Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
The PP was the one area that I thought Huberdeau would be able to transfer over from Florida. I remember expecting to see a drastic dip in his 5 on 5 production, but figured he’d be at least relatively dangerous on the man advantage, mainly due to him playing the exact same system and same role he was use to.
From what I remember seeing of him in Florida, he mostly played on the left flank which is basically where he’s situated most of the time now. If I had to guess, I think his lack of production stems from this team’s inability to gain the zone.
Barkov was excellent in gaining the zone efficiently with possession which allowed his unit to set up quickly and not waste any precious seconds, that theoretically equates to more goals. You can’t say that with the team right now who burn half their PP just trying to set up.
I also don’t like how often he misses the net, that needs to be rectified at some point. He’s always trying to pick the corner when in reality, he just needs to the hit the net for a chance to score which can also create havoc from rebounds, tips and etc. The team really just needs a viable shooting threat on the flanks to gain the opposition’s respect.
That in theory should open things up if the defense cheats less. Right now they just give him the shot and take away all his passing lanes. When’s the last time we’ve seen him execute a cross seam pass? Never. That’s why he needs to shoot more and hit the net, because then lanes opens up and the cross seam one timer to Lindholm becomes an option which is something that I noticed worked in Florida with Barkov.
This is something that I remember seeing Gaudreau working on. We all know he didn’t have a great shot, but he still shot it a lot just to keep defenders honest. Then he could fake the shot and make that cross seam pass to Lindholm. That’s the key to a successful powerplay IMO, create threats, make defenders cheat and then punish them by taking the open ice. I thought Tkachuk was awesome at this and from the looks of it, has continued to flourish on the PP with the Panthers.
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This all makes sense, and really the onus is on the player to be more aggressive and multi-dimensional to keep defenders honest like you say. These are things he can totally control, whereas the zone entries and finishing are not and are definitely an issue for the Flames.
I'm not sure what the answer is as even if he was useless as he has been at 5-5 as a Flame, you could live with it somewhat if he were at least contributing to a top 10 PP. Where are any of the sick dangles and seeing eye passes that a $10M dollar player should be producing?