Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
I just don’t think you can deny that Brodie has made several bad, bad plays/decisions that directly led to a goal.
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Every damn goal in the NHL is due to bad plays and decisions.
You wanna break down his goals against? Okay, let's do it.
Nathan MacKinnon scores on Brodie
- Monahan makes a brutally soft play on the puck leading to the puck getting in the slot, where Gaudreau fails to cover the slot. Rittich then fails to redirect the puck to the corner. Brodie then gets beat to the puck by MacKinnon who snipes the rebound into the back of the net.
It took four different guys screwing up their responsibilities, and one superstar player who has 111 points in his last 82 games, for Brodie to get scored on.
J.T. Compher scores on Brodie
- Brodie is the lone Dman back on what appeared to be a line change. The puck bounces around awkwardly near Brodie's feet and he gets a step behind the play trying to find the puck, at which point there is a breakaway. **** happens. It's not like Brodie decided to whiff on the puck.
This kind of stuff happens to all Dmen, even Giordano. If that were Hamilton last year he probably even takes a penalty on top of the shot. Not sure what there is to complain about other than ****ty luck.
Ryan Johansen scores on Brodie
Brodie is trying to break the cycle, his stick gets lodged out of his hands by Johansen's skates. Backlund gets caught on the wrong side of the puck and allows a pass through to Johansen, who takes advantage of the fraction of a second Brodie needed to pick his stick back.
If you wanna blame Brodie for dropping his stick, go for it. I just think **** happens and even then, I thought Smith should have made a save on this.
Craig Smith scores on Brodie
Valimaki makes a blind pass right to Fiala, Brodie a step late with the overload, Fiala gets the pass to Turris, Lindholm caught puck-watching, spins around and lets Turris make a perfect pass to Smith, Monahan cheating defensively at the blue line
Yes on paper Brodie is the right defenseman here and maybe could have stayed at home, but we play an aggressive style, and such a style does depend on forwards and defensemen rotating in terms of responsibilities. You can blame him if you like, it's valid especially it's an overaggressive positioning on Brodie's part, but hockey is still a team sport. Ever hear the term "on a string" regarding defensive play? Teams that are good are on a string and it's not always as straightforward or simple as defensemen being defensemen and centers being centers and wingers being wingers. But even if we blame Brodie as the defenseman, he is not singlehandedly creating the chance against. Valimaki takes half a second more with the puck to make a good play and this is probably a goal at the other end of the ice. C'est la vie. Ultimately though, like that first goal against, this was a full team breakdown. And while I would call it a great chance, I also thought Smith was a bit off positionally as a lot of today's starters would have given Smith almost nothing to shoot at.
Ultimately Brodie is on the ice for fewer chances against and goals against than a good chunk of the roster, and between Turris, RyJo, and MacKinnon you can see that he's usually up against top competition when he does get scored on. He hasn't been as good as Giordano defensively and that's not a knock on him, that's just the fact that Giordano is gosh darn amazing defensively.
The idea that a player needs to go because their mistakes end up in the back of the net is naive at best. Defensemen being more responsible doesn't always have the best results, it just seems to visually please people more. Ask the Oilers about Larsson being "responsible", it's great on paper but in execution you don't get the results.
On a side note, I think the Flames are still learning Peters' system, too, up and down the roster. We're only seven games in and usually it takes fifteen-ish.