If you were to make a list of players the Canucks could not afford to lose this season, right at the top would be Chris Tanev.
In fact, here’s a sneak peek at the headline of tomorrow’s Pass it to Bulis column in the print edition of the Vancouver Courier: “Canucks can’t live without Chris Tanev.”
Those articles are written to a deadline earlier in the week, so it and the headline were written before Thursday’s announcement that Chris Tanev was heading home from the road trip with an upper-body injury. He will apparently miss the rest of the games on the road trip, which means he’ll be out for at least a week.
The announcement comes as a surprise, as Tanev flew with the Canucks to California. We know he was with them because the Canucks Twitter account posted this photo of him and several teammates hanging out.
Tanev’s Stormtrooper socks are amazing, even if they invite snide remarks about his shot. But there’s no time for that now: it’s panic time, as Tanev is out of the lineup for at least three games.
The article coming out tomorrow is specifically about his impact on Ben Hutton, but Tanev significantly improves everyone he plays with, whether it’s his defence partner or the forward lines lucky enough to be on the ice with him. Tanev plays the toughest minutes against the best competition the opposition has to offer and shuts them down; without Tanev, someone else will have to play those minutes.
There is some good news: Alex Edler has sufficiently recovered from his knee injury to get back in the lineup. Tanev’s injury temporarily solves the issue of who needs to come out, but it also means someone will need to play on their off-side.
It feels like Homer Simpson buying the cursed Krusty the Klown doll:
“Alex Edler is back from injury!”
“That’s good!”
“He comes with a terrible curse: Chris Tanev is now hurt!”
“That’s bad.”
“But Edler comes with a free frogurt!”
“That’s good!”
“The frogurt is also cursed.”
“That’s bad.”
Can the Canucks keep winning without Tanev? They’ll be hardpressed to do so. Losing Tanev means not just losing one defenceman, but losing an entire defensive pair, as Hutton is unlikely to play to the same level without him. That’s nothing against Hutton, who I still believe is the Canucks’ most underrated defenceman, but he won’t be able to match his top pairing, shutdown play without Tanev.
That’s not to say it’s impossible. The Canucks’ commitment to team defence has been admirable under new head coach Travis Green and, while Tanev is one of the most important elements of that team defence, the system seems good enough for the team to weather the storm, if only for a little while.
Here’s the thing: Tanev misses games every year. He takes a lot of hits on the forecheck and blocks a lot of shots, so injuries are almost inevitable. The Canucks always look a little worse without Tanev.
During the 2016-17 season, Tanev missed 29 games. The Canucks weren’t great all season, but they were significantly worse without Tanev: they went 22-24-7 with Tanev in the lineup and 8-19-2 when he was out of the lineup.
That’s a points percentage of 48.1% with Tanev in the lineup, 31.0% without.
At this point, the Canucks have to really hope that this is a minor injury and that Tanev will be back in the lineup very, very soon.
