While it would be nice to wax on about Zack Kassian and Bo Horvat (such fun topics) for a second time, we must move on to a couple of fellows who are bound to be as important down the stretch. As per the last blog, Thomas Drance will play the nerd role, while I protect the sanctity of the mainstream media types by purely judging by what my eyes tell me.



EDDIE LACK

Drance: You don’t need numbers of any sort to know that since Ryan Miller went down with a knee injury two-and-a-half weeks ago, Eddie Lack has been the Vancouver Canucks’ best player. Lack has been season-saving good.

More often than not, he’s been dominant.

Since Miller went down with his injury, Lack has managed a sparkling .922 save percentage at 5-on-5. He’s been dominant in all situations too – bolstering a penalty kill that, thanks to the loss of key contributors such as Chris Tanev, Alex Edler and Brad Richardson, has become exceedingly permissive – with a .934 overall save percentage. That’s the ninth-best save percentage in the NHL since February 21, 2015 – the day before Miller got hurt against the New York Islanders.



Since Miller went down, essentially, Lack has been a top-10 NHL puck stopper.



There’s been some good fortune involved – a lot of posts, and a timely back sweep of the blocker on Sunday night. Still, you could make the case that he’s been even better than the numbers would suggest, given the degree of difficulty that he’s been forced to contend with.



The Canucks are beginning to get some bodies back on the blueline, but for much of the past month the club has iced a patchwork defensive group. Unsurprisingly, the Canucks’ underlying defensive results have cratered.



In all situations, the Canucks have been surrendering 32.8 scoring chances against (according to the shot location data found at war-on-ice.com) per game since that fateful contest on Long Island. Only three teams in hockey are surrendering scoring chances at a higher rate over the past two-and-a-half weeks: the Calgary Flames, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Edmonton Oilers. That’s not good company.



Lack has carried the Canucks through it though, to his credit.



Murphy: When Eddie Lack took over as Vancouver’s No. 1 goalie following the Roberto Luongo trade last season, John Tortorella rode the friendly Swede into the ground. Lack started 20 consecutive games and the only thing that plummeted faster than his confidence was his save percentage. By the end of that run Lack was physically and mentally beaten and many wondered (perhaps unfairly considering the toxic state of the Canucks last spring) if he had what it took to carry the load.

Don’t look now, but due to Miller’s injury on Long Island, Lack has appeared in nine consecutive games (it will be 10 when he starts versus LA on Thursday) for the Canucks and his past three outings have been the strongest of the bunch. If not for Lack the Canucks wouldn’t have gotten a single point in Arizona and would have been lucky to get a point versus the Sharks and Ducks. Yes, I know Lack was lucky at times in those final two games.





But he was also brilliant and by far Vancouver’s best player on the ice in both.





I’m not going to declare Lack is a better goaltender than Miller at this point. Miller’s experience and voice could do wonders for the Canucks room at this critical point of the season. Now, before you start rolling your eyes at that unquantifiable stuff, keep this in mind.

Alex Burrows said the other day that when the Canucks had that stretch with all those regulars out of the line-up the room was quite quiet. Usually between periods it’s Kevin Bieksa or Brad Richardson speaking up when something needs to be said. When I asked who else might offer up something the room would listen to, Burrows was quick to cite Miller (Roberto Luongo and Ryan Kesler were in that group but of course they are gone). It’s not that guys won’t listen to other Canucks, but some players are quiet in nature while some of the younger players may not feel it is their time to do so yet.

That aside, I do believe Lack when he says he’s in a much better position to succeed this season. He’s mentally tougher, technically better, and physically stronger than he was at this point last season. And I don’t think you can overlook his attitude either. He has a strong enough personality to play in Vancouver.

I don’t think I need to remind anyone this is a market that has incredible love/hate relationships with its goalies. All signs (so far) point to Lack being able to handle it. I think the most important advice Luongo and Cory Schneider passed on to Lack had nothing to do with playing the position, but rather playing the position in Vancouver. He’s almost got the social media game of Luongo and he’s been able to handle the media easily from the get go just as Schneider did.

There is no doubt the fans love him. The chants of “EDDIE! EDDIE! EDDIE!” raining down at least once a game is proof to that.





