Four possible reasons why the Canucks have been so bad at home

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Jim Rutherford is well-known for being a straight shooter. Ask a question and you’ll generally get the brutal truth — at least, the brutal truth as he sees it.

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So when I asked him Friday why his team has struggled this season, he wasn’t shy in answering.

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If we had a week, he said, he could fill it with examples of issues he has spotted this season. But we didn’t have a week, just a column to fill.

With just three home games left on the Canucks’ season, he dished.

Problem one: Playing to the system

“We don’t stick to our system,” he lamented.

That’s problematic, obviously. And it is clearly something he and his staff will have to dig into. Was it about the players they now have not getting what they’re being told? Or is it about how the system was being explained? Or did the system have no hope of success no matter who was in the lineup?

Problem two: Attention to detail

“Our attention to detail has usually cost us goals, has cost us games,” he said.

For a manager who has had success in the past because he had some of the most-detailed oriented players in hockey, this must especially sting.

The list always starts with Sidney Crosby, but it goes beyond him. Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang and Marc-André Fleury and Jake Guentzel and so on. They’ve all got fabulous reputations for getting it done.

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Even Phil Kessel, as unconventional a hockey star as they come, proved adept at locking down the details of the game.

The secret to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ success, though, lay in how the lesser players prepared. Guys like Drew O’Connor — now with the Canucks — have attention to detail, and O’Connor himself has spoken of how he learned that from guys such as Bryan Rust, who is now a front-line winger for the Penguins but who was once a hard-working third-liner.

Go back to Rutherford’s days in Carolina. There’s a reason why Rod Brind’Amour is now such a successful coach. He was as detailed as it gets in his playing days, and the work his teammates, like Ron Francis, Mark Recchi and Doug Weight, put in was comparable.

Eric Staal made the Hurricanes as an 18-year-old because he already had great attention to detail — and he was a key contributor two years later to the Canes’ 2006 Stanley Cup win for that focus as well.

But again, you look at the role players on that 2006 team and you see Bret Hedican and Matt Cullen and Ray Whitney, all class players who lasted a long time because they were dialled in on details.

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Problem three: Shift length

“One part of our details is shift length. Our shifts are often too long. That leads to bad things, especially in the second period,” Rutherford said.

Often, he noted, the Canucks started well in the first, but fell behind as the game pressed on because they were overtired and weren’t recovered enough for their next shift.

Former head coach Rick Tocchet used to harp on this point. He wanted his guys thinking about 35-second shifts. On and off. One thing, one event, and off. Get fresh. Back on.

For whatever reason, even the players Foote inherited from Tocchet have struggled with their shift lengths at times.

Foote hammered this point himself in recent days. His defencemen have been getting trapped on the ice in the second period, ending up with multi-minute shifts, badly exposing themselves to tired mistakes. And tired mistakes lead to goal.

Problem four: Goaltending

“This year we’ve had games where we’ve played good enough to win analytically, and then our goaltending has been subpar,” Rutherford believes.

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This prompts the counter-question: What is a good goalie anymore? The game is so fast, so chaotic. Shooters are so good, and often the best a goalie can do is be in position. There are some shots that are just going to go in.

Most of the analytical data available to the public suggests the Canucks’ defence, or lack thereof, has created an awfully chaotic environment for the goalies.

But there is also no doubt that losing Thatcher Demko — although probably not a surprise — hurt a lot. He is the most talented goalie this team has. Kevin Lankinen was solid last year, but showed that he can’t handle a heavy run of games. What goalie can? And Nikita Tolopilo has put up marginally better numbers than Lankinen, but hasn’t looked any more comfortable than the veteran.

Either way, the Canucks have to tidy up their own end. They have to give their goalies a chance, most of all. Will that alone fix Rutherford’s perceived goaltending problem?

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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