Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
I love Bouma, but I can't see how having more of him helps. It's great that he hits, but it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
I'll let Dave Tippett speak for me here:
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Good lord. Do we have to go over the fundamentals of hockey?
When Bouma is healthy he gets in fast on the forecheck. He often finishes every check. What does this accomplish?
1. Getting in fast on the forecheck pressures their defensemen to move the puck early. This can result in useful events like turnovers at best. Even without causing a turnover you can disrupt their breakout and thus their offence and possession.
2. Finishing your check ensures the defensemen cannot immediately be jumping up into the play. It also punishes their defensemen. Over the course of the game it can take a toll on their body.
As they take more and more hits they are going to want to pass the puck even earlier to avoid taking hits and thus you are even more likely to force turnovers. You can literally change the way their defensemen play if you pressure them and follow it up with a physical punishment.
This becomes magnified in the playoffs where you can actually start to injure their defensemen over the course of a 7 game series and the forechecking and hitting pressure starts to change the way they play the game and break out or fail to break out.
I mean if you don't understand the value of forechecking and hitting then clearly you aren't going to like Bouma. But our management and coaches do and he remains a key and core player on our bottom two lines because of the way he consistently gets in fast on the forecheck and finishes his checks. His active stick while forechecking helps force turnovers. Bouma ranks up there with Jooris, Ferland, Frolik and Gaudreau as some of our best forecheckers. Bouma Jooris, and Ferland do it with energy, skating and hitting. Gaudreau and Frolik replace the hitting with elite anticipation.