Daniel and Henrik Sedin are currently sixth and seventh among Canucks forwards in ice time. The two future Hall-of-Famers are averaging just over 15 minutes in ice time per game.
Remove special teams from the equation and the numbers become even more stark: the Sedins are 8th and 10th in even-strength ice time per game among Canucks forwards. Just three Canucks forwards have averaged less even-strength ice time than Daniel: Thomas Vanek, Jake Virtanen, and Loui Eriksson.
If you are looking for the Canucks to finally transition away from the Sedins on the first line, you’re witnessing it right now. This is the lowest average ice time for the Sedins in over a decade. You have to go back to before the 2004-05 lockout to find a season when they were on the ice less. In 2003-04, Daniel and Henrik averaged 13:32 and 14:02 per game.
What’s astonishing is that this hasn’t become a major topic of conversation in the Canucks market. The Sedins’ average ice time has dropped by nearly 4 minutes from last season and no one seems to have noticed.
Perhaps the reason for that is that no one has replaced the Sedins as the number one line. The Sedins averaged 15+ minutes per game at even-strength last season; this season, the closest to that number is Markus Granlund, and he’s mainly been playing in a shutdown role.
On many nights, the shutdown line has been the one playing the most minutes. On opening night, Travis Green hard-matched the line of Granlund, Brandon Sutter, and Derek Dorsett against the Connor McDavid line. Given how much McDavid plays, it shouldn't come as a surprise that those three forwards led the Canucks in 5-on-5 ice time.
It happened again against the Senators in the second game — Derek Dorsett led the Canucks in 5-on-5 ice time — and again on Tuesday against the Senators, when Sutter and Granlund were among the team leaders as the Canucks defended their lead. It hasn’t been the pattern in games where the Canucks are down by a goal or two.
Travis Green doesn’t seem at all concerned about giving his checking line players so much ice time, potentially eating into the minutes of more offensively-capable players.
“That’s going to happen when another team has a bona fide number one line that’s very, very dangerous,” he said. “I think it would be foolish to just not look at that.”
“I think our offensive guys get between 14 and 17 minutes,” he added. “I think we’ve been honest… we’re not sitting here saying we have a number one line that is going to play 18-20 minutes every night. Edmonton has that kind of line, lots of teams have that kind of situation.”
The Canucks don’t.
Heading into the season, Canucks fans and media alike were looking to younger forwards like Bo Horvat, Sven Baertschi, and Brock Boeser to form a first line. It was time, it seemed for the torch to be passed from the Sedins to the new young core.
This season, the torch has been passed, but Green has intercepted it and isn’t quite ready to hand it over.
Markus Granlund, Bo Horvat, and Sven Baertschi do lead the Canucks in average ice time, but Horvat has been critiqued by Green for his “average” play and was bumped from the power play and split from Baertschi on Tuesday. Granlund has played most of his team-high minutes on a checking line. And Baertschi has just two assists in five games this season.
The Sedins, meanwhile, are embracing their lesser role at even-strength and revelling in the sheltered ice time they’ve received. With Daniel and Henrik on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks have doubled their opponents in shots, 35-to-15. The goals haven’t followed just yet and they’ve been criticized for being invisible because of it, but they have created legitimate scoring chances in their more limited ice time.
Five games into the season, Daniel and Henrik are leading the Canucks in corsi percentage, at 60.76% and 58.62%, respectively. Even if they are not scoring at a first-line rate, that kind of puck possession is valuable from a line playing second or third-line minutes.
Now, the question is if the Canucks can cobble together enough goals from their non-number-one lines to make up for what they’ve lost from the Sedins.
