Canucks Coffee: The quest for a defenceman, plus covering your own kid

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There’s no doubt that the Edmonton Oilers were the toughest, quickest opponent the Vancouver Canucks have faced this season.

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The Oilers were relentless in their 7-3 defeat of the Canucks on Saturday.

And the pace at which they played reminded Canucks fans of the last major flaw of their team: The second defence pairing.

The Canucks have played 13 games this season. Only four times have Tyler Myers and Carson Soucy not seen the opposition outshoot the Canucks while they were on the ice.

They’re chasing the game — and doing so badly most night.

Intriguingly, three of those four games came on last week’s road trip. But, on the other hand, three of the four games have come against pretty weak opponents in the Calgary Flames, San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks.

They’re being asked to be shutdown defencemen but they’re just not up to the task.

Now there is a small good note related to the second pairing’s defensive disaster: Erik Brannstrom has been a soft-minutes revelation, with the Canucks’ shot-attempts share running in the positive with him on the ice — and he’s dragging Vincent Desharnais into the positive with him. More on those two in a moment.

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But having your second pairing be an offensive black hole and a defensive mess isn’t sustainable.

And that’s why you look at the way the Canucks have set up their salary cap and think, surely, there’s a big move coming on the blue line.

Little Erik and Big Vin

Is there a more charming couple on the Canucks blue-line than their smallest defender working so well alongside their biggest defender?

It was pointed out that with the Oilers visiting, Desharnais had his best games last season in Edmonton when he was paired with Brett Kulak, as steady and two-way a defender as you’ll ever find.

Desharnais said he felt Brannstrom and Kulak are pretty different players but the common thread is clearly there, even he had to admit.

“Whenever he can skate, I think our breakouts are great,” he said.

Anyone who watched Desharnais play in Edmonton knows it was a similar story when paired with Kulak: A veritable “keep it simple” situation, where Desharnais was at his best when he didn’t have to think.

A few weeks ago, Desharnais admitted as much, that he believed he would find his way in Vancouver’s complicated scheme once he didn’t have to think, that the time would come where he would look up and everything would be as it should be and he’d just make the obvious, deliberate play.

Anyway, so far they’re a perfectly cromulent third pairing.

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The DeBrusk thing

It’s not often dad and son get to work a game together in the NHL, especially not when one is a commentator and the other is a player.

But here were Louie and Jake DeBrusk doing just that on Saturday. And it was a charming scene, with proud dad beaming about his son’s recent success with his new team and son just happy to have dad around.

“I always get little updates about the Oilers,” Jake said with a chuckle before Saturday’s game.

He and his dad talk hockey all the time.

But, in the end, dad knows his son knows the game pretty well now. Look how far he’s come now.

Instead, Louie is just focused on how to present the game when his son is part of the action. In the first few games that saw Louie between the benches and Jake on the ice, he stayed neutral. Maybe too neutral.

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“I used to actually call him just DeBrusk,” Louie said.

He was worried about stepping over the line. He didn’t want to be perceived as overly favouring his son, so he tried to just say nothing at all.

But then he realized that everyone knows the relationship, so now he calls him Jake.

That doesn’t mean though that he avoids noting when a play goes badly for Jake.

There was one-time where he had to play hockey dad, though.

“An early game he kept coming by and chatting me up. Finally I had to say to him, ‘Listen, your coach is burning holes in my head! I don’t want to be that hockey dad!’”

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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