Post-Game Talk: WCSF GM 4 | Oilers def. Canucks 3-2 (Garland, Joshua) | Thaaaaaaat sucked.

[AzNightmare]

One thing of note is that McDavid/Drai/Nugent-Hopkins/Hyman all were 20+ minutes. The only Canuck forwards that hit the 20 minute mark was Boeser and EP.

Not quite the 29 minutes they were facing last game, but you gotta wonder if the Oilers are gonna start running on fumes.

Again, it's the strategy to win the series, but I don't think it's conducive to winning the Cup, lol.

Being up 2-0 definitely helps. If the strategy is to burn them out, Canucks need to play with the lead. Because unlike Tocchet, Knoblauch will load up and ride his top players if he needs goals.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Oilers are a much much much better team 5on5 with Drai & McD split up.

Also splitting Nurse and Ceci.... while obvious, is paying instant dividends.


Did the Oilers change something systems wise? It felt like Nashville again, with all the blocked shots...


How many games is Kane getting for crosschecking Myers in the head?

 

[AzNightmare]

Oilers are a much much much better team 5on5 with Drai & McD split up.

Also splitting Nurse and Ceci.... while obvious, is paying instant dividends.


Did the Oilers change something systems wise? It felt like Nashville again, with all the blocked shots...


How many games is Kane getting for crosschecking Myers in the head?

None.
Canucks were awarded a 4 min powerplay. Not anybody's fault but the players for doing diddly squat with it.

 

[DFAC]

I'm just as disappointed as most of you here - really thought we were going to steal that one tonight but if you get only 1 shot on a 4 min PP, you probably dont deserve to win. Team played like hot garbage for all game minus the last 10 minutes and almost somehow won.

Will be nice to have Soucy back - that 2nd Oilers goal was all on Juulsen trying to go for the big hit. Can't fault Silovs at all tonight - he was great.

Team needs to come out firing in game 5- I'm sure Tocchet will let them hear it about how they played tonight.

And Petey man... I honestly don't know what to say at this point. Show some emotion - mix it up. He (and the rest of the team) look like theyre afraid to shoot the puck at times. There's been too many times where I'm yelling for them to just SHOOT the puck and instead they pass it

Hard to imagine getting a win here on out against a team firing on all cylinders

I wouldn't say this - the Canucks have actually done a superb job neutralizing the Oilers at 5 on 5.

It's special teams that are killing us right now. Our PP is beyond pathetic

 

[David71]

that 4min pp did them in. zone entries trash. juuelsson going for the big hit to take himself out of the play.. but he did play solid. take cole out. soucy in. too many passengers. sit mikheyev put some ahl guys in to inject some life and scoring chances. petey noshow again... miller blew the d zone but admitted postgame afterwards. what lineup changes will we see for game 5. scratch lafftery and mikheyv. cole too. put friedman, hogs and pods. the hit reminded me of 2009 series mitchell threw toews then almost end of the game he got hit leads to a giveaway and kaner scores. that was that.

 

[DFAC]

Karlsson Hronek Suter Mikhayev Lafferty Petterrson Amen the 6/7 who forgot its a playoff game.

At least Pettersson gave us a glimmer at the end but it's still upsetting to think this is the player that said he wanted to win and then shows indifferent play.

Juulsen we talked exactly about what he did. Wasn't even a forward FFS. He comes out for being stupid

Karlsson Lafferty would come out for me up front for Hoglander and Podkolzin. Mikayev to the 4th line with Pod
Blueger back with Joshua and Garland. Lindholm Hog and Pettersson on the wings. Suter needs to be better and I wouldn't have an issue putting Pod there if he's flat to get some hard forecheck for Miller Boeser

I don't think you touch the Miller line because statistically they are one of the best lines out there. Moving Lindholm with Petey is an interesting idea - Lindholm is one of our best forwards and he could get Petey going and the "Swedish Line" did have some success this season together. We all know what Joshua-Bleuger-Garland can do together so that isn't a worry. I want to see:

Suter - Miller - Boeser
Hoglander - Lindholm - Pettersson
Joshua - Blueger - Garland
Lafferty/PDG - Aman - Mikheyev

 

[AzNightmare]

Will be nice to have Soucy back - that 2nd Oilers goal was all on Juulsen trying to go for the big hit. Can't fault Silovs at all tonight - he was great.

Deja vu of Soucy going for the big hit in game 2 and giving McDavid that breakaway, which ended up being a 1 goal loss.

Margins are too tight in this series to be doing stuff like that.. ffs.

When was the last time Canucks made an open ice hit that actually benefitted the team? They still end up without the possession after the hit, and it only put themselves out of position.

 

[Angry Little Elf]

We don’t have the signature move on the PP since horvat left. He was excellent from the bumper position

 

[fergo]

I unfortunately didn't get a chance to see the first period due to having company over, but saw the rest of the game.

If there's something I can say about the Canucks, at least watching the games that I'm able to (don't get to see them all, being from the 'Peg and all, but do listen otherwise), and especially late in the season and through the playoffs...they have a tendency of getting in their own way...sometimes literally!

