Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
Even if this was the case, then Treliving dropped the ball on the execution side of things. His philosophy is built around the net out and defensemen contributing greatly to the offense. That’s why he chased these 2 positions year after year, trading big pieces, arguably mortgaging the future to nab those franchise defensemen or stop gap goaltenders.
I’m not sure he put the same effort into trying to solve the problem at center. I would ask Treliving this question: if he expects the defense to be very active and constantly join the rush, how can that be accomplished when your best playmakers and primary puck distributors are your wingers and they’re usually so far up on the play that the defensemen can’t join in on the rush because they’re still heading up the ice?
That’s why your center has to be the driver. They’re the glue that can control the pace of play, navigate through forechecks and backchecks, identify where the pressures points are and allow the defensemen enough time to head up ice and join the attack. Tre’s philosophy is flawed and that’s the biggest reason why I think his vision failed. It was never about finding the right goaltender, or the right defenseman or to a lesser extent, the right wingers, it was about finding the right centers and he ignored this position for too long and now it’s too late to pivot. Too many holes and the foundation has collapsed.
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I don’t know that he ignored the centre issue, though it’s huge, like you say. IMO Lindholm was an attempt to deal with it. But the Neal failure put him on RW. And I don’t know that there were any opportunities to corral a better C than Lindholm ever. What better Cs have moved? Tavares (no shot), then nothing until PLD this year.