[The Manatee]

Cripes, this is going to be a long post. Sorry about that, guys. These are just some thoughts off the top of my head of how we might be able to improve. We were looking a lot better last night, so at least we're making progress.

Lags, you do a fine job playing net, but I think it's a good policy to just have the computer take care of it. For me, I think I could put together a solid effort, but I never know when the game is going to start getting laggy for me. Go figure, it was right before each goal I let in last night - weird coincedence, eh? Heh...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I try not to call for a pass pretty much ever...I mean, unless I'm rushing up the same wing as the d-man who has the puck, and no defender is nearby or in the passing lane. Kind of a no-brainer there. But yeah, I've noticed the goalie keeps trying to play the puck, and it's pretty frustrating. Might as well just freeze the puck and win it back on the draw. We seem to have a pretty good FO% as a team. I think I was winning about 65% of my faceoffs, but I feel like I'm pretty lousy with my positioning as a center. Either I play responsibly defensively and I'm way behind the offensive rush, or I leave the slot wide open and our computer d-men get owned by their forwards. Plus, I'm an absolutely brutal passer, seemingly no matter how high my passing rating is (and I'm a playmaker...yeesh), so I should probably stick to the wings.

Puck movement is important, and getting it back to the point seems like a good idea seeing how aggressive the human forwards are. Whenever I try that, though, the computer d-men always seem to just give the puck right back to me, and I quickly turn it over. With the camera swiveling only when it wants to, I have a little trouble identifying where my linemates are on the ice, and when I finally see a passing lane open up, I'm about a second behind, and then it takes a split-second more in online play for the game to acknowledge that I pressed the pass button. What usually happens is I get bumped off the puck right as I start to pass. I might try using the "overhead" camera from the regular 5-on-5 games instead of the BAP camera. That might give me a better idea as to where everyone is on the ice, rather than having to guess.

Defensively, I think we should take a suggestion from the PS3 thread/strategy discussion...just a straight-up zone defense. Left wing takes the left side of the ice, gets to the point when a defenseman has it and collapses down low when it goes to a forward. Center takes the middle and the slot, right wing takes the right side. Last night, I found myself trying to cover a passing lane between the d-man (who had the puck) and forward on the right side. Then both of the other forwards came after the puck carrier over there. That could wind up being a disaster, since I would have to race over to the other side. Not like I'm chastising you guys - I'm prone to chasing the puck, too. Maybe having a set idea of what we're supposed to be doing will help.

Hmmm...what else...oh yeah, the rush. We played a game last night where I would try to rush it up the wing, only to get plastered into the boards by a really aggressive defender. I didn't really have an option to pass, aside from blindly passing it back to a defenseman and getting back onside. The flip dump never seems to work. I mentioned it, but we didn't get to try it - maybe we should try a slapshot/hard dump-in around the boards, sending two forecheckers in along the opposite side. For example, if I dump it on the right wing, if I do it right, it should come around the boards on the left side. If we time it right and can get our center and left wing over there in a hurry on the forecheck, maybe we can force a turnover and meanwhile, I would be heading to the slot looking for a pass.