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Paper Feature: Luca Sbisa thriving as a complementary player in Las Vegas

Former Canucks defenceman may not be playing any better, but he certainly fits in better.
Luca Sbisa playing the puck from his knees for the Vancouver Canucks.

The Paper Feature is a weekly column and sidebars that appears in the Vancouver Courier newspaper. Track it down!


Luca Sbisa was doomed before his first season with the Canucks even began. Back in 2014, after Jim Benning acquired him from Anaheim in the Ryan Kesler trade, he made a terrible giveaway up the middle of the ice to Nail Yakupov in the Canucks’ final preseason game. The puck ended up in the back of the Canucks’ net and Sbisa made a fateful quote about the moment after the game.

“That’s what you call, in the hockey business, a pizza,” said Sbisa.

Part of media training for a hockey player should be to never use a slang term for a giveaway that rhymes with your last name. It just won’t end well.

Sure enough, “Sbisa’s pizzas” became a meme in Vancouver, partly because of the rhyme and partly because he delivered so many of them. To Sbisa’s credit, he was always trying to push the pace of play and quickly get the puck up ice to his forwards. Unfortunately, those risky passes frequently got picked off by his opponents.

Sbisa ended up a focal point of the criticism of the Canucks, which was, to a certain extent, unfair. The Canucks had plenty of problems apart from Sbisa, which was readily apparent after he was plucked from the Canucks by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft.

The Canucks remained at the bottom of the standings, while Sbisa is now just a couple wins away from hoisting the Stanley Cup.

When the Golden Knights got off to a hot start with Sbisa playing in their top-four, some Canucks fans were quick to claim that Sbisa had always been a great defenceman that was unappreciated in Vancouver. There’s just one issue: Sbisa is the same defenceman in Vegas that he was in Vancouver.

This is apparent just from watching the Golden Knights play — Sbisa is still prone to the occasional lapse in judgement in the defensive zone and dangerous pass up the middle and has played mainly on the third pairing after returning from injury — but also from the numbers. In fact, by most of the numbers, Sbisa has been a little bit worse in Vegas than he was in Vancouver.

Season Team Shot Attempts (Corsi) Against Per 60 Shot Attempt (Corsi) Percentage Shots Against Per 60 Scoring Chances Against Per 60 Goals Against Per 60 On-Ice SH% On-Ice SV% PDO
2014-2017 VAN 57.44 46.09 31.55 28.32 2.40 7.87 .924 1.003
2017-2018 VGK 69.95 43.3 37.27 30.07 2.24 10.13 .940 1.041


Sbisa had the worst corsi percentage on the Golden Knights during the regular season, meaning the opposition badly out-shot the Golden Knights when he was on the ice at even-strength. He was on the ice for the highest rate of shots on goal against for the Golden Knights, as well as the highest rate of scoring chances against.

The biggest difference has been in goal differential, where he has benefitted from the Golden Knights offence and some excellent goaltending behind him.

Or rather, the biggest difference is that Vegas has room for a player like Sbisa where Vancouver did not. The Canucks had so little room for error over the last few years that they couldn’t afford to have a defenceman on the roster that made so many of them. They needed Sbisa to do more than he was capable of and, when he couldn't live up to expectations, the Canucks suffered. The Golden Knights, on the other hand, have the ability to absorb some of those errors and find ways for Sbisa to contribute from the third pairing, like he did in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final.

Sbisa had the assist on the game-winning goal that sent Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final. He savvily kept the puck in at the line, made a quick sidestep to open up a shooting lane, and threw the puck on net, where it was tipped home by Ryan Reaves.

Along with Reaves, Sbisa is an unlikely hero in Vegas, but he fits right in among such a ragtag assemblage of players. Vegas can make the most of Sbisa's occasional bursts of offensive upside, while limiting the impact of his mistakes.


Stick-taps and Glove-drops

A tap of the stick to the Vegas Golden Knights and their in-game experience crew. The praise they have received from around the league is well-earned, as their pre-game show is fun, entertaining, and perfectly befitting Las Vegas.

I’m dropping the gloves with NHL officiating for missing a blatant cross-check on Ryan Reaves goal in Game 1. The power forward clearly cross-checked John Carlson to the ice moments before putting the puck top corner. That’s a game-changing moment and the officials dropped the ball. They tried to make up for it by calling a much stricter game in Game 2, but it was too little, too late.

Big Numbers

44 - The Stanley Cup Final is drawing record TV ratings for hockey in Las Vegas. Game 1 earned a 44 share of the television market in Sin City, which roughly translates to one out of every two televisions in Las Vegas tuned into the game.

19 - Jonathan Marchessault set a record on Tuesday when he assisted on Reilly Smith’s second-period goal. 19 points is the most tallied by a player in his team’s first ever playoff appearance.