Canucks: Is Carson Soucy figuring it out? Examining his contradictory stats in recent games

Without JT Miller, this recent section of the 2024/25 season was always going to be a difficult test for the Vancouver Canucks. Many wondered if the Canucks, on both a team and individual basis, would step up in Miller’s absence, or the opposite. And, for the most part, they’ve been stepping up.

Perhaps no player on the roster was in greater need of a step-up than Carson Soucy. With the potential exception of Elias Pettersson in the early going, no Canuck has drawn more criticism this season than Soucy. Counted on to anchor a second pairing alongside Tyler Myers, Soucy just hadn’t been getting it done thus far this year, and was beginning to look like a problem in need of solving.

Indeed, when looking over the stats from the past four games as of this writing – against Nashville, New York, Ottawa, and Boston – Soucy’s name definitely stands out from the crowd. And on first blush, it’s more mostly negative reasons.

Across those four games in their entirety, Soucy has the second-lowest 5-on-5 Corsi rating at an abysmal 33.61% – trailing only Brock Boeser, who just returned from a head injury. He’s got just a 38.50% control of shots, a 29.66% expected goals rate, and just a 30.61% control of scoring chances.

That all sounds pretty porous, and in line with the general reputation that Soucy’s 2024/25 performance has earned.

But at the same time, those who watch the games would probably tell you that, at the very least, Soucy has looked better in these most recent, Miller-less games. And so we decided to dig a little deeper into the minutes that Soucy is actually playing to see if we can see any statistical signs of a turnaround.

The first thing worth mentioning is that Soucy has broken even over these past four games, at least in terms of even-strength goals in and out. He’s been on the ice for three goals for, and three against.

Which might really be saying something, given the strength of competition Soucy has been facing. This is where NaturalStatTrick’s ability to break down the matchups within games becomes very useful.

Starting with the Nashville game, we can state pretty confidently that Filip Forsberg is their greatest offensive threat. At even-strength, it was not Soucy, but Myers who played the most minutes against Forsberg at 7:40. But Soucy was right behind him at 6:30, and Soucy’s head-to-head results against Forsberg were strong.

From NaturalStatTrick

That right there is a shutdown performance. The Canucks may have lost this game, but they didn’t do so because of the Soucy-Forsberg matchup. Quite the opposite, in fact. And this positive trend would carry forward into the next three games.

The New York Rangers have a few more offensive threats to offer than the Predators, but the best of the bunch is definitely still Artemi Panarin.

Last Tuesday, the pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek drew the bulk of the Panarin matchups, and they were only scored on once.

Soucy, meanwhile, skated about half as many minutes as they did against Panarin…but did achieve near-perfect results in those minutes.

From NaturalStatTrick

Now, four minutes is a mighty small sample size. But now we’re talking the second game in a row that Soucy has refused to allow even a single scoring chance against by his opponent’s best offensive player. That’s notable, even if it’s not that meaningful until spread over a greater length of time.

Fortunately, we’ve got two more games to talk about.

Maybe by the Ottawa game, head coach Rick Tocchet and Co. had begun to notice Soucy’s trend. It’s a bit of a coin-flip as to who Ottawa’s best forward is, down to Tim Stutzle or Brady Tkachuk. Either way, it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of our topic at hand, because Soucy led the Canucks in 5-on-5 minutes against both Stutzle and Tkachuk on Saturday.

We’ll use Stutzle as our individual case study here, because we think he’s probably the greater talent, and because Tkachuk spent a lot of Saturday running around like a moron.

From NaturalStatTrick

This set of head-to-head stats might not be as impressive as the last two. But it’s now the third straight game in a row that Soucy has not allowed an even-strength goal while being matched up against the opposition’s top scorer. Not to mention either breaking even or winning the statistical battle in every other category.

Which brings us to the Bruins. Here, it has to be said that the entirety of the Canucks did a great job shutting down the entirety of the Bruins. This was not the Carson Soucy show, exclusively. In fact, it was Myers, not Soucy, who played the most minutes against David Pastrnak, and Myers did exceptionally well in those minutes.

But this article isn’t about Myers, it’s about Soucy. And he, too, played big minutes against Pastrnak and experienced great success as he did.

From NaturalStatTrick

That’s three top-tier opponents in four games that Soucy has held to literally zero recorded scoring chances against. It’s not the be-all and end-all of him figuring it out as a shutdown defender, but it is certainly the most positive signs of it that we have seen in the 2024/25 season.

Take this analysis with a bit of a grain of salt. This is not just a small sample size, but an isolated one, and as we said at the outset, Soucy’s overall stats over this same period of time are, to put it mildly, not good. And we haven’t even discussed the penalty kill.

At the same time, there are definitely others who deserve equal or greater defensive shout-outs over this same stretch, including the aforementioned Myers and the forward duo of Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua.

But if one wants to go looking for signs of a turnaround in Soucy’s game, especially in his own end of the ice, this is definitely encouraging. It says, at the very least, that Tocchet and Co. can continue to put Soucy out there for difficult matchups and feel pretty good about that. Which, in turn, allows him to continue building both value and confidence.

It was a rough start to 2024/25 for Soucy. But he might just avoid it being a rough season, so long as he can keep on shutting down the best the opposition has to offer.