In Willie Desjardins' debut season as coach of the Vancouver Canucks in 2014-15, his team ranked eighth on offense with 236 goals for and 19th on defense with 220 goals against, good for 101 points and ninth place overall in the NHL.
All those good vibes were quickly extinguished during two weeks in April, when the team was embarrassingly outmatched by the underdog Calgary Flames in the first round of the playoffs.
The swoon continued last season, when Vancouver dropped to 28th place overall with just 75 points. They were 29th offensively, ahead only of the New Jersey Devils, with 186 goals scored, and 23rd defensively, with 239 goals allowed.
Those numbers would indicate that the lack of scoring was a bigger problem for the team than the porous defense. Losing 50 goals over the course of the season is a massive drop.
The biggest culprit for that drop-off, of course, was Radim Vrbata, who went from 31 goals in his first year in Vancouver to just 13 goals last season. Step one in a bounce-back season for the Canucks in 2016-17 will be for Vrbata's replacement, Loui Eriksson, to realize his full potential and chip in something in that 30-goal range.
On balance, the twins came out about even. Daniel Sedin actually increased his production from 20 goals in 2014-15 to 28 goals last season, but Henrik balanced that out by dropping from 18 to 11. Net differential for the twins: plus-one.
I feel like it has taken Daniel a few years to get back to his best self after he took that elbow to the head from Duncan Keith way back in March of 2012. His scoring and the number of shots that he's willing to take have been gradually going back up every season after he slumped a bit in the aftermath of that hit.
But I'm a little worried about Henrik. The long-time Ironman was able to keep himself healthy in 2014-15 and accumulate 73 points, but that was sandwiched between two seasons when he was missing games and playing hurt—dealing with more physical issues that he ever lets on.
I hope the long summer has given the captain a chance to rest up so that he'll be able to deliver another bounce-back performance with a fully-functioning Daniel and the effective Eriksson.
Where'd the other 33 goals disappear to?
Well, Nick Bonino scored 15 in his year in Vancouver; his replacement Brandon Sutter managed only 5. But you could also count Jared McCann's nine goals in this total, since was the center who got the extra ice time due to Sutter's injury.
Bo Horvat got more ice and responsibility too, of course, but a lot of that was defensive. He went from 13 goals in his rookie season to 16 last season—not a huge jump when you consider that he was averaging about five minutes more ice time per game. Hopefully Sutter's return to the lineup and the late-season chemistry that Horvat found with Sven Baertschi will translate into a more productive season for Bo.
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Baertschi, of course, was an upgrade on the left side. Though it took him awhile to get going, his 15 goals basically replaced the 12 goals that Chris Higgins contributed in 2014-15; Higgins managed just three goals before being banished to the AHL last season.
Jannik Hansen was a bright spot, jumping from 16 goals to a career-best 22, but Alex Burrows dropped from 18 goals to just nine; Yannick Weber's 11 goals vanished into the ether, and Linden Vey and Zack Kassian both potted 10 goals apiece in 2014-15. Vey had four goals last year and Kassian's replacement, Brandon Prust, had just one, so that's a net loss of 15 goals.
Shawn Matthias' 18 goals were also missed. Matthias played mostly on the wing in Vancouver, so you could say that his ice time was claimed by Jake Virtanen (seven goals) and Emerson Etem (seven goals) as well as the revolving door of injury replacements that came up from Utica during the season—Gaunce, Zalewski, Shinkaruk, Friesen, Grenier and Kenins.
Right now, the Canucks have 14 forwards signed if you count Anton Rodin, and only Jake Virtanen is eligible to be sent to the minors without clearing waivers. If Jim Benning does sign another scoring forward without trading one of his current players, that'll make for some crowding up front. But Rodin and Eriksson are the only new blood in the mix at the moment. Will we see enough offense generated by the familiar faces to get the Canucks back to at least middle-of-the-pack production—say 220 goals—in 2016-17?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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