Was This Goal a Set Play?

Here's a basic principle for watching the Sedins: they never do anything by accident. Often times, the twins will pull off something so unthinkable that you'd be forgiven for deeming it a fluke. It never is. Rather, it's a set play from two eternal optimists--guys convinced everything they try will work. Usually it does.

With that in mind, take a look at Alex Burrows's goal from last night's season-ending matchup with the Calgary Flames. At first glance, it looks like an accident: Daniel Sedin comes out from behind the net and tries to go top corner with a shot. Instead, he misses wide and hits Alex Burrows in the gut. The puck falls in front of Burr and he taps it in. But that's not actually what you see. This was a set play, executed to perfection. Here are three items of argumentative proof:

1. Daniel Sedin's shot isn't that poor. Daniel proved at this year's All-Star Skills competition that he's one of the league's most accurate shooters. Furthermore, when he comes out from behind the net, he tends to put the puck exactly where he wants to.

Now, you'd be forgiven for assuming this is a shot, especially since it's four feet in the air, but watch the overhead angle at 0:37 of the clip: the puck goes straight across the crease. Either this is the worst miss of Daniel's career, or the puck goes where he wanted it to. On second glance, it looks like Daniel Sedin meant to put it exactly where it went--into Alex Burrows's glove.

2. The Sedins love that high pass. Each year, the twins return from the offseason with a new series of plays, and it appears they spent last summer focusing on how best to utilize all that undefended space above the ice. All season long, we've seen obscenely high saucer passes, such as on this powerplay goal versus the Stars.

We've also seen a new arsenal of full-blown football-style lob passes. This year, a common occurrence during Sedin shifts has been a high pass across one or more zones meant to be caught and dropped onto the stick of the receiver. We saw it in this goal versus the Oilers, where Alex Burrows shows he's a good student, lobbing a backhand pass over the defensive and neutral zones to spring Daniel and Henrik for a two-on-one at the offensive blue line.

We see another use of the high pass in the clip above, when Daniel gets the puck past two Calgary defenders by putting it four feet in the air.

3. There's a precedent for this play. This goal bears something of a resemblance to Marian Hossa's goal from last season, where he snags the puck out of mid-air then drops it and slaps it in, all in one fell swoop. Burrows does the same thing in this clip after Daniel's pass goes right into his glove.

Granted, Burr doesn't convert it with Hossa's fluidity, but what he lacks in grace, he makes up for in intention. Where Hossa is improvising, Burrows and Daniel are executing a planned play.

That's sort of impressive, no? Many people are talking about the Sedins' other goal on the night: a setup for Ryan Kesler that tied the game at two. That, too, was a beautiful passing play, but while you're marvelling over that one, be sure to give this one another look. It might have been prettier.

For a Coach, Mason Raymond and Mikael Samuelsson Require Completely Different Approaches

Ryan Kesler's wingers are polar opposites. It's like a sitcom on ice.

Early in Sunday's game versus the Calgary Flames, Canucks' winger Mikael Samuelsson turned the puck over in his own zone, allowing Flames' center Michael Backlund to walk in, uncontested, and score the game's first goal. It was painful. For this ill-timed and completely avoidable mistake, Samuelsson was summarily benched, and wouldn't return from fourth-line exile until much, much later in the game.

It was a kneejerk benching, albeit deserved, but it warranted an interesting observation from a few: Mason Raymond, Samuelsson's linemate, has a tendency to make similar mistakes, yet he's rarely benched in such a reactive fashion. Granted, Samuelsson's error was pretty terrible, and most certainly a valid reason to bench a guy, but the observation remains valid. Alain Vigneault does appear quicker to bench Mikael Samuelsson than Mason Raymond. Why?

Because they're very different, and one has an abundance of the selfsame confidence the other lacks.

Mason Raymond is a young prospect. He's still learning and developing both his skillset and his mental fortitude. He's open to coaching, introspective to a fault, and still emotionally shakeable. And, like a lot of young players, he has a tendency to lose confidence when things aren't going his way. In many cases, the worst thing for him is to get stapled to the benched, as he gets down on himself, and winds up holding his stick too tight and trying to overcompensate. If he gets himself stuck in a rut, it's better to let him play through his issues than to feed them. We've seen this all year. He's had a spotty season, but Alain Vigneault has exercised a lot of patience with Raymond, knowing that, often, a benching would merely exacerbate his struggles.

