[thymebalm]

I did see a lot of defenders left to their own devices last night as the rest of the squad had fully broken out while they were still at the goal line. Wideman was forced to cough up the puck a couple of times, even Gio/Brodie because of it. Chicago uses the defensive slot to break out. It's a bad place to mess up, but when the opposition clogs up the boards, sometimes the best play is just a short pass to the center of the ice. From there all options are available. Only problem is if you miss your guy, you feed the opposition the puck in a scoring area..

I don't think breakouts are the problem as much as break-ins. You HAVE to win that first puck battle on a dump in, too often they don't have that killer instinct once they dump it in. Glencross has been particularly bad at not winning the one-on-one zone entry battles, but it permeates most of the forward line up. Gaudreau hasn't had much success retrieving the puck, and others get beat in the foot race.

Puck possession is the obvious preference. You lose possession every time you dump it in. The best teams just don't give up the puck at all..

Is it Hartley's fault? Maybe.. I tend to agree that his work ethic is a far bigger strength than his line matching and systems.

The passing in general needs a tune up, whether it's breaking in or out, there isn't enough continuous possession because of bad passing or bad receiving of passes.

We will see how they adjust as the first 10-20 games are played. The sample size is pretty small right now, with mixed results..

Obviously Gio/Brodie are making a few crisp passes as they keep showing up on the score sheet...

More observations and ideas than anything concrete.