Thomas Vanek, through no fault of his own, is a bit of a controversial figure to Canucks fans. The number of comments I see on Pass it to Bulis and social media suggesting that he be made a healthy scratch is rather alarming.
Yes, when he signed with the Canucks, he took a roster spot away from a younger player. Yes, Brock Boeser would probably have been in the lineup for the first two games of the season if Vanek wasn’t on the roster. But that doesn’t mean that Vanek is a terrible player, nor does it mean he should be in the press box. Making him a healthy scratch just doesn’t make sense.
Perhaps if Vanek can start tallying goals and assists, Canucks fans will accept him and we’ll start to see “Vanekouver” signs at Rogers Arena. He took a step towards acceptance with his first goal of the season on Tuesday against the Ottawa Senators.
The goal came on a nifty set play that used the defending Senators’ expectations against them. It deserves a closer look, so let’s break it down, shall we?
Let’s set the scene. The score is 1-1 in the second period. The Senators have just iced the puck, but the players haven’t been on the ice long enough for fatigue to be a factor. But it does give the Canucks an offensive zone faceoff and Travis Green sends out the Sedins, Thomas Vanek, Ben Hutton and Troy Stecher.
Henrik wins the faceoff to the side to Vanek, taking advantage of how tightly linesmen are enforcing players staying outside the hashmarks. Vanek has plenty of room to move the puck back to Stecher.
Then the Canucks do something unexpected that throws the Senators’ defensive scheme out of whack. Here’s a diagram of a pretty typical play off a faceoff.
The left defenceman, Mark Borowiecki in this case, will follow the right winger, Daniel, to the net. The right defenceman will pick up the left winger, who might be heading to the front of the net or behind the net to pick up a pass around the boards.
The right winger, Tom “Decent Eyes” Pyatt, will skate out to the left defenceman, Hutton, to take away the shooting lane in case the Canucks go D-to-D. The centre, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, will engage with the opposing centre, Henrik, and track him. And, most importantly, the left winger, Mike Hoffman, will bust between the forwards and get to the right defenceman, Stecher.
Here’s the problem for the Senators: Vanek skates back up to the point, blocking Hoffman’s path to Stecher, and leaving Hoffman completely at a loss as to who he should cover. Meanwhile, Cody Ceci just stands in front of the net doing nothing. But at least he’s facing the play, unlike the person standing along the glass.
You have great seats! Sit down and enjoy the game!
In any case, eventually Borowiecki figures out that Stecher is moving down the boards and leaves Daniel to chase him down. That gives Daniel a free path to the front of the net to set a screen and there’s no way that Borowiecki can get to Stecher in time to do anything useful.
Meanwhile, Henrik continues shoving Pageau into the eventual shooting lane, in what might be seen as interference if it wasn’t directly off a faceoff.
Hoffman, aka. The Hoff, ends up in no man’s land looking for freedom: he’s checking neither Stecher nor Vanek, nor is he taking away a passing lane or shooting lane. It’s just all-around bad news for The Hoff, like finding out that Germany has moved on to idolizing Ashton Kutcher.
Meanwhile, that person with their back to the play along the glass looks like she might actually be Rogers Arena staff. So never mind.
Vanek gets the pass from Stecher and has all kinds of time to load up his shot, and the movement of the Sedins off the set play has created two layers of screens for Craig Anderson to look through.
Look at this. This is a goaltender’s worst nightmare. Daniel is in great position for a screen, Cody Ceci is just making things worse, and Henrik has pushed Pageau into Anderson’s view as well. It doesn’t help Anderson that he tries to look around the left side of Daniel, perhaps anticipating a return pass to Stecher, opening up his entire blocker side.
There’s simply no way that he can see the puck and Vanek has, pretty much literally, half the net to shoot at.
He doesn’t even need that much, however, as he places the puck just inside the far post, high enough that even if Anderson had been in a better position, it would have gone over his pad.
I adore Pageau’s attempted kick-save here, as it is adorable. It’s probably the only chance the Senators had to stop this goal, but it’s worth noting that he leaves Henrik completely alone in his attempt to block the puck, so he would be in trouble on a rebound.
But a rebound never comes, because, like Elvis Costello, Vanek’s aim is true.
Let’s recap that set play movement off the faceoff with a shoddy gif!
And that’s how one simple change to a typical faceoff setup — the left-side winger dropping back to the point instead of going to the net or elsewhere — led to a bamboozled Senators’ defence and Vanek’s first goal as a Canuck.
