Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Some thoughts while watching what was a pretty good game last night...
3) WAY too many times the D gives up the offensive blueline. Drives me insane. Over and over, the D just backs up and gives the other team 100 feet of ice. On one occasion, there was a battle for the puck at the offensive blueline (by the winger). The Sharks got the puck and moved it up to the lead forward at centre ice. Did our D pressure him? Nope. Both D were already behind the Flames blueline, at least 30 feet from the lead forward. Needless to say, he simply skated into the zone with the puck, unmarked, and it led to a full shift in the Flames' zone. I lost 2 years of my life watching that.
|
I honestly thought they were doing a good job of pressure in November and the goals-for were an indication of that. The turn around in my eyes is that since the Edmonton game the defense has gotten gun-shy. There were a lot of bad turnovers at the offensive blueline that led to breakaways in both the Edmonton and Toronto games, Brodie's major gaffe sticks out in my mind.
It was a bad call at the time but instead of learning from it and adjusting slightly, they have gone fully the other way and no longer pressure but back-off immediately. I don't know if that's a coaching decision or if the players are now afraid to pressure. Either way it has led to a lack of offensive zone pressure time and easy giving up the defensive zone.
__________________
@PR_NHL
The @NHLFlames are the first team to feature four players each with 50+ points within their first 45 games of a season since the Penguins in 1995-96 (Ron Francis, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Tomas Sandstrom).
Fuzz - "He didn't speak to the media before the election, either."
|