There's been too many times I've seen players get the puck in or near the offensive zone and have a step or two on the defender(s)...and then either circle back towards the blue line waiting for someone else to come, or do a drop pass to the Invisible Man. Rarely would they skate it in and actually shoot the damn puck. On top of that, the Canucks too often pass the puck around too much and hold on to the puck, waiting for the perfect shot opportunity to open up. Not enough snap in their passes in the offensive zone (i.e. tic-tac-toe passes) to catch the defenders off-guard. I get that they don't want to shoot the puck all willy-nilly and risk giving the puck away, but they also can't be scared every once in awhile to just fire the puck the second they receive a pass. All too often, they get the puck, wait two or three seconds, then either pass it and have another player do the same thing, or shoot it into someone's skate/stick/leg. See damn near every power play, it seems. It's very frustrating.

Thankfully, Arturs Silovs has come through and channeled his World Championship play from last season and has kept the team in this series. I think the backup job is his next season, barring him absolutely crapping the bed in training camp. Not bad for a guy who basically lost a year of development in 2020-21, barely playing that season due to the border situation due to Covid-19 and only playing one game with the Manitoba Moose (note: NOT Vancouver's AHL affiliate...he was loaned there from Utica in case he was needed in Vancouver). Hopefully he can keep up the great play!

I guess if there's any good thing I can take from this series so far is that if (heaven forbid) the Oilers move on to the Conference Finals, I don't see them getting any further than that. They're barely getting by playing against a third-string goaltender who hasn't even played half an NHL season, and a team in front of said netminder who tries (maybe) 20% of the time. I guess the supposed Stanely Cup favourites could try to outscore their problems like they've been trying to do since McJesus appeared, but it ain't going to help when your goaltenders are Stuart "Swiss Cheese" Skinner and Calvin "ignore I spent the the first two-plus years of my 30s in the AHL, and am now trying to channel Tim Thomas (no, not THAT way...hopefully)" Pickard.

I grant that the Canucks, if they move on to the next round, won't go much further themselves, but I don't think anyone realistically thought they'd make it as far as they have. Vancouver's forwards (when they actually try) are probably the team's strength. Goaltending has been pretty solid. This past offseason, they improved their defence to at least appear to be NHL-worthy for the first time in a few seasons, but they still have depth issues there. The prospect pool is a bit of a wild-card after several years of suspect drafting dating back to the early 2000s at least, outside the first round (and even IN the first round) with rare exceptions like 2004. Hopefully someone - especially on the back end - turns out to be something...but I'll worry about that in the future. I'm going to enjoy this current run, however long it lasts. It's great not having Jim Benning as GM!

 

[Green Blank Stare]

Nothing to suggest Edmonton won't win three straight and take this series. They've clearly been the better team so far and would be up 3-1 if Silovs wasn't ungodly in game three.

 

[David71]

what changes does tochett make. HE WILL NOT reunite the lotto line. stop asking for it. it hasnt worked since that roadtrip early in january. he wants balance. petey pods lindholm. blueger dak garland.

 

[WiLBoY]

Edmonton has the luxury to run mcdavid and drai if they need a goal. While our star player pettersson is just invisible. He can't drive play, he can't carry a line. He can't even generate offense vs bottom pair defensemen

 

[Icebreakers]

Time to put Blueger back with Garland and Joshua and stick Lindholm with Petey. He has to get going here. Blueger has been fine other than he can't finish.

 

[CanucksSayEh]

Drai may be a whiny b*tch, but damn if he doesn't get the job done. He embellishes for a reason, cuz he can actually score on a PP.

Guy puts up Kesler vs Nashville numbers, every series, with Kesler vs Boston injuries.

The gall that many had to try and rank EP over the him these past 2 seasons was some cringy shit.

 

[biturbo19]

This game was bullshit.

And lmao at RikTok just straight and level calling out Petey for being a f***ing passenger ass "superstar".




My main thing with that though, is that he's also given him total ass for linemates. Even pulling Hoggy and Karlsson has been kinda okayish surprisingly. But like...just get Petey going. This is an arms race series and our biggest weapon is just goofing around doing nothing with nobodies.

 

[kanucks25]

Drai may be a whiny b*tch, but damn if he doesn't get the job done. He embellishes for a reason, cuz he can actually score on a PP.

Guy puts up Kesler vs Nashville numbers, every series, with Kesler vs Boston injuries.

The gall that many had to try and rank EP over the him these past 2 seasons was some cringy shit.

Drai is a monster. Don't care really if people think he's dirty or a diver or pissy or whatever.

Dude absolutely delivers and it doesn't matter if he's on one leg or has a bad back.

 

[kanucks25]

Time to put Blueger back with Garland and Joshua and stick Lindholm with Petey. He has to get going here. Blueger has been fine other than he can't finish.

Blueger did score on that line earlier in the season but that was when everyone on the Canucks was scoring almost at will. Like Mikheyev and a few other players, I can see him not scoring for the remainder of the playoffs lol.

