The doctors did such a phenomenal job fixing Dan Hamhuis’s broken jaw that actually looks natural and unforced. It’s unnerving.
In spite of that, it's good to see Hamhuis again. The Canucks defence has been an absolute mess without him, bleeding shots and scoring chances against. It's taken a heroic effort by Ryan Miller and Jacob Markstrom to keep the Canucks competitive.
To make space for Hamhuis’s return, the Canucks needed to move someone off the roster, whether through a trade or by sending someone down to Utica. Ironically, they sent down the player who has been Hamhuis’s most effective defence partner.
No one will argue that Yannick Weber is having a good season. Weber had no goals and just 5 assists after a career-high 11 goals last season, which led all Canucks defencemen.
Weber was also second among all Canucks skaters with 5 power play goals last season, but barely saw time with the top unit this season and lost his spot on the second unit to Ben Hutton and Chris Tanev.
All of that explains why the Canucks were all too willing to waive Weber and also why no other teams in the league saw fit to claim him.
That doesn't, however, mean that waiving him was the right decision.
This might not be a popular opinion, but Yannick Weber isn't even close to the worst defenceman on the Canucks roster. In fact, he's pretty clearly one of their four best.
Perhaps that's more of an indictment on the Canucks than an endorsement of Weber. After all, he would ideally be a third pairing power play specialist rather than part of the Canucks top four, but the Canucks are carrying some pretty lousy defencemen on their roster right now.
Let's look at the various defence pairings from this season, limiting ourselves to defencemen who have played at least 100 minutes together.
| Pairing | TOI | GF60 | GA60 | GF% | CF | CA | CF% |
| Hamhuis-Weber | 169.82 | 1.41 | 1.77 | 44.40 | 49.82 | 47.70 | 51.10 |
| Hutton-Weber | 268.87 | 1.12 | 1.34 | 45.50 | 50.21 | 49.76 | 50.20 |
| Edler-Tanev | 695.52 | 2.16 | 1.98 | 52.10 | 45.03 | 50.64 | 47.10 |
| Hamhuis-Bartkowski | 182.38 | 1.64 | 1.97 | 45.50 | 48.03 | 54.28 | 46.90 |
| Bartkowski-Biega | 272.97 | 0.88 | 2.20 | 28.60 | 51.43 | 58.91 | 46.60 |
| Hutton-Bartkowski | 117.00 | 2.05 | 3.59 | 36.40 | 52.82 | 61.54 | 46.20 |
| Hutton-Sbisa | 173.48 | 2.42 | 2.08 | 53.80 | 43.23 | 60.87 | 41.50 |
| Bartkowski-Sbisa | 131.88 | 1.82 | 1.82 | 50.00 | 42.31 | 61.87 | 40.60 |
Ìý
You'll notice that the only two pairings above 50% in corsi for have Weber on the right side. This is significant as practically no one on the Canucks is above 50% in corsi this season. It's literally just Jake Virtanen and no one else.
The best of those pairings, in terms of corsi, is Hamhuis and Weber, a pairing that was surprisingly effective last season as well. But now, as Hamhuis returns to the lineup, that pairing is no longer an option.
Weber’s detractors will argue that his defensive shortcomings override whatever his underlying possession stats may say, but he's far from the worst Canuck defenceman in his own zone.
When Weber plays with Hamhuis and Hutton allow the fewest shot attempts against of any Canucks pairing. In fact, when Hutton is apart from Weber and plays with Bartkowski or Sbisa, he gives up a ton of shot attempts, the most of any pairing apart from when Bartkowski and Sbisa play together. I feel like those numbers might be trying to tell me something.
You could argue that Weber gives up more scoring chances, so that just judging by shot attempts isn't enough, but Weber is fourth best on the Canucks in scoring chances against per 60 behind Tanev, Hamhuis, and Edler, according to war-on-ice.com.
You might be thinking that Weber gives up particularly dangerous chances, but his high-danger scoring chances against per 60 is 3rd behind Tanev and Hamhuis.
The biggest difference is at the other end of the ice. Weber leads the Canucks in high-danger chances for per 60, followed immediately by Ben Hutton.
Here’s the issue: those high-danger scoring chances have not led to goals. Weber is tied with Barkowski for the worst plus/minus among Canucks defencemen with a minus-13. You can even see in the chart above that Weber’s pairings with Hutton and Hamhuis have been outscored despite their edge in possession.
But if you look again, they haven’t been as badly outscored as Bartkowski’s pairings with Biega and Hutton. They also allow the fewest goals against per 60 minutes of any Canucks pairings. The question is whether you believe that Bartkowski and Sbisa or Hutton and Sbisa will continue to outscore (or break even against) the opposition despite their horrible possession numbers.
Here’s the thing: at 5-on-5, Weber’s only minus-5. The rest of his plus/minus comes from a few shorthanded goals for which he was on the ice, a couple 3-on-3 overtime goals, and a couple goals when the opposing goalie was pulled. Considering 5-on-5 is how most hockey is played, I’m going to give more weight to 5-on-5 over those other situations.
At 5-on-5, Matt Bartkowski is minus-15. Ian Cole of the Pittsburgh Penguins is the only defenceman in the entire NHL with a worse goal differential at 5-on-5.
But the Canucks like Bartkowski’s speed and his occasional bit of snarl, even as he blatantly makes them worse. They’d rather have Luca Sbisa, who gets billed as a physical defenceman for throwing hits, even as he loses every single puck battle in front of the net. They’d rather have Alex Biega, a borderline NHLer, whose very visible effort level doesn’t make up for his positional errors.
I don’t know what else to say. Yannick Weber may not be amazing—he’s a third-pairing defenceman with some power play upside—but he’s a damn sight better than three of the defencemen currently still on the Canucks roster.
At least he didn’t get claimed so he’s still in the Canucks system. I’d just rather have him on the ice.
Ìý
Stats from war-on-ice.com and stats.hockeyanalysis.com
