Now that the Canucks have finally relieved Bruce Boudreau of his head coaching duties to make the way for Rick Tocchet, our focus can shift back to the on-ice product in Vancouver.
Eventually the Canucks are going to start playing hockey games again, and looking at how they used to play and what changes we can expect from the on-ice product has value.
Typical of this organization, establishing a baseline is difficult. Usually, I can make heads or tails of a team’s system in about a period. The analysis doesn’t stop there, but you can glean enough from those 20 minutes – the forechecking patterns, defensive formations, and breakouts – to grasp a team’s guiding principles. It helps that the league is incredibly structured and the strategic patterns are similar from team to team.
Watching the
