Behind enemy lines: Vancouver Canucks plan to “win muddy” against the Edmonton Oilers

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This in from former NHLer Ray Ferraro, one of hockey’s most astute announcers and a long-time B.C. resident, his belief that the Vancouver Canucks can find a way to beat the Edmonton Oilers: “In 1993 nobody would have ever picked the Islanders (Ferraro’s then NHL team) over the two time Stanley Cup Champion Penguins. We said eff that. We beat them in seven games. Of course I want the Canucks to win, and of course there is a path to that.”

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What does that path look like?

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By winning muddy. By mucking, gunking and greasy grinding out each shift.

By clogging up Edmonton’s blitzkrieg of an attack in the muddy quagmire of fast moving Vancouver bodies, shoulders, arms, elbows and sticks. The Canucks will try — just as the Los Angeles Kings tried in Round One — to check the Oilers into submission. But they will do more than that.

I’ve been listening to Canucks sports talk radio for the past few days and by far the best analysis of what the Canucks have to do if they hope to win comes from Thomas Drance of Sportsnet’s  Canucks Talk radio show.

Drance is a numbers guy and a realist. He knows that the Oilers have about a 70 per cent of winning the series. He’s not giddily predicting a Vancouver upset. But like Ferraro he can see a possible path for a Vancouver series win.

How so? The Canucks will place far more emphasis than Los Angeles on holding the puck in the Oiler end, not necessarily or only as a tactic to score, but as a tactic to control the game.

The Canucks’ defensive play, Drance said, starts in the offensive zone.

“A big reason why the Canucks are so good defensively is the amount of (offensive) zone time they generate. The amount of time they just hold the puck. They just grind you down. And they grind clock. And especially when they have the lead it gets super frustrating and then you get tired and then they’re peppering you with shots through layered traffic and they have fresher bodies than you and they are more likely than you to pounce on the loose puck. It just sort of snowballs. That is how the Canucks are trying to play.”

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Drance’s main concern? That the Canucks are essentially a one-line team when it comes to scoring at even strength, with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser leading the way. But if the Miller line is up against the McDavid line and forced into a more defensive posture, goals could be hard to come by for Vancouver. “This Canucks team is going to need to generate more… If Miller has to duel McDavid, do you get an offence? Do you get enough offence given how much energy is going to have to be expended not getting torched by the best hockey playing human on the planet from your own line that is reliably scoring right now. That, to me, is sort of it.”

Drance then drew a circle back to o-zone tactics. “I think this all dovetails. It’s all sort of the same cocktail. If the Canucks can generate zone time, and if they can make the right decisions, can they muddy this game up? And they don’t have to muddy up the whole series. They don’t have to shut down the Oilers. They have to muddy it up for like three or four games .Three or four games. And if they can turn three or four games into a one-shot game, then that… 30 per cent probability of advancing, then that script is in play.”

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My take

1. First off, I appreciate astute analysis of hockey tactics and that’s what Drance has given us here: a window into how the Canucks succeed. It’s a similar style that the Los Angeles King employed. It led to a slow-it-down, bumper cars of a series against Nashville. But for teams like Vancouver and Los Angeles without the pure talent of the Edmonton Oilers or the Colorado Avalanche, yet with the mission statement of beating those two teams, it’s a smart, effective way to play. It gives these teams hope, at least if all their players are committed to this style of play, if they have enough offensive punch to opportunistically score, and if they get superior goaltending to Edmonton or Colorado, not to mention the odd bounce and favourable call from the referees.

Not every team can have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl or Nate MacKinnon and Cale Makar. But a team can have some great attackers and a fanatical commitment to systems play, and such a team can beat top offensive squads. That’s how Vegas got by the Oilers last year, after all.

2. The Canucks did exactly what the Toronto Maple Leafs needed to more of this past season, adding major size and ferocity to the roster. Van added three large and tough customers on defence in Nikita Zadorov, Ian Cole and Caron Soucy. They gave big, fierce winger Dakota Joshua a bigger role upfront. They shed smaller finesses players like Anthony Beauvillier and Andrei Kuzmenko. They’re not going to be pushed out of this series. They will do plenty of  pushing.

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3. How  can the Oilers respond to this muddy Vancouver style? First, Edmonton’s d-men and forwards must play a disciplined, structured game, always making sure to have at least one d-man and one forward in front of the net to calm things when Vancouver invariably aims an outside shot on goal.

Edmonton’s zone system will be tested. At the same time, when there’s a chance to break the Vancouver cycle, Edmonton’s own big d-men and aggressive forwards must do so and then counterattack with lightning speed, not giving Vancouver a chance to get back and form a defensive wall.

Edmonton has the speed to take advantage if Vancouver gets too aggressive on the o-zone cycle, if Van gets three forwards or the odd d-man in too deep. On the counterattack, Edmonton can pounce and score. Those chances will come but Edmonton has to hold its own defensive line in front of Stuart Skinner until such opportunities materialize.

At the same time, Edmonton can’t try to force things up-ice on the Oiler cycle. The Oilers should essentially mimic Vancouver’s style at even strength but beat them at their own game.

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Remember when Corey Perry ripped into Evander Kane on the bench recently? That incident, reportedly, was because Kane was impatient on the cycle. He made a hope pass into the slot instead of cycling it back behind the net to Perry. Kane made an impatient play, not a winning one.

To win, the Oilers will have to demonstrate the same kind of patience they did in breaking down Los Angeles.  In this way, the L.A. series was a good prep for Vancouver, in that they now face a similar nut to crack.

I’m not sure the same can be said of the Canucks. Edmonton is a different nut to crack than Nashville, which is why the Oilers are widely seen to have a sizeable edge in this series.

But all talk of underdogs and odds, edges and plans is meaningless just now. The words will all soon be forgotten, replaced by indelible images in our minds of what is to happen in the games to come.

I greatly look forward to this series. You?

P.S. The Oilers have 14 out of 20 players born in Canada. The Canucks have 2 out of 20 (with Tyler Myers also a naturalized Canadian). Fascinating.

Does the legendary will-to-win of Canadian players become a factor in this series? Or is that just a legend?

I’ll tell you what I think. Our will to win is real. Yes, other hockey players from other countries have it as well. They are fierce about winning too.

But it defines us.

By the Faithful or for the Faithful.

We are the Cult of Hockey.

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At the Cult of Hockey

Staples: When will Kane and Henrique be back and in what condition? 

STAPLES: 94% of NHL analysts, including doubting P.K. Subban, pick

McCURDY: This guy might well be most under-rated part of the Oilers machine

STAPLES: Evander Kane steps up as Edmonton’s top ambassador, raves about Oilers fans

LEAVINS: 9 Things

STAPLES: The Edmonton Oilers call up a small army from Bakersfield

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