Quote:
Originally Posted by djsFlames
Hall - Lindholm - Monahan next season would be an intriguing experiment. No more leaning on Gaudreau, your center is better at carrying the puck up ice, all three can shoot, and you can still use Monahan for faceoffs.
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I’ll never understand this line of thinking that Gaudreau somehow holds Monahan back from carrying the puck up the ice. Don’t you think that if Monahan could do it, he would’ve shown in 500+ games?
I watch for this pretty closely for all Flames centers as zone exits are extremely important IMO and here’s what I generally see from Monahan. When he does carry the puck up the middle, he’s usually trying to get rid of it pretty quick. He’ll either dump in which I’m not a fan of because his skating isn’t a strong point so his forecheck is pretty ineffective.
Otherwise, he’ll usually fire a low percentage long range wrist shot on goal as he doesn’t have the dynamic ability to deke through his opponent. One thing that bothers me most is he doesn’t use his size to hold onto pucks like ala Kopitar or Draisaitl can. He’s as big as these guys, but he doesn’t lean on the defender like he should.
He’d be so much more effective if he had this element in his game. For the most part, he defers to Gaudreau because he doesn’t have this in his game. Maybe Hall can do what Gaudreau does, but the potential for that line to look exactly as we’ve seen it over this era is pretty darn high.
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