Brodie was far, far more important than many gave him credit for. What we saw without Brodie was a defense that was short on time, uncomfortable with possession, and beaten by the fleet of foot.
Brodie's one of the only guys in the league who can skate with McDavid, and never got enough credit for doing so here. He stops a lot of things before they start.
And yeah, Monahan scoring every time a puck was flipped his way. You turn that tap off, and what remains is a very moderate centerman (although his faceoff numbers continue to improve). He plays with no physicality, no presence in the D zone, no one fears him in any way except his uncanny ability to find a 1/2 inch of open ice and score from it, but that really went away this year.
This team needs a monster center to do any damage in the playoffs. And the defense has to be better at leaving the zone with control. The Flames were slow and played a chip-and-hope sort of game last year, very little tape-to-tape neutral zone play. And you watch a team like the leafs who leave their zone seemingly effortlessly (goddam Brodie again!) and play so fast doing so... it's a world of difference.
I think Gaudreau and Monahan went from playing with a guy like Hudler, who'd been there, done that, was a legit talent, to having to do a lot of heavy lifting alone, and the league kinda figured them out. And nothing's changed since in either of their games (exception being faceoff work for Monahan).
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