Should the Canucks demote Tucker Poolman?

A week out from opening night and with more than three dozen players still on their camp roster, the Vancouver Canucks have some cuts to make.

Up front, a series of injuries have made the job of the coaching staff and front office a little easier, taking care of some of the more difficult decisions for them.

On the blueline, where Travis Dermott is the only injured player of note and projects to return shortly, the choices will be a little trickier.

Quinn Hughes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Tyler Myers, and Luke Schenn are all locks, and combine to make up the team’s ad hoc top-four. That leaves up to four more spots left to be claimed, with Vancouver expected to carry a total of eight defenders, as per usual.

Dermott, when healthy, almost certainly gets one of those spots.

The same goes for Jack Rathbone, who has already done more than enough to show that he’s ready to graduate from the minor leagues.

That leaves a battle for the final two jobs between a whole host of depth defenders, including the pre-established Kyle Burroughs, and Tucker Poolman, he of the four-year, $10 million contract.

The smart money is still on Poolman making the team, even as an extra. The Canucks have invested a little too much salary and term into Poolman to render him a guilt and consequence-free cut. Yet, there have been continual calls throughout the offseason to send him down to Abbotsford regardless, and his play in the preseason has only intensified those calls.

Below, we’ll look at all the factors at play in the Poolman decision, and where they might lead the Canucks.

Health does not look like it will be one of those factors. By all accounts, Poolman’s migraine-related issues are behind him, and he’s in camp ready to play.

One would hope that quality of play alone is the primary factor at work when making training camp cuts, and although things are never quite that simple, we’ll start there.

Few would argue that Poolman has stood out as a top-six-quality defender thus far. All of those ranked ahead of him on the depth chart have handily outplayed him in preseason action, up to and including the rookie Rathbone.

Burroughs, meanwhile, has continued to display his ultra-physical and otherwise workmanlike style, and has the added benefit of being able to play either side of the blueline. As a seventh defender, he makes a lot more sense than Poolman in the current moment.

The eighth slot should be wide open, but there Poolman has been challenged by the likes of Christian Wolanin and Wyatt Kalynuk, along with longer shots Noah Juulsen and Brady Keeper.

Now, with the latter three cut or on waivers, it’s down to Poolman versus Wolanin.

Through two exhibition games thus far, Poolman is pointless — though that’s hardly a strike against him, what with only four points total scored by the entire Vancouver blueline through five preseason games. His -2 rating looks worse, but it’s also tied with Hughes and twice as good as Ekman-Larsson’s -4.

To get a real sense of how Poolman has been playing, we’ll have to turn to alternative sources of information. The first is the analytic line, where a two-game sample size must always be taken with a grain of salt, but that certainly doesn’t reflect well on Poolman as a player trying to make his team. His even-strength Corsi sits at 38.46%, his control of scoring chances at just 33.33% (repeating, of course), and his xG at a paltry 25.93%.

Only Juulsen and Guillaume Brisebois had worse possession metrics among blueliners. No defender had a worse grip on scoring chances than Poolman, not even the early-cut Jett Woo or the artist formerly known as Danny DeKeyser.

Compare that with the newly-signed Kalynuk, who is thus far sporting a Corsi of 58.82% and a scoring chance control rate of 62.5%. Or with Keeper and his 70.96% xG in game one. Sure, those are also small sample sizes, but what is the preseason if not a small sample size from which big decisions need to be made?

Compare them especially with Wolanin, who has an xG of 60.39% and a scoring chance control rate of 55.26%, to go along with a 64.71% on high-danger chances, specifically.

The contrast is clear, and it definitely doesn’t bode well for Poolman keeping his spot. And then there’s the eye-test.