Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaskal
NSFW!
One thing that I find Gulutzan having issues with is trying to force the breakout when teams have it figured out, and not having a real answer when that very same breakout is used against us.
Here it is in basic form. The breakout itself is a good one (just used ad nauseum sometimes) that when executed properly, traps two forecheckers deep in your zone while exiting the zone with speed, the center charging straight out and the far-side winger cutting towards the middle, both at full stride. The speed through the neutral zone often leads to scoring chances off the rush.
Here is what it looks like live (when it works well)
Babcock actually busted it out against us as well. It works great if the forecheckers bearing down forget which lanes they're supposed to cover. Look at the positioning of our 4th line forwards as opposed to the organized counter-strategy of Tortorella's below. Marner here was under no significant pressure and was able to dish to Bozak, who is off to the races with Hyman. Smith had to make an insane save on Marner here as a result of the forecheckers being a full second behind the play mentally.
However, as we saw vs Columbus, they had a very set plan in place to counter this with their forecheck. Foligno here forces Brodie behind the net to make that set play. As soon as he does this, Foligno's teammates Bjorkstrand and Milano are ready to neutralize the strong side winger. Bjorkstrand takes away the passing lane to Jankowski while Milano rides Bennett into the boards. Sam tries to make the safe play of chipping it out to the neutral zone but is stopped by Jones at the blueline. Janko loses his guy trying to pressure him and Bjorkstrand ends up getting a solid scoring chance on net, forcing Smith to make a good save.
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IMO, there are two issues here. One is that the initial D is taking way too long with that first pass and the other team has time to anticipate (like in the Columbus example). The second is that, even in this basic system, there's nothing wrong with another option if the play isn't there. The D can take a few steps to make the pass easier, or change the side of exit. In that example Hamonic is open - Brodie could give him the puck and exit the Jagr side (and he's probably a better guy to make the first zone exit pass anyway - he's not flying up the ice). But he got tunnel vision.
The practice that they had today where they apparently drilled hard might help the first - get the play going quicker - be automatic and on the tape with the passes. It won't help the latter unless they start to practice the secondary options.