Let's spend Christmas Eve looking at some of the Canucks' numbers through the first 39 games—comparing them to other teams in the league and to recent past seasons.
At the Christmas break, the Vancouver Canucks are eighth in the NHL with 50 points, but still fourth in the Pacific Division and sixth in the Western Conference. If the playoffs started tomorrow (and we ignore Vancouver's games-in-hand), the Canucks would be the first wild-card team, which would match them up against—yep—Chicago. The Blackhawks are now one point behind Anaheim, so the Ducks would player the lower-seeded wild card team—as of this moment, Phoenix.
The other Western Conference matchups would see St. Louis take on Colorado, while the Kings and Sharks go to war. Leading rookie Tomas Hertl is having knee surgery and is out for at least a month after a knee-on-knee collision with Dustin Brown last week—another incident that will fuel the rivalry between these two teams.
Still offensively challenged at times, Vancouver sits 14th in the league in goals-per game, at 2.63. The Canucks are better on the defensive side: 2.28 goals-against per game ranks them fifth overall.
Last year, Vancouver was 19th in the NHL at 2.54 goals per game and 10th at 2.40 goals-against, so the team has improved on both sides of the ledger.
It looks like Torts has managed to implement a pretty tight system without sucking all the excitement out of Vancouver's game.
What about blocked shots? The Canucks are 11th, with 276 so far. Last year, they were 28th, with 292 through the entire 48-game schedule, while the Rangers were second with 400.
The Canucks are also stronger in the faceoff circle this year. Last season, they dropped all the way to 25th with a 47.6 percent success rate; now, they're up to 14th at 51.1 percent. During their first Presidents' Trophy season in 2010-11 the Canucks led the league, winning 54.9 percent of their draws.
Remember how many games the Canucks seemed to lose due to bad penalties last season? They were the seventh-most penalized team in the league, with an average of 12.6 minutes a game. This year, Vancouver is still in the bottom half of the pack, but has moved up to 13th-most penalized at 11.5 minutes a game. The improvement is magnified by this year's terrific penalty kill. The Canucks still sit at No. 1 with an 89.3 percent success rate, where last year they were eighth at 84 percent.
Vancouver gave up 27 power play goals in 48 games last season; this year, they've surrendered just 13 in 39 games. That's impressive!
In their great 2010-11 season, the Canucks ended up third on the PK, giving up 45 goals on 312 power plays for an 85.6 percent kill rate. This year's team will blow that number out of the water if it can stay on pace through the second half of the year.
Of course, the power play remains the opposite side of that coin. In 2010-11, it led the league with 72 goals on 296 opportunities for a 24.3 percent success rate. By last season, the power play had dropped to 22nd, scoring just 26 goals at a 15.8 percent conversion rate. After a terrible start, this season's PP has now reached 24th spot, with 19 goals and a 15.3 percent success rate. The power play has been trending in a more positive direction a the season has gone on; hopefully it's an area where the team can continue to improve in the second half.
Game 39 last year saw Ryan Kesler return to the lineup after missing 20 games with a foot injury, then lead the Canucks to a 2-0 win over the Phoenix Coyotes. Cory Schneider recorded the shutout. Interestingly, at that point in the season the Canucks had gone 9-2 over their previous 11 games—pretty similar to this year's 9-1-1 stretch. The win over Phoenix gave the Canucks a 22-11-6 record—for 50 points. That's exactly where they are now, except last year those points were enough to give them a four-point cushion at the top of the old Northwest Division.
What do you think about this year's results so far?
I'll take a look at some Canucks' individual performances as the week progresses.
Have a terrific Christmas Eve!