Mikael Samuelsson, on the other hand, is an aged veteran. He's not as teachable, and he's not nearly as emotional. He's an even-keeled player, and he's got the mental fortitude to take a benching without taking a hit to his confidence. He's also downright robotic at times, but he can drift too far down that path, often forgetting to invest emotion into his play. Thankfully, Samuelsson's got temper issues. What to do if you catch him drifting to sleep? Offend him. His reaction to a personal slight is to thumb his nose at the perpetrator, then go out to prove him wrong.

Here's Mikael Samuelsson, from an article by Brad Zeimer, on using his snub from the Swedish olympic team last year as motivation:

"It's not only a coincidence," Samuelsson said Tuesday, acknowledging for the first time that he has been motivated by the Swedish snub. "I was pissed and I'm still like, not upset, but I said what I think and I still think that. Obviously, I had something to prove, I guess. . . I want to play good hockey and I want to prove to guys that I can."

And here he is, after a benching earlier this month, from an article again by Brad Zeimer, (who apparently works nights as Samuelsson's psychologist):

"I don't want to say anything, but I got pissed off, for sure," said Samuelsson, who was dropped down to skate with Maxim Lapierre and Tanner Glass, while Jeff Tambellini was moved up to skate with Mason Raymond and Ryan Kesler on Vancouver's second line.

You'd think Samuelsson was quoting himself.

In that same article, Alain Vigneault admits that the decision to demote Samuelsson came after the Swedish forward took a couple shifts off. Effectively, Sammy was benched to wake him up, a strategy that simply wouldn't work for Mason Raymond, whose confidence would be damaged by the same tactic.

"It was a simple decision of reading your team," Vigneault explained. But it's not so simple. Ittakes a watchful eye and an attention to detail to properly decipher and manage the wide array of personalities in any dressing room, and Vigneault has these guys figured out. As a result, when benched, Mason Raymond powers down, but Mikael Samuelsson gets fired up.

A Little Motivation For Cody Hodgson

The Canucks are applying a little pressure to Hodgson, who has three games to prove his merit.

By now, you've probably heard the news that the Canucks made a minor roster adjustment this morning, sending Evan Oberg back down to the Moose and calling up Cody Hodgson in his place. For Canuck fans, it's good news all across the board, as Oberg's reassignment means that Dan Hamhuis will jump back into the lineup on Tuesday, and Cody Hodgson's second invitation means that the Canucks liked what they saw from him two weeks ago.

That said, they clearly weren't fully satisfied with Hodgson's play, or they wouldn't have reassigned him in the first place. Suffice it to say, the coaching staff wants to see more out of him, which is why Alain Vigneault applied some substantial supplementary pressure today by effectively telling Cody Hodgson, by way of the media, that he had three games to prove he should stay in Vancouver this season.

At least that's how I interpret things. After his first callup, we at PITB speculated that the Canucks weren't just bringing Hodgson up to give him a taste of the NHL, as they had done with other prospects. Additionally, we argued, Hodgson was being given a last look as the 4th line center, perhaps the Canucks' only glaring weakness:

[If] Hodgson can't play centre at this level, Mike Gillis likely needs to acquire somebody via trade. None of their fourth-line centre candidates have worked, and the team doesn't want to go into the playoffs without one. [...] If Hodgson can show he's an NHL centre, then the Canucks can stand pat.

This was, of course, pure speculation until some shockingly frank talk from Alain Vigneault this afternoon. Here's the Canucks' bench boss, via Ben Kuzma, who's been on top of this all day:

"[Cody's] another option," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault. "A natural centre and we've got a few games here before the trading deadline and another opportunity for him to get some experience to see where he is in his overall progression."

"A lot of things are up in the air," added Vigneault. "Obviously, our first three lines are pretty well set and we've tried different combinations with the fourth line and we still haven't come up with a final decision on that.

" [...] We still haven't found the elements to feel comfortable with right now."

It's not often you get such directness from a coach or general manager within the organization, especially when it comes to player personnel and potential trading, so it's impressive to hear Vigneault basically spell it out: if Hodgson can't prove he's capable of the job before the Feb. 28 deadline (3 games from now), Gillis will probably make a last-minute trade. But why would Vigneault go public with this, especially considering how prickly Canucks' management normally gets when asked about potential roster moves?

