One thing I've noticed early in the season is the lack of up ice pressure from the forwards while the other team is in transition. I know it's early and I could have a weird memory bias.
The top line last year would feast on teams' transition at their own blue line or on the neutral zone. Gaudreau and Lindholm were excellent at it and Tkachuk was no slouch either. I think that prowess greatly helped their posession metrics as well. I seem to remember that they weren't as elite as we would like to believe at their D zone starts.
I haven't seen much of that at all this year. That up ice pressure to cause turnovers. Could be a personnel thing or a speed thing or maybe even a system adjustment.
Anyway that's just my eye test, I'm sure they're ate some stats out there to clarify or refute my memory.
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