Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Yes, the transitional play has been much better this year. And I think there are a bunch of reasons for that :
1) Giordano plays more 'up' with Brodie as his partner.
2) Brodie is more effective, and a better passer, on the right side
3) Hamonic is contributing and transitioning more this year
4) Hanifin's first pass is very good
5) Andersson gets it up ice quickly
6) so does Valimaki
The D, as a group, are better transitionally than the group last year.
Plus, Peters has them playing a much more up-tempo game than the D-to-D garbage we watched last year.
So many good things going on, and lots of reasons why the offense is up. I think it is misleading to just dismiss the D from that, because they are contributing to it in several ways.
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All I'd add to that is Peters gap management system. The D play tighter to the forwards which helps in pinning the opposition in their own zone, or forcing them to dump it out which quickly transitions into bringing it back in.
Early in the season this also resulted in a lot of odd man rushes against and high quality scoring chances. That seems to have been alleviated in the last 5 games with better reads, and the forwards playing a more responsible F3 aware game.