Quote:
Originally Posted by timbit
Top end puck possession teams always have fewer hits than lower end puck possession teams for the obvious reason.
They have the puck.
Check the team stats over the last few years.
It's all about competing in the tough areas.
Winning loose puck races and battles, as well as getting to the high danger scoring areas.
Lots of people would be right in arguing that Patrice Bergeron and players of his ilk are the toughest players in the league.
|
As a hater of the Pittsburgh Penguins I haven't miss a playoff game they played in the last 2 seasons. The other factor to why teams that hit seem to have lower possession numbers is the countless times you see a team playing that game where they need to "wear them out" lose puck possession on plays where they finished the hit rather than taking the loose puck
Today's NHL this issue is very overrated.
Winning board battles is what you need and I feel the Flames aren't elite at this but guys like Backlund, Frolik, Tkachuk are top end at winning these battles.