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Originally Posted by sureLoss
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I really liked this tidbit from the above quote:
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But Pascall said both coaches, Huska and Bob Hartley, want to give players room to be creative, not stuck in one spot when his style and skill could put him in another.
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It is my personal observation that Mike Keenan really didn't employ systems much, and just allowed the team to be creative. Came at a very big cost defensively (which is part of the reason he was let go, and Darryl overreacted and made the team too defensive the next year).
Brent Sutter seemed like a guy who was overly-structured. It seemed that he forced guys to dump it into the corner and start cycling, even if they carried the puck over into the offensive zone. I remember seeing both Jokinen carry the puck in, and blindly throwing it into the corner, and thinking: "Why didn't he drive to the net? He had a clear lane!". I saw Backlund do this as well numerous times. Defensively, Sutter forced everything to come out of the zone along the boards (which other teams picked up on, and often waited for it seems).
I really love Hartley's system because it isn't very offensively structured, but it is offensively focused. Players seem to have a lot of liberty in the offensive zone, and I think you are starting to see more structured offensive plays - especially off of the offensive faceoffs. Defensively, Hartley also gave the green light to get the puck out through the middle of the ice, which seems dangerous, but when you are icing a very small team it is probably not helping much going up the boards either, and then having to collapse down low as the opposing team regains possession.
Hartley's liberties comes with a bit of a price to the players, however - you better skate very, very hard to come back and help break up plays, so you better be extremely fit. His system requires continual hard skating.
I think his system is probably a lot more 'fun' to play in, but still reasonably defensively. I think it is easier to keep the players skating hard when they are allowed to be creative out there, while Hartley keeps pressing them to skate hard to cover-up for one another and the inevitable mistakes a system like can cause.
I think the overall product becomes something that is fun to watch, and I think we were all pleasantly surprised (as was the rest of the league) with the overall quality of play and entertainment value. I think if they play this way in Glen Falls, the fans will really love the team, especially with how many creative kids are on that team right now. I think it will help keep them developing offensively as well. Really glad they are essentially duplicating Calgary's system.