Shawn Matthias is authoring something of a career year, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the 27-year-old pending unrestricted free agent.Relatively young, extremely large, and blessed with that natural nose for scoring goals – Matthias is sure to generate a good deal of interest on the open market this summer. He’d probably generate even more interest if he was considered to be an everyday NHL centreman, but that’s probably not where he’s most effective.This week the Canucks bumped Matthias back to the wing. Although it resulted in the very effective Ronalds Kenins being a healthy scratch, moving Matthias off of centre and back along the wall was a necessary and sensible move.Matthias has played centre for the vast majority of his NHL career up until this season, and while he’s always been an effective and efficient 5-on-5 goal scorer, he has generally been a fourth-line quality two-way player.In his four seasons in Florida prior to joining the Canucks, Matthias logged at least 250 even-strength minutes with 12 Florida Panthers skaters, according to data found at hockeyanalysis.com . The quality of his regular linemates wasn’t particularly high, but it’s still worth noting that 11 of those 12 skaters fared better by shot attempt differential playing away from Matthias than they did when they shared the sheet with him.Regardless of whether you’re playing with world-beaters, or with players like Jack Skille and Tomas Kopecky, we’d expect a sturdy two-way centre to help his teammates control the flow of play at even strength. As a centreman, Matthias simply hasn’t done so.This season the Canucks moved Matthias to the wing, and though we’re dealing with tiny samples here, his two-way game has seemingly improved. Matthias has logged at least 150 minutes at 5-on-5 with three Canucks centres this year – Brad Richardson, Linden Vey, and Nick Bonino – and all three have done better by shot attempt differential with Matthias on their wing than they’ve done without him.Following Nick Bonino’s injury in early February, Matthias spent a stretch of 12 games playing mostly in the middle of the ice. Though he continued to score goals at a solid clip – six goals in 12 games is pretty decent – Vancouver got throttled at 5-on-5 when he was on the ice in those contests. Matthias’ shot attempt for percentage in those 12 games was at 40.8 percent, easily the lowest among all Canucks regulars during that time frame.It would seem possible that, when Matthias is along the wall and using his speed to test defenders out wide, while being tasked with relatively less defensive responsibility in his own end, he’s a more effective 200-foot player.$hawn Matthias is going to get paid this summer. He picked the perfect time to have a career season. Every goal he scores from here on in (he’s got 16 so far) will be a new career high and the same can be said about every point (24) moving forward.

Canucks fans have been pining for Zack Kassian to be the team’s next big power forward, but isn’t it possible Matthias is that guy now?





Matthias is big, strong, skates well and can finish. He plays bottom six minutes and yet by the end of the season he’ll likely have top-six numbers as far as goals are concerned. When it comes to 5-on-5 goal rate per 60 minutes, Matthias has been pretty darn good for a few years now (check out Canucks Army for more on that ).

And despite all that I don’t think the Canucks can afford to overspend on this guy.

This is Matthias’s first chance to cash in big time and he’s going to do just that. If Matthias goes to UFA someone will overpay for him. That’s the way it works. There is a reason people call Free Agent Frenzy the “Silly Season.” Remember what the Oilers dished out for Benoit Pouliot last summer after his 15-goal, 36-point campaign? This year’s crop of unrestricted free agent forwards is better than 2014, but not by a lot (Marty St. Louis, Mike Ribeiro, Antoine Vermette, Carl Soderberg and Justin Williams to name a handful).

From what we’re led to believe there have been no contract talks between the Canucks and Matthias’ camp yet. Whenever Matthias is asked about his expiring deal he says it’s for his agent to worry about. So it doesn’t seem like Vancouver is going to ink this guy before the season is done.

Columbus just paid 10.5-million to lock up Cam Atkinson for the next three seasons. The Rangers gave Mats Zuccarello 18-million over four. I’m guessing Matthias will come at a cap hit somewhere in between the two, if he re-signs with the Canucks before July 1.

Do I like Matthias as a player? Yes. But if the Canucks have no plans to move him into a top six role, then they must tread with caution. He looks like the type of big centre they need to compete with the Ducks and Kings. The only problem is he’s more effective on the wing and isn’t known to be a great defensive forward.