Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Ethan Bear wants a contract

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We’re wanting again on the 2022-23 Vancouver Canucks with a spotlight at the moment on Ethan Bear. Within the coming weeks, we are going to break down the season and try how participant conditions undertaking going into 2023-24.

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Ethan Bear

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Age: 25.
Place: Defenceman.
Profession stats: GP: 251; G: 16; A: 47; Pts: 63; PIM: 102.
Contract standing: Restricted free agent
How 2022-23 went: Fairly effectively.

Guess which Canucks defenceman was on ice for the fewest pictures in opposition to?

Given you’re studying a narrative with Ethan Bear within the headline, you’ve in all probability already figured it out.

Ethan Bear isn’t an ideal defenceman, however the issues he does effectively, he does rather well.

There’s his defensive report for a begin. On a crew that struggled to manage play in its personal finish, when Bear was on the ice, that wasn’t an issue.

Certainly, Bear’s 50.4 shot makes an attempt in opposition to per 60 minutes of even-strength ice time was the Twenty third-lowest in your entire NHL.

Bear’s defensive affect was unmistakable.

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After which there was his work retaining pucks, which was excellent.

Because the season wore on, he discovered confidence in the remainder of his sport as effectively. He started to hurry the puck out extra, as an example.

General, after Rick Tocchet got here in, the Canucks’ defensive construction vastly improved. They began enjoying “slower” as effectively — analyst Cam Charron discovered that after Tocchet acquired settled in, and particularly after Oliver Ekman-Larsson was injured, the Canucks made fewer makes an attempt to hold the puck up ice in comparison with when Bruce Boudreau was in cost, however in addition they managed to scale back the variety of occasions the opposition carried the puck in.

“It felt a bit each man for himself,” Bear stated of when he arrived from Carolina in late October. There wasn’t a lot course from the teaching employees, and since there wasn’t a lot system work, the gamers didn’t have a standard language to debate their play after the very fact.

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“The place we have been at, oh my god, you simply acquired to outlive, you’re simply making hockey reads as an alternative of enjoying a construction,” he stated.

How the long run appears: A contract first, then a task

Bear wants a brand new deal. His agent requested the Canucks to attend until the low season to speak contract.

The Canucks clearly worth him: he was name-checked in president Jim Rutherford’s end-of-season letter to season ticket holders.

So the place will he slot in? Will he be Quinn Hughes’ accomplice? He’s in all probability greatest suited to enjoying additional down the lineup, however he’s been a succesful accomplice for the Canucks’ No. 1 defenceman.

With Filip Hronek within the fold, although, will the Canucks wish to construct a super-pairing of Hronek and Hughes? Or possibly they’ll see Hronek as their 1A man, and construct a second pairing round him, that means they will have both Hughes or Hronek on the ice more often than not?

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If Hronek and Hughes are a pair, possibly Bear goes with a rebuilt Oliver Ekman-Larsson? However what if OEL merely can’t get again to something near what he was in his first season in Vancouver?

Best strengths: Puck retrievals. Defending the push.

Best weak point: Choice-making. He’s proven a insecurity at occasions in his means to skate the puck out, too typically deferring to his accomplice and easily passing the puck over.

Is he commerce bait?: No. The Canucks like him and see the prospect to get him on an environment friendly contract.

The large query: Will he signal earlier than the Canucks discover a solution to unload a contract to purchase some cap house?

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Extra from the Canucks Underneath the Microscope collection:

• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Oliver Ekman-Larsson
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Thatcher Demko
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Arturs Silovs
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Elias Pettersson
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Nils Hoglander
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Phil Di Giuseppe
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Sheldon Dries
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Vitali Kravtsov
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Andrei Kuzmenko
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Vasily Podkolzin
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Kyle Burroughs
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: J.T. Miller
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Brock Boeser
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Jack Studnicka
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Quinn Hughes
• Canucks Underneath The Microscope: Nils Aman
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Anthony Beauvillier
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Dakota Joshua
• Canucks Underneath the Microscope: Conor Garland

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