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Post by GNick99 on Mar 12, 2015 8:23:23 GMT -5
I've been waiting to make up the lines, but Berg won't let me! Max - Eller - Parenteau Galchy - Pleks - Gallagher DD - DLR - DSP Prust - Flynn - Weise that leaves Mitchell as the odd man out, but he can swap in for Parenteau, if that doesn't work out. Parenteau is still our most natural scoring Right Winger and needs to be used in that top 6. You could swap Eller or Pleks on the first two lines and I'd like to have Mitchell in there somewhere, but the scoring woes are so bad that we have to loosen up on the defensive side and boost the offense. When Emelin's ready, I don't mind sitting Gonchar and maybe have Petry and Gilbert along with Emelin and Beaulieu, or one could switch Beau with Gilbert. I think Beau plays better on the 2nd pair than the third. I take back what I said about loosening up the defensive system. I just read that we're 21st in shots against and 24th in shot attempts against. Basically, defensively, we suck and we're where we are because of Carey. Can't afford to loosen up. Price is the ultimate foundation cream, covering up all our warts. Knew that several months before deadline. Chose to address defense and bottom 6 instead. Our Corsi sucks but Price having career season and our fast breakout evening it out. Best bet is callup of Hudon. And give him amble offensive time
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Mar 12, 2015 9:41:30 GMT -5
The practice lines today, in advance of the Sens game were as follows:
Patches-DD-Gallagher Galchenyuk-Pleks-PAP Eller-DLR-DSP Prust-Mitchell-Weise
DD still on the top line (this is MT after all) and Weise has moved down to the fourth. I wonder how many shifts MT will give PAP before he drops to the fourth line? The guy has not played in a long time, and really needs some real ice time to get his timing and game shape back.
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Post by Disp on Mar 12, 2015 12:51:54 GMT -5
Good stuff. I'll just add that it's the same old thing. Not enough players that can do the dirty work. Our top two centers are poke checkers. It's why Eller gets so many d zone starts. He can knock guys off the puck. Everyone blames the "system". Magical word "system" isn't it? I'd like to know what guys think is so different from other teams "systems". And not "they score more goals so it must be better" either. Our system is pretty obvious to anyone watching the game. How many times do we carry the puck over the blueline with possession (either blueline)?? Defensively, our system is to throw it around the boards when a forechecker is on you and then to flip the puck out of the zone and try to create turnovers in the neutral zone. Or if a forechecker was not at the halfboards, instead of flipping the puck a long cross ice pass or up the middle to a forward at the red line. How is that diffesent than anyone else? I'll use Tampa game as an example. Tampa's system started out pretty much like ours. They would dump the puck (but theirs seemed more often than not, like a pass instead of a dump) to the half boards, and then they would make a series of short quick passes. Typically, it was a 10 ft pass to the middle to the center, who then quickly got it to the blueline easily to the winger (sometimes the center even skated it out). That winger passed it back to the center before the redline and then the center gained possesion of our blueline prior to passing to the other winger. It worked almost every time. We were like pylons, helpless to keep up with that speed. Offensively, our system is in shambles. What exactly is it? For a team with so much spped we dump and chase it way too much. Not only that, but we hardly ever get in to the puck first. Its a rare thing to see us skate over the oppositions blueline with the puck. An even rarer thing to see us work the puck down low and then to the middle of the ice. We dump it in, attempt to get possession, maybe ccycle it a little and then nine times out of ten, feed the point for a slap shot. It's way too easy to defend. The PP, is nothing but a system. Shoot from the point until your hands bleed regardless if the puck goes wide or gets blocked a hundred times.... I would be very interested to know, how many shots on net the Habs have had on the PP this season. Could it be that maybe, this isn't chess, the game is played on the ice, guys have to make plays, unfortunately the other team has a say in it. I really don't see unnecessary dump-ins. If it's there, they bring it in. If it's not, they dump it. If they've spent 40+ seconds defending in our end, they dump it and go for a change. It's not that this team is too defensive, it's that they suck at it. Too much time spent in our end. Less time in our end, more time in the o-zone, even with our personnel, more pucks will find the net. They suck at it, because we have too many "poke checkers". Most teams are bigger and stronger than us. It's tough to get the puck. The pp, I have no idea what to do, they attacked the high slot for a bit, seemed to have better success doing that, but now the guys went away from it. For a bunch of supposed skill guys they accomplish very little.
