Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandman
I should clarify my earlier Kylington comment- I meant that more from a Sutter perspective. I've always liked, and even defended OK's game, but I wonder if Sutter would've given him the shot if it weren't for Tanev. Tanev did for Kylington what he did for Hughes in Vancouver- he helped erase their shortcomings, giving them more freedom to do their thing.
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More like they complemented one another. Tanev is great at shot suppression and positioning, but not as good at exiting the defensive zone with possession, at getting back to break up an odd man rush, or at generating scoring chances in the offensive zone. Kylington is good at those things, all of which are greatly lacking on the Flames' current D corps. We have a great deal of difficulty exiting the D zone with possession, the high D never gets back in time to help out with odd man rushes (resulting in a much higher percentage of those opportunities scoring and hence a low SV%), and the only contribution the D are making to generating scoring chances is to make shots from the point (although a few have been sneaking into the slot as late trailers in the past few games). Our D corps are just as different without Kylington as they are without Tanev, just in another way.