Some notes on the season

Crossposted at HFBoards.

Some notes on the season:

• Bottom two finish. Many predicted a bottom five finish, with a few predicting a complete bottoming out, entirely. Canucks probably won't improve much for next season, either. It could well become even worse, long before it ever becomes better.
• Horvat's becoming the team's most important player, moving forward. The Canucks can definitely build the team around him.
• Canucks management needs to re-evaluate its work and strategy. If they are incapable of doing this, then ownership needs to re-evaluate management.
• Coaching also needs re-evaluation. Good coaching won't improve the team much in the standings, but with better structure, and clearer roles for the players, there could be improvement in the players, individually.

Some Stats:

• Edler: 21 Pts, 24:21 ATOI, 1216 CF, 1260 CA, 53.70 CF60, 55.95 CA60, 1.4 CFRelTM. He isn't a franchise defenceman, but he is a solid player, who can play in any situation. Two years left on his current contract.
• Horvat: 51 Pts, 18:03 ATOI, 1016 CF, 1087 CA, 51:34 CF60, 56.83 CA60, 1.6 CFRelTM. A solid stat line. It's improved since the previous season, also.
• H. Sedin: 50 Pts, 19:06 ATOI, 1129 CF, 1108 CA, 50.13 CF60, 51.75 CA60, 5.9 CFRelTM (!). It's solid, but not spectacular. Obviously, there's a decline from the previous season, but the CFRelTM suggests he was much better than his teammates on the ice. With better team structure, and better players on the ice, he could have a bounce back season, next year. Just don't expect spectacular, though.
• D. Sedin: 43 Pts, 18:26 ATOI, 1110 CF, 1082 CA, 50.97 CF60, 53.17 CA60, 3.6 CFRelTM. As with Henrik, that CFRelTM suggests he was much better than his teammates than he played with on the ice. I rather hope the next Canucks coach doesn't saddle Hank and Dank with anchors, next season, and puts them into better situations on the ice.
• Baertschi: 35 Pts, 15:53 ATOI, 774 CF, 898 CA, 49.22 CF60, 57.51 CA60, -1.8 CFRelTM. This... is probably what Baertschi is, at this point in his career. He'll probably hover around this level, coming forward. Which is okay, but if the Canucks have the opportunity to improve upon him, coming forward, then they should do so, first chance.
• Granlund: 32 Pts, 17:19 ATOI, 886 CF, 848 CA, 53.02 CF60, 52.04 CA60, 3.6 CFRelTM. This is probably what Granlund is, at this point in his career. He might improve, if that 3.6 CFRelTM, is any indication, but looking deeper into the stats, Brandon Sutter can make any NHL-level player look decent (and that's not a compliment for Sutter, either). Also of note is the TOI with Eriksson, where Granlund sports a nice 57.64 CF60, but when apart from him, it severely declines to 50.32 CF60. That's a notable dropoff, and relatively concerning (whereas Eriksson's dropoff remains somewhat close).
• Tanev: 10 Pts, 20:21 ATOI, 677 CF, 753 CA, 46.23 CF60, 50.33 CA60, 0.3 CFRelTM. An injury-riddled year for Tanev. Having to babysit Sbisa all season long didn't do much for his health, either, as Tanev had to do the majority of the work on that pairing, and thus was the target of the opponents' attack, all season long (which probably explains why he was so injury-plagued).
• Eriksson: 24 Pts, 18:41 ATOI, 890 CF, 871 CA, 55.01 CF60, 53.54 CA60, 3.6 CFRelTM. A snakebitten year for Eriksson. There's also his 3.6 CFRelTM to think about, too. The players Eriksson played with for any notable amount of time all improved while he was on the ice (and declined away from him). However, he didn't spend enough time with these players, suggesting the coach staff didn't know what to do with Eriksson. He may bounce back, next season, but probably not, again, spectacularly.

Alarming stats:
1535 TOI for Sbisa. 18:57 ATOI.
1506 TOI for Sutter. 18:49 ATOI.
One doesn't need to look very hard to determine a reason for the Canucks' scoring woes, this season. Both are offensive black holes, who ruin scoring chances with their ineptitude on the offensive end.
Sutter makes himself look good with his speed on the rush, but that's all he is. He can't do anything other than that. I'd honestly have both Granlund and Gaunce taking minutes away from him at center ice, he's just that bad.
And Sbisa's simply awful. The coaching staff had no other choice (other then, you know, the obvious choice of having Sbisa sitting in the pressbox where he couldn't do the Canucks any harm, whatsoever) but to pair him with Tanev, this season, and that's probably the main reason Tanev was out all season long. Having to drag this boat anchor all over the ice tired him out, and made him susceptible to injury.

Final note: there's a great deal wrong with this roster that one off-season won't fix. There's really only perhaps a dozen NHL-level players on the team, and only handful of Canucks players who'd play the same roles they currently have on other teams. It's a badly constructed team. Of course, they could catch fire, and make the playoffs, but that's probably not going to happen. Expect another bottom five finish out of this group, and hope to see changes in how the front office approaches team building (or a new front office).