I wonder how much of it was GG's coaching though. Last 1.5 seasons, I noticed that JG was really lazy on the backcheck and very quickly gave up if the opposition puck carrier made a turn away from him. But since JG was the leading scorer, GG seemed to let both of them run free and do whatever they wanted.
On Sunday's NYR game, I noticed Johnny actually put his body between two players. Not quite what I'd call "throwing a check", but I thought, who is this guy? I've noticed much better play-without-the-puck from him so far this season.
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