Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Because they almost always took the shot instead of making a pass. This seems to be one of the most mis-understood stats out there. They were high on off the rush 'chances', but they were low on off the rush scoring. Because the mandate was to shoot the puck, or make a safe play.
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Well their rush shots to odd man rushes for ratio is pretty in-line with what they had last year which was shots per rush range, so based on the message, I don't think much changed year over year.
Plus, I don't think any here even knows what the mandate is because they're not in the strategy room. So who knows if there's even a "shoot the puck" or "make a safe play" mandate or not. Heck, Huberdeau consistently passed up on lots of quality shot opportunities all season long and when Sutter was asked about it, he said something to the affect of "go ask him."
The biggest change that I can gather based on the graphic is the number of rush scoring chances per game which basically matches the eye test. The personnel on this team is terrible at turning odd man rushes into quality scoring opportunities and that speaks to the lack of skill from this group.
But when you lose guys like Gaudreau and to a lesser extent Tkachuk in this area, you're going to see drop offs in scoring chances because those 2 just had that explosive ability to back up defenders, cut to the middle, criss-cross, toe drags, puck between the legs and etc. I mean, who on this team can do this with regularity?