Because this wasn't for the public; it was a public challenge to Hodgson. Can he handle that? Maybe he should take a cue from Tanner Glass, who responds rather favorably to public challenges.

This is an expert piece of motivation. For Hodgson, this callup instantly becomes more than just a chance to crack an NHL roster. He's been brought up from the minors to a cup-contending team with one major hole, and asked to convince them that he's the guy to fill it. This isn't about proving he's part of the future; this is about being a part of something potentially groundbreaking right now. Hodgson knows what this team is capable of this year, and he's got three games to earn the right to be part of it. He's got three games to prove he shouldn't be chasing the Calder Cup, he should be chasing the Stanley Cup.

Wish him luck.

Did Victor Oreskovich Need to be Deprogrammed?

When considering the development of NHL players, we often overlook the influence of environment. Consider Todd Bertuzzi, who developed a penchant for selfish play and an aversion to backchecking under Marc Crawford in Vancouver, nearly falling out of the league because he's couldn't divest himself of these habits afterwards. Thankfully, Bertuzzi landed in Detroit, and has fully taken to Mike Babcock's two-way system.

Babcock's ability to get through to him shouldn't come as a surprise. It's an inevitability--everybody breaks in Detroit. Babcock's system is so transformative that former Red Wings are highly sought. Mikael Samuelsson is one such player whose time in Detroit increased his free agent value. Players that come through Jacques Lemaire's system (former Canuck Willie Mitchell) or Barry Trotz's system (Dan Hamhuis) see a similar effect.

It stands to reason, however, that if a player can develop the right habits in the right system, the wrong system can ingrain the wrong habits. One such environment appears to be that of the Florida Panthers, the team from whom the Canucks acquired Victor Oreskovich.

When the Keith Ballard trade came down, Mike Gillis insisted that Victor Oreskovich was more than just a throw-in. Word was the Canucks had high hopes for him, even skating him on a line with Daniel Sedin and Brendan Morrison in the preseason in order to gauge his skill level. The Canucks were clearly looking for a big right-winger to add some size to their bottom six, and Oreskovich seemed to have the inside track (because, you know, he was big, and, you know, he played right wing).

Instead, when training camp ended, Oreskovich was swiftly shuttled to Manitoba, where he's played 31 games for the Moose this season. Two-year Moose veteran Guillaume Desbiens won the fourth-line muscle role in his stead, and it didn't quite compute. Oreskovich had more NHL experience, better speed, and more upside. And yet the Canucks went with Desbiens. Why?

In my opinion: habits. Though Oreskovich had been a regular NHLer in Florida, the Canucks didn't trust the Panthers' development. I wonder if they simply felt it necessary to start from scratch.

Desbiens, on the other hand, might not have been as sexy, but he was already a product of the Canucks' system. The coaching staff knew that he would step into the lineup and play a proper two-way game, backchecking and forechecking with equal aplomb. After the previous year's fourth line had become a defensive liability, the Canucks weren't taking any chances with a new year's personnel and Oreskovich, despite all his upside, was still a product of the Florida Panthers' system--a system known for producing incomplete guys.

Ask the Calgary Flames about the baggage Olli Jokinen and Jay Bouwmeester brought with them from Florida. Bouwmeester, for instance, looked to be an elite NHL defender, but has struggled playing for a competitive team, and is only just now coming into his own as a top-pairing guy. Even Keith Ballard has taken longer than expected to adjust his play.

Heck, there are already rumblings that the Panthers have derailed the development of prized prospect Erik Gudbranson, and he hasn't played a game in a Panthers' uniform yet.

If the top-tier guys struggled to adapt to new environments, it seems a foregone conclusion that guys like Oreskovich would too. The previous year, he had been the worst defensive player on one of the league's worst defensive teams, a star adherent of the Florida Panthers' cult of poor defensive play.

I would argue that the Canucks knew he would require a thorough deprogramming before even being considered for the big club. Effectively, they bought low--extremely low--counting on their minor-league coaching staff to clean him up, break him of these poor defensive habits and, hopefully, produce a diamond in the rough.