Cam Charron's Hockey Stats

Well, if nothing else, we have… oh, wait, we took that out.

*heavy sigh*

This is a tough team to write about, and while I sympathize with the media members that join the team on the road or have filing deadlines and such, I feel like these Canucks have put me in a special rung of hell. Or, at least I was voluntarily put there, as I decided before the season began to track every zone entry, zone exit, defensive zone touch, and shot for the Vancouver Canucks and their opponents this season.

There have been some good games and some good moments, mostly provided by the fantastic commentary team of John Shorthouse and John Garrett, who have managed to somehow keep a smile on my face despite the mess of the team and the mess of the application in front of me. It was never my intention to sink into despair. I just want to watch hockey, and type about what I see. I didn’t mean this project to turn into a form of existential crisis, and the finish line of this season is in sight. I have some fantastic data with which to break down the Canucks and pick out exactly where their many weaknesses lie.

The Canucks weren’t even bad in Detroit Saturday morning. In fact, they out-chanced the Red Wings by a 2-to-1 ratio at 5v5. A bad start, a bad penalty kill, and some bad finishing (or some great goaltending from Ville Husso, depending how you look at it) made all the difference.

However… some of that was likely induced by score effects. It’s tough to get a good handle on a game when one team led for 58 minutes and 52 seconds. I’m not entirely sure how much to read into Saturday’s game as it relates to Monday’s. That’s not a very good sell to get new subscribers, but my goal here has always been to analyze the game as I see it, and not necessarily to sell as many subscriptions as I can.