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Post by seventeen on Mar 12, 2015 13:27:44 GMT -5
Could it be that maybe, this isn't chess, the game is played on the ice, guys have to make plays, unfortunately the other team has a say in it. I really don't see unnecessary dump-ins. If it's there, they bring it in. If it's not, they dump it. If they've spent 40+ seconds defending in our end, they dump it and go for a change. It's not that this team is too defensive, it's that they suck at it. Too much time spent in our end. Less time in our end, more time in the o-zone, even with our personnel, more pucks will find the net. They suck at it, because we have too many "poke checkers". Most teams are bigger and stronger than us. It's tough to get the puck. The pp, I have no idea what to do, they attacked the high slot for a bit, seemed to have better success doing that, but now the guys went away from it. For a bunch of supposed skill guys they accomplish very little. I agree with a lot of the above, but wonder if it's all because of personnel. Yes we have poke checkers. In some ways, that's due to the game itself, which has changed officiating wise so it's risky to hit anyone anywhere, but especially near the boards, so you use your stick a lot to dislodge the puck from the man, rather than the man from the puck. You raised a key point in that we spend too much time in our end, so the guys are tired and quickly give up possession in order to change lines. The solution is to either hold onto the puck while you're changing lines (not always possible, but I've seen them do it occasionally) or you find a way to get out of your end more often without being hemmed in. That's the one area in which we seem to disagree. I say its more of a system issue than you do, I believe (trying not to put words in your mouth) that yes, if we had the LA Kings roster, we'd be better at getting the puck out along the boards. That's very much why I'm critical of Therrien. We don't have the Kings roster and even if we did, they don't use that system. They take it out along the boards or up the middle, whichever way is least blocked. I suspect that Therrien is simply used to that system, has always used that system and would find it difficult to change that system. As Tampa showed, it's tactically easy to stifle that system if you have a team with speed. Other quick teams have done the same to us, so it's not special insight on Cooper's part. There have been games or times when we've executed Therrien's system really, really well. We've done it with a ton of speed, quickness and puck movement and in those games (or parts of games) we've spent less time in our zone and been more effective offensively. We don't do it consistently because it's darn hard. All your players have to be at the top of their game or it breaks apart. (Exhibit A - Gilbert passing the puck behind the net into Petry's skates rather than on his stick). When you have players with a varying degree of skills you design a system for everyone to follow so there's at least a minimal standard for everyone. If your system isn't that good, then your results will show it, regardless of how good your employees (players) are, trying to execute it. I don't think our guys are that bad, but we're not the biggest team around and even if we were, so what? There are better systems out there. What's wrong with copying them?
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Post by CentreHice on Mar 12, 2015 13:47:29 GMT -5
Somebody said it appears as if Yzerman has brought the Detroit puck-possession system to the Bolts.
Copying systems can be done.
It's not as if the Bolts are THAT much more skilled than we are.
Stamkos is in another league, yes….but one could find parallels throughout the rosters .
Look how we played in the last 25 minutes of the L.A. game.
That was an entirely different "sustained style" than we played at any other time in the past 5 games. We took it to the Kings. And that was down 2-0 with Toker in goal.
Go figure.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Mar 12, 2015 15:19:32 GMT -5
Somebody said it appears as if Yzerman has brought the Detroit puck-possession system to the Bolts. Copying systems can be done. There was a reason Yzerman brought Babs in for the Olympic team ... possibly the most dominant performance by any Olympic hockey team ... he told his team right at the beginning ... park the egos at the door and buy into the system ... it helped he had Price in nets, sure, but when you have bonafide superstars buying into a team-first system things have a better chance at working ... I think Therrien has buy-in from his leaders and veterans, but at the same time he doesn't have the snipers, or so it seems ... yet, I've seen this team turn it up a notch and when they do they score goals ... one thing I haven't noticed from our club recently ... where's the blinding speed that gives other teams problems ... I'm convinced that speed is still there and that's what used give other teams problems ... if they can find that speed again, that transition game that was so prevalent at the beginning of the season, then I think we'll be okay ... does it have to do with the system Therrien is employing or were we never really all that fast of team ... hard call, man ... Cheers.
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Post by Disp on Mar 12, 2015 15:44:24 GMT -5
And yet at the olympics the scores were low enough that it was only a bad bounce away from questioning everything. Canadian hockey, Babcock, the team selection, pretty much everything. It would have been horsesh!t, but it would have happened.
