Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
Well actually, Sutter’s been bemoaning about the lack of game breakers on this team which is true. In all these one goal games, someone needs to step up and make a play and it hasn’t happened all season long. So it’s a pretty fair statement especially since he’s asking for someone, not just one specific player.
Secondly, with less than one month to go on the season, the Lucic-Kadri-Huberdeau line is still easily the most productive line that Huberdeau has played on, 3 x more productive than 10-28-73 and double the beloved Pelletier-Huberdeau combo. This is just a statistical fact I’m stating at this point, Lucic has basically been Huberdeau’s most productive linemate this season, so the complaints about this can stop.
Thirdly, I’m only using Kaprizov as a comparison to style/system. Not all players suffer statistically because they’re forced to play in a stifling defense first system. Kaprizov would probably be just fine under Sutter.
As for the Lindholm thing, as already pointed out above, was not a good combo. They scored 4 goals in the roughly 12-13 games they played together, 4! He’s played with just about everyone on the team this season and that pair has been just about the worst producing combo when they’re together. Toffoli and Lindholm are way better off away from him, their styles just do not mix.
You know why Toffoli and Lindholm lead the team in scoring this season? There’s an actual reason, not just some basic because “that’s the type of player he is” or he’s an “easy guy to put in your line up.” It’s because he and Lindholm have bought into Darryl’s strategy of checking for your chances. Actually, this isn’t even a Darryl thing, every coach the Flames have had since Gulutzan have talking about this.
Regardless, if you watch Toffoli and Lindholm, they’re constantly buzzing around the ozone creating their chances off their ability to check. Even with Gaudreau and Tkachuk, everyone just remembers the fancy goals they scored. But if you watched those guys closely, they played dump and chase all the time, but they were just so good at getting in quickly on the forecheck and winning puck battles, winning 50/50s that they made it look seamless.
That’s what ultimately made that line really successful, even if Gaudreau couldn’t out right win puck battles by himself, he used his elite acceleration to quickly close gaps and delay so his linemates could jump in and out number the opposition down low. Even with the spamming of point shots, it’s the dmen that are asked to shoot, not the forwards, so they directed lots of pucks to the net. But that’s the point of checking, the ones that do it well in Darryl’s system have success.
So, the idea that they just ignored Sutter’s system is absurd. They would’ve been benched, but instead, they got lots of minutes because they were successful playing his system. Sure, their ability to create on the rush was a component that lead to them scoring 100+ points and 40 goals each, but make no mistake, their ability to check in all 3 zones made them deadly both offensively and defensively. If Huberdeau wants to ever have playoff success, then he’s going to have to learn how to play this way because there’s no time and space in the playoffs. So until he figures these different components out, then I don’t think he’s going to be a factor under Darryl or in the playoffs.
|