Team still trying to figure out optimal deployment with blueliners it has on the roster

Four games into the new National Hockey League season, there are already cries from several corners for the Vancouver Canucks to make Tyler Myers a healthy scratch. Fine. Let the critics scream. But are those same people prepared to see the Canucks go into game action with both Noah Juulsen and Mark Friedman holding down spots on the right side of the Canucks blueline? 

That's the issue with a committee approach -- especially if the committee does not consist of enough NHL calibre defensemen. The Canucks have used eight blueliners in their first four games and according to naturalstattrick.com the team has already had 16 different defense pairs spend at least 90 seconds together.

While the team sports a 2-2 record, the underlying numbers suggest trouble is brewing unless the Canucks spend less time defending. Through four games, the Canucks are controlling just 44.5% of all even strength shot attempts, have been outshot 98-73 and out-chanced 102-70. 

The Canucks need to find a way to tilt their ice in their favour and spend more time attacking and less time asking their goaltenders to bail them out.

Through the first four games, Filip Hronek leads all Canucks defenders in even-strength ice time followed by Ian Cole and Quinn Hughes. Not in that order, but those are the top three on the team's depth chart. After that, it gets murky in a hurry.

The Canucks have elected to play Hughes primarily with Hronek. As a top pairing, those two have been together for 56:30 and the Canucks have outscored their opponents 4-0 so far this season. So you can understand why the coaching staff likes loading up like that. 

The problem is it exposes soft spots elsewhere on the depth chart and Hughes and Hronek simply can't play all game every game. 

Ian Cole and Tyler Myers have spent 45:05 together at evens so far this season and while the Canucks have outscored their opponents 3-1 in those minutes, the pair has been crushed defensively carrying a 36.9% CF as a duo, getting outshot 24-13 and outchanced 26-13. Without Canucks netminders continuing to stand on their heads, those kinds of possession metrics are likely to prove costly.

So what are the Canucks to do? If you separate Hughes and Hronek to spread the depth, you're promoting one of Myers, Juulsen or newcomer Mark Friedman to a top pairing role against high quality competition. And perhaps Quinn Hughes has enough superpowers to make something like that work. That was the hope, at least, when Juulsen started on the captain's right side at training camp.

Maybe it's time to try Hughes and Cole together for a while and let Hronek carry a second pair with Carson Soucy. But based on the current roster construction, then you'll have a third pair consisting of any combination of three right-handers in Myers, Juulsen and Friedman. And that hardly sounds ideal and seems like something Rick Tocchet is loathe to try based on his preference for lefty-right defensive duos.

It's not going to happen unless dicated by injury, but when the team gets off this road trip, perhaps it's time to bring Akito Hirose back into the fold as a left-side depth option. Or maybe Christian Wolanin, who already feels like a forgotten man, deserves another look at the NHL level.

The fact of the matter is that people can call for Tyler Myers to take a seat based on his very loud mistakes that led to a pair of goals on Thursday in Tampa Bay. But moving the pieces around doesn't necessarily make the Canucks any better. Their defense corps was supposed to be better based on the off-season acquisitions. And there is still plenty of time for that play itself out. 

But right now unless the depth defenders simply play better, there will be questions and concerns any time Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek aren't on the ice.

Unfortunately for the Canucks, that's more than half the game.