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Post by Disp on Mar 12, 2015 15:55:34 GMT -5
Could it be that maybe, this isn't chess, the game is played on the ice, guys have to make plays, unfortunately the other team has a say in it. I really don't see unnecessary dump-ins. If it's there, they bring it in. If it's not, they dump it. If they've spent 40+ seconds defending in our end, they dump it and go for a change. It's not that this team is too defensive, it's that they suck at it. Too much time spent in our end. Less time in our end, more time in the o-zone, even with our personnel, more pucks will find the net. They suck at it, because we have too many "poke checkers". Most teams are bigger and stronger than us. It's tough to get the puck. The pp, I have no idea what to do, they attacked the high slot for a bit, seemed to have better success doing that, but now the guys went away from it. For a bunch of supposed skill guys they accomplish very little. I agree with a lot of the above, but wonder if it's all because of personnel. Yes we have poke checkers. In some ways, that's due to the game itself, which has changed officiating wise so it's risky to hit anyone anywhere, but especially near the boards, so you use your stick a lot to dislodge the puck from the man, rather than the man from the puck. You raised a key point in that we spend too much time in our end, so the guys are tired and quickly give up possession in order to change lines. The solution is to either hold onto the puck while you're changing lines (not always possible, but I've seen them do it occasionally) or you find a way to get out of your end more often without being hemmed in. That's the one area in which we seem to disagree. I say its more of a system issue than you do, I believe (trying not to put words in your mouth) that yes, if we had the LA Kings roster, we'd be better at getting the puck out along the boards. That's very much why I'm critical of Therrien. We don't have the Kings roster and even if we did, they don't use that system. They take it out along the boards or up the middle, whichever way is least blocked. I suspect that Therrien is simply used to that system, has always used that system and would find it difficult to change that system. As Tampa showed, it's tactically easy to stifle that system if you have a team with speed. Other quick teams have done the same to us, so it's not special insight on Cooper's part. There have been games or times when we've executed Therrien's system really, really well. We've done it with a ton of speed, quickness and puck movement and in those games (or parts of games) we've spent less time in our zone and been more effective offensively. We don't do it consistently because it's darn hard. All your players have to be at the top of their game or it breaks apart. (Exhibit A - Gilbert passing the puck behind the net into Petry's skates rather than on his stick). When you have players with a varying degree of skills you design a system for everyone to follow so there's at least a minimal standard for everyone. If your system isn't that good, then your results will show it, regardless of how good your employees (players) are, trying to execute it. I don't think our guys are that bad, but we're not the biggest team around and even if we were, so what? There are better systems out there. What's wrong with copying them? Maybe this is as good as it gets with this crew . There are just some things you can't get around. So many of our guys just can't break the cycle in our end with solid body contact and a pin. I've seen them play much better than vs Tampa, in their low body contact way, so there is hope. They have to bring it though. We'll see once the playoffs start.
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Post by Skilly on Mar 18, 2015 10:49:01 GMT -5
I'm still struggling to determine exactly what kind of team the Habs are, what is the game plan entering the playoffs?
Are we an offensive team?
I'd say no. Here are are rankings in key offensive stats. Goals per game = 22nd Shots per game = 25th PP% = 26th
Our goals per game and shots per game are the lowest of any team currently holding down a playoff position. Our PP is second worst, only Minnesota's is worse.
Are we a defensive team?
Maybe. Here are our ranking in key defensive stats. Goals against per game = 1st PK% = 6th Shots against per game = 23rd
We are the only team heading into these playoffs that currently give up more shots than we take.
I realize that goaltending is a huge part of defense, and our goaltending numbers are off the charts. Our goalie is in the running for the Jennings, the Hart, the Vezina. I'd say we are simply a goaltending team. Even last night, with Tokarski in net, they gave up over 40 shaots and the goalie had to steal the victory. That kind of system, identity, ... call it what you want ... it can't last long.
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Post by CentreHice on Mar 18, 2015 11:05:31 GMT -5
I'm of the firm belief that it's been that way most of the year.
An effective defensive team effort prevents a barrage of quality scoring chances….our system invites them.
Unless the coaches are preaching one thing and the boys are doing another….I don't know.
But it's pretty darn consistent. Hand-in-hand at the other end of the ice when it comes to our PP. Very disappointing.
Perhaps we ARE performing as well as we can, given our talent. And if that's the case, buckle up for The Price is Right Playoffs!!
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