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Canucks’ Kevin Bieska: From the Most Tradable to Number Two Spot

Posted on October 7th, 2010 by Nucks IceMan

Written by: Larry “The Nucks IceMan” Johnson

Interesting how quickly a hockey player’s fortunes changes. From a Vancouver Canuck defense that had D-man, Kevin Bieksa as the hot topic of trade, with yes yours truly, looking at the roster and figuring that his $3.5 million tradable contract would be the one to go, to now top spot.

As we all know it was not Bieksa that was shuffled off, but Shane O’Brien that was deemed expendable, along with his $1.6 million contract.

From the comments by Coach Alain Vigneault (and I paraphrase here), Bieksa came to camp in top form and has earned his way to not the second or third pairing, no he is being united with Dan Hamhuis as the number ONE pair. Vigneault went on to say that when Bieksa plays within his abilities he is a very effective  D-man.

Now Bieksa has gone through a couple of injury plagued seasons with terrible lacerations to his legs which can account for the number of games missed, but last season having played 55 games he led the defense in +/- with a minus five.

Let’s not forget that he has played on either the first or second power play unit as the right side point shot, his natural position. In fact, since the 2006/07 season where he was a +/- plus one, those stats read in successive years, -11, -4 and of course the -5 previously stated.

If you take the power play time into consideration then you must also take the penalty kill as well, and then it begs the question, was it the fact that the penalty kill was so bad or Bieksa’s play when five-on-five?

Taking a look from the 2006/2007 season to the last, the Canucks penalty kill NHL rankings were 18th, 16th, 14th and 1st.

To further interpret this, his point totals have to be added into this equation.

Since 2006/07 they read as follows: 42pts – top D-man and sixth in team scoring; 12pts – 11th in team scoring, 5th out of 11 D-men that played (Bieksa only played in 34 games); 43pts – 6th in team scoring and top D-man; and 22pts – 11th in team scoring, 4th out of 10 D-men that played, once again Bieksa only played in 55 games.

So, if you have watched Bieksa play through those years mentioned above and study the stats, then you would have to say that even healthy, leading the D-men in points or near the top, his defensive play has been a liability or else his +/- would at least be a wash (0).

In comparison with a couple of other D-men that played in the 2008/09 season, when Bieksa was the top point producer among D-men, Alex Edler was a +/- plus 11, Mattias Ohlund plus 14 and Willie Mitchell (no power play time) plus 25. 

The whole point of this exercise has to do with the current number one pairing on the defense. How could several exhibition games, when most teams are playing rookies, prospects and bubble type players, change the opinion of management that Bieksa had suddenly blossomed into this shutdown type of player?

If you have followed this Canucks team since Alain Vigneault became coach, you will notice that he is very loyal to a number of players that were with him in Manitoba. Call them what you want, perhaps favourites, but Rick Rypien and Bieksa lead the pack in that department.

Canucks Shane O'Brien with Sharks Jamie McGinn

Shane O’Brien was not far from the truth when he said that Vigneault had his favourites and why O’Brien felt he didn’t get a fair shake on defense. Many times over the last two seasons, O’Brien in fact did outplay Bieksa but that still didn’t warrant a promotion from the number seven or eight position on the depth chart.

No, for O’Brien that really didn’t take place until the injury to Bieksa last season.

In conclusion, either the ‘Nucks management has over rated their current defensive core, even with the additions during the off season, or Kevin Bieksa is better than the other five defensively and the expectation is that Bieksa will reproduce his first season play of 2006/07.

The Canucks had better hope that the latter comes to fruition because right now they have only seven NHL D-men on their roster and they are only one injury away from a problem, just like the last few seasons.

As always you can find me at http://twitter.com/nucksiceman and on alternate days at the Vancouver Sun at http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blogs/iceman/archive/2010/10/06/the-top-place-finishers-in-the-western-conference.aspx

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