Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
The defensive woes look to be systematic to me. It isn’t a coincidence that all defense,en make the same dumb plays all the time. Just like the stupid predictable drop pass on the PP, the defensemen looked schooled to use the against-the-grain puck movement deep in their own zone, for some unknown reason. It is predictable and it is consistent. The Flames defensemen go out of their way to work against the flow, and it results in turnovers in the defensive zone. This is systematic. This team has way too much talent and players with pure hockey sense to do this crap this consistently without it being part of the system.
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Agree 100%.
It isn't just one thing of course, but a primary reason the D gets into trouble on a regular basis is that they continually turn around and take the puck backwards. If there isn't a clear pass to a forward, they circle back and pass it back and forth with the other D, or pull it all the way back behind the net.
Sometimes that is a good play. Possession is important, and you can't survive by simply dumping it off the glass and out every time.
However, you can't circle back every time either. It puts far too much pressure on the D, and provides too much opportunity for an aggressive forecheck to wear out the D and cause turnovers.
Sometimes, glass and out is the best play.
The other thing that is frustrating the crap out of me this year is that the D aren't joining the offense. They hold it and hold it in their own zone until the forwards have stopped at centre, and then they try to fire long passes up to them.
I loved the system that Gulutzan described when they hired him (a 5-man unit that would focus on controlling both bluelines). But that is not what we are seeing on the ice. The system we are seeing, and in particular, the way the D are playing, is terrible. It doesn't utilize the talent we have, and it doesn't work.
This team has more talent than they are displaying. That's on the coaching staff IMO. Will they win some games? Of course. Will they win as many as they should? So far the answer to that is no.