That said, it is time to reunite that 3rd line and have Lindholm center Petey. Lindholm has been one of our better forwards in the playoffs, much better than Petey himself, so let's see if Petey can actually deliver with a "good linemate".

 

[VanJack]

Watching the replay again on the winning goal, it's not surprising that Tocchet was still fuming when he got to the podium.

Still no explanation of how they ended up with a d-pairing of Hronek and Zadorov in the last fateful minute. It starts with Hronek being blown up along the wall by Kane. Then a weak clearance attempt along the right wall is knocked down at the line; and Miller does a complete 'fly-by'.

Simply can't make timid plays like that at any time of the game much less in the last minute. Although two of the potentially next three games are on home ice; if the Canucks don't find their 'A' game in a hurry, they'll get closed out.

Let's face it....if you look at the totality of the series, the Oilers have been better for longer stretches than the Canucks. And it was much the same in the Nashville series, except they don't have Draisaitl and McDavid.

Without Silovs being unreal and Boeser's timely scoring, they'd be staring at elimination on Thursday night. In fact it might be an elimination game anyway. Hard to see the Canucks going back to Edmonton and winning a 'do or die' sixth game.

 

[tyhee]

Soucy back for game 5, home ice.
We came back 2 goals down, unfortunate it ended that way.
Onto game 5.

Just make sure you don't work out on Thursday. We need you to save your energy for the game.

 

[thecupismine]

Watched the Tocchet interview (I usually try to wait on these things after a loss to calm myself a bit) - that's the most upset I've heard him since the Philly game.

He was holding it back pretty good as he's been doing his best to keep an even keel, but you can tell he was boiling. The number 1 thing he's brought and preached to this team since he came in halfway through last year was not to be soft on plays, pucks, etc. and that last play is eating him inside, along with the powerplay being slow and listless. You can talk about X's and O's all day, but the lack of urgency infuriated him.

I think him and Petey are both frustrated right now. Tocchet is trying to figure out how to get his star player going, but all his bottom 6 options (Garland line is #2 right now) stink. For those who want Ilya off the line, who realistically has done, well, anything better?

Petey's clearly frustrated as his play noticeably improves whenever he's put with anyone who's not just hur dur chase the puck like a puppy & puts themselves in proper positions in the offensive zone.

Lots of questions, not many answers right now. These guys are resilient though, you know they'll come out hard and play their butts off at home - I just wonder if we have the horses needed to fix the problems at hand the rest of the way (that's without touching on the clear puckmoving issue as well).

 

[VanJack]

I've followed almost every Canuck playoff series since the 80's and I don't ever recall a star player on the Canucks having a worse playoff than Pettersson.

The Sedins had a few quiet playoff seriies and so did Naslund---but nothing like this. It's not just the offense drying up, but he's becoming a huge liability in his own zone.

I'm praying that at the end of the season we find out that he's been hampered by some kind of injury. Because if not, that $11.8m extension has the potential be as bad as Huberdeau's in Calgary.

 

[AzNightmare]

Time will tell, but it's making it difficult to have confidence in Pettersson in future playoffs. Realistically, he's not going to magically flip a switch and redeem himself this season. I thought maybe at the very least, a fresh series after Nashville would be it. But nope. So there's really no reason to believe he will moving forward.

Until then, he'll still be question marks whether he's cut for playoff hockey, all the way until next year when he gets a chance to redeem himself, assuming Canucks are playoff bound again.

I guess to be fair, he has looked pretty bad since the 2nd half of the season though, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised it continued into the playoffs. At least now we know, he isn't the type to just save it for the playoffs. When he's bad, he really is just bad.

 

[VanJack]

There's an old saying that you learn a lot more about your team from playoff defeats than you do about their play in meaningless regulation season wins.

You learn quickly the players who will pay the price and you can win with, and the ones you probably can't. Right now the Canucks have nine UFA's. And if you were to base your decisions strictly on this playoff round so far, the only guys you'd sign would be Zadorov Joshua and Lindholm. As or anyone else, forget about it.

And all you hope for is that Hughes and Pettersson are learning some valuable lessons about what it takes to win in the playoffs. Appears to me they've wilted a bit under the weight of the pressure and physical play.

Fortunately Allvin and Rutherord are both smart hockey guys--who can see the same thing Tocchet and everybody else is seeing. But it just goes goes to show how tough it is for non-playoff teams like the Canucks have been for years to really figure out where they're really at.

A bunch of wins in garbage time of an NHL schedule tells you next to nothing about the roster you have. It's playoff series like this that separate the winners from the also-rans.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Back to my usual comment. There is a lot of puck luck involved in hockey. The Drai goal went in off his shoulder. Our goals were good bounces. The winning goal was a seeing eye shot from the point.

Back to Van, after a bunch of 1 goal games. every one of them could have gone either way.

But damn I hope we take them out. And very pleased with big Z.

I thought we overpaid for Hronek, he had a decent year, but not much in the post season. Bring him back if he is willing to sign for a decent amount, but FFS don't give him a payday.

 

[crazychimp]

Petey simply has to get into the war this is playoff hockey.