Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
Seriously, in this league today, who doesn’t dump and chase? How is any team supposed to cross through the neutral zone when it’s clogged full of bodies. The alternative would be to try to navigate through, then likely turn it over and get scored on. Then CP erupts trying to trade the guy because he’s a turnover machine.
Dump and chase has a lot to do with what the opposition gives you. It’s ultimately the safest route and what most teams attempt to do in this league. Puck gets dumped in, forecheck is activated, you try to turn pucks over and create offense from their chaos. The Flames also activate a hard forecheck when retrieving loose pucks from missed opportunities, their D-men are asked to pinch a lot which aids in the forecheck.
Watch the 1st lines highlights of this team under Ward or Peters. They have the same strategy. I’d say 60% to 70% of their even strength goals were scored on the forecheck. That was the same strategy that lead to Gaudreau and Monahan absolutely crushing their career highs.
Now if the question is whether the personnel of this team is the right mix right now, that’s a better question. But fact is, the Flames don’t have another puck hound like Elias Lindholm they can stick on a line with #13 & #23, so yes, at even strength, they’ve suffered. But Treliving has built the team this year to run Elias Lindholm down the middle, so this is the situation as it stands. Have the wingers Tre signed been successful? No they haven’t and that’s probably the better issue at hand right now.
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I agree with a lot of what you say here. Dump and chase is a valid strategy. But what I've noticed especially in the last few games is that the puck carrier will dump the puck into a corner, but no Flames will go after the puck. So we're doing the dump part, but nobody is chasing it.
It's one of my big criticisms of the Tkachuk-Backlund-Mangiapane line's play last season. For some reason, Tkachuk wasn't chasing after the puck, and Mangiapane would make an effort to get there with his speed, but either didn't get there in time or lost the puck battle.
I think they both get confused for a split second when playing together that one is supposed to be playing RW since they're both LWs. You'll see this particularly in the defensive zone when both of them end up on the same side of the ice.
But enough of that line, I see similar elements in Gaudreau's line too. I think that line needs a puck retriever that isn't afraid to throw the body a bit. Lindholm is a good example. Lucic has good board play, but he's too slow. Ferland was great at it and Hudler was able to get there quickly and pass to his teammates (because he wasn't a big body to retain the puck if it got physical).
Bennett could do that role, if he could somehow play more consistently... I haven't seen enough of Simon or Leivo to make that determination. However, Monahan and Gaudreau rarely go in to support their winger, so any winger there has to fight off the defenders on his own. I think that's why Lindholm's talents are wasted on that line, but Lindholm is the team's most effective RW for them. Lindholm's wrist shot is one of his assets, and he shouldn't be responsible for puck retrieval on his own.
If you want to see a master of puck possession play, see Craig Conroy in the later stages of his Flames career. His work using his teammates to keep the cycle going was frustrating to opponents, I'm sure. What I noticed is that those linemates didn't need to be big bruisers that stayed along the boards... Conroy somehow made it so that linemates could stay away from the boards without the puck, then pop-by for an instance to chip the puck to another teammate to continue the cycle.
Anyway, the way the Flames are currently constructed, if the players refuse to chase after pucks, then they should carry the puck into the zone in rather than play dump and chase. The coach can preach about "getting pucks deep", but if the players aren't retreiving it, then we're going to see less offensive pressure and fewer scoring chances.