When you listen to coaches talk about how they want to play, they all say largely the same things: attack fast, hard on the puck, protect the middle of the ice, limit turnovers, etc. But at the end of the day you can't be good at everything all of the time. When I hear Sutter talk about "style", to me, that's about which attributes you focus on. When you have to choose between two good things, and you can only pick one, your choice determines your style of play. For example:
Counterattacking with speed, entering the zone with possession, limiting turnovers. If you're lucky, you can pick two of them. This may be my imperfect memory, but I recall Ward talking a lot about turnovers in various interviews. And from my eye test (whether this was Ward or the players, who knows), we really tried to enter the zone with possession. So the result: we have a slow counterattack. Now Sutter comes in, and from what I've seen he's emphasizing attacking with speed and limiting turnovers. So with Sutter, now we're dumping the puck a lot more. I'm sure it's the same system, in terms of the X's and O's drawn on the whiteboard, but the play looks so different with a shift in priorities like that.
|