If our powerplay ever falters, I nominate Gaskal for special teams coach.
If our pp falters tonight i blame Gaskal! You know Torts is on here reading right now right? I think his user name is Hartleyhater. or Morningwood. Great name!
Last edited by Johnny Makarov; 11-22-2017 at 01:27 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to Johnny Makarov For This Useful Post:
One thing I’ve noticed watching past CBJ games is how frigging active Atkinson’s stick is during PKing. He waves it around like mad. Will be interesting to see how effective it is today
Thanks for the great feedback guys, and yes I've often entertained the thought of being a youth coach later in life, peewee maybe. Read the Screech Owls series too many times.
The only other thing I noticed from video (I'll spoiler from now on for easier quoting):
The Jackets are really bad at dealing with speed through the neutral zone and on the transition.
Spoiler!
For some reason the Blue Jackets just don’t handle this very well. They seem confounded often when speedy opposing forwards are blasting through the neutral zone at full stride. Most of the time they just back all the way up and forfeit the blueline entirely, leading to easy zone entries. Fortunately for them, Bobrovsky is playing godlike and stops most of the high danger chances off the rush.
They only have two decent skating defencemen in Ryan Murray and Jack Johnson, so perhaps that has a lot to do with it. Carlsson in particular seems to be victimized a lot, he moves like he’s strapped speed-skates on. Nutivaara doesn’t follow transitions well either. Even though Murray is a decent skater, look at the ridiculous gap that Gallagher’s speed affords him.
In this play, Vesey actually capitalizes on a Jackets forward change - instead of dishing it off, he builds up speed, charges with the puck from all the way back at his goal line and carries it end-to-end for a shot on Bobrovsky. Again, Carlsson is victimized.
Often the defencemen get no help in the neutral zone because the forwards pressure early at the opposing blueline to hold the zone (as Milano and Schroeder successfully did here). But if the Flames can beat that forecheck, then they should be able to make zone entries with ease using their fast skaters.
__________________
Until the Flames make the Western Finals again, this signature shall remain frozen.
The Following 23 Users Say Thank You to Gaskal For This Useful Post:
I wish CP was 80% more these type of insightful posts and 80% less Backlunds socks repetitive garbage.
The moderators should create a daily thread for Gaskal and CP's other all-star contributors. It's a pain in the ass wading through the garbage, looking for these great insights.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to fotiou22 For This Useful Post:
The Flames have the ability to expose the Blue Jacket's penalty kill, which has some weird aversion to the 1-3-1 but is effective against Overload and Spread formations. Here is a look at how two other teams use the 1-3-1 to their advantage against the Jackets.
The Blue Jackets have a predictable M.O. when it comes to the penalty kill - “Tight Point then Protect Net”. This is the only thing for the Flames to beware of. The forwards are extremely aggressive right off the o-zone faceoff and in the neutral zone breakout. This is done in the hopes of getting a quick clear before the opposing PPs are able to get in formation, which can punish hesitant PP dmen. The PK forwards here, Dubinsky and Atkinson battle and are able to force a turnover from Scandella, leading to a shorthanded 100 ft breakaway.
Once the 1-3-1 is actually set up though, the PP is relatively safe. The two respond by playing far more passive, as they don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the puck. The 1-3-1 is set up to give its beneficiaries more space and options against aggressive forecheckers - each person has one good setup option, if not two. Note the "slot guy" Kane, where we put Mony, opting to attack the net as a screen rather than find space to recieve a pass.
Once the two tire themselves out and start backing up towards the net, all they end up doing is screening Bobrovsky. Shattenkirk was delighted to take advantage of this below, since there were 4 players blocking Bobrovsky’s view. If he didn’t feel like a shot was the right play, Zibanejad had a good lane as well and all the time in the world. But Bobrovsky was so screened that I don’t think even Krieder, the guy with his butt in Bob’s face, saw it.
So the Flames can just tire Atkinson/Dubinsky out with passing, then sit back and run their PP as normal… but as Eichel figured out here off the faceoff, if you’re able to bait them towards you then it’s easily exploitable for a 10-bell chance. I'm hoping Jagr or Johnny can do the same.
__________________ GO FLAMES GO!
The Following 42 Users Say Thank You to joejoe3 For This Useful Post:
Interesting posts Gaskal.......any chance you could look at our PK? That’s where we really need the help. And it would actually be interesting to see a deep dive analysis on what is and isn’t working there.
Often the defencemen get no help in the neutral zone because the forwards pressure early at the opposing blueline to hold the zone (as Milano and Schroeder successfully did here). But if the Flames can beat that forecheck, then they should be able to make zone entries with ease using their fast skaters.
This one is a bit worrisome as our defence/breakout strategy doesn't do very good under a high pressure forecheck. All too often they just default to ripping it up the boards which generally leads to an icing, a giveaway, or a sloppy (at best) break out that we can't build speed off of.
This one is a bit worrisome as our defence/breakout strategy doesn't do very good under a high pressure forecheck. All too often they just default to ripping it up the boards which generally leads to an icing, a giveaway, or a sloppy (at best) break out that we can't build speed off of.
The forwards (especially the C and near side W) have to help out.
The moderators should create a daily thread for Gaskal and CP's other all-star contributors. It's a pain in the ass wading through the garbage, looking for these great insights.
Do you consider yourself part of this elite group of "all-stars"?
Well our breakouts have to improve and I think the whole league knows exactly what we do and how we do it by now.
The defence and system the BJ's use isn't perfect either and we just need to get it deep, keep it deep and put 1 body in front with all the BJ's d men who love screening their own goalie.
It sounds cliche but we can still improve on our skating and taking lazy penalties by moving our feet and staying out of penalty box.
We're our own worst enemies at times and it's the same old offenders every time.
Hopefully we can get a lead and support Smith instead of leaving him to bail us out again tonight......man Smith is just so damn impressive.
Let's get the win and start separating ourselves from the rest of the division.
My birthday was yesterday. Hoping for a Blue Jackets 1 - 7 Flames score.
__________________
"This has been TheScorpion's shtick for years. All these hot takes, clickbait nonsense just to feed his social media algorithms." –Tuco
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to TheScorpion For This Useful Post:
