks in lanes, killing passing lanes, and just the ability to clear pucks. We have to value any time we have an opportunity to touch it; it has to get down the ice.”
One thing that’s hard to fix, however, is hockey IQ. If players are consistently making bad reads and aggressively pursuing the puck when there’s no chance to win the puck, or failing to keep their head on a swivel to track when the opposing power play is setting up a cross-crease, backdoor pass, that’s hard to address purely with coaching.
Some players simply do not have those defensive instincts, and it takes a lot of time and reps to develop those instincts. It’s not something that can be fixed with one practice session or video.
For younger players like Arshdeep Bains, Max Sasson, Liam Öhgren, and Elias Pettersson (the defenceman), who have been on the ice for a high rate of goals against on the penalty kill, this is on-the-job training. If the Canucks want them to develop as penalty killers, they might have to put up with having a terrible penalty kill as they develop.