Quote:
Originally Posted by Kovaz
The criticism is relying on it too much.
It reliably allows us to exit our zone and enter their zone even against a good defensive team. It generates a fair bit of zone time and shot volume and cuts down on turnover.
BUT
It also means we struggle to counterattack quickly, allowing the other team time to set up defensively. So we're attacking against 5 defenders who are where they want to be, and as a result we struggle to generate open high-danger shots.
The way we play is a good baseline that's reasonably effective against most things other teams can throw at us. But we sacrifice opportunities at fast counterattacks that sometimes create a great scoring chance and instead choose to turn back, get set up, and move as a unit for a safer, guaranteed zone entry and some lower-danger shots.
I agree that we're not a fast team - that's why I think we need to do a better job giving ourselves a head start. Moving the puck quickly to a player that's already in stride can create the speed we lack, instead of waiting to get set up and accelerating from a standstill.
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But this is all read and react, our defensemen aren’t being coached to not find forwards in stride and etc. Our players defend and create a turnover, then they attempt to counter in transition. That’s how it goes.
The 1st line scores the majority of their points on the rush and in transition, they’ve mastered this. Problem is, we don’t have the proper personnel from the other 3 lines to countrr attack the same way. This is just a skill and talent difference.
It just seems very strange to me that everyone rags on the system but then you have 1 line that bucks the trend. Like someone explain to me why Gulutzan gives the 1st line total atonomy and then puts the chains on everyone else?