Dream Big
Registered User
Are the Caps line changes as crisp as they usually are?
How much do laggers on the change affect play?
How much do laggers on the change affect play?
to be play the trotz style we need to be perfect and that aren't happing against good and/or speedy teams.
meantime, pits with a lucky goal. why can't we get lucky goals? coz we are sloooow
I find it kind of hard to care about hockey right now, but it seems like part of the issue was not being able to generate offense from the backend tonight. Alzner and Niskanen are just not good enough in transition compared to guys like Burns, Letang, Hedman, etc. If that is the top pairing, they need more offensively.
please. Alzner and Niskanen? Where is yer boy Orlov? 2pts this season. 0 goals. Where is Kuzy? 1 goal.
Alzner and Niskanen?
Alzner/Niskanen is just not a cup contending top pairing. You need a Doughty/Keith/Hedman/Letang/Burns type offensive dynamo. They're an ace defensive 2nd pairing that is solid in transition in the vein of Vlasic-Braun but that's not enough when you simply need to outscore high end teams.
Carlson is the closest we have to that level of defenseman. We should cast our lot with Alzner-Carlson as the top 25 minite pairing and then figure out the best combination of Orpik/Schmidt/Orlov/Niskanen assuming we're not bringing in anyone else. Orlov-Niskanen looks like it would fit together better than Orlov-Carlson. It would be pretty similar to Dumolin-Daley (Niskanen=Dumolin and Orlov=Daley stylistically)
Meanwhile Orlov is getting pp time and not doing anything with it and his es scoring has been almost nil. He really needs to step it up.
Alzner and Niskanen are a shut down pair. Not a top pair. Alzner got burned by the deflection that he played pretty well from the replays I saw.
Carlson is a true #1 but is apparently slowed by an injury right now. I would let that play out.
Meanwhile Orlov is getting pp time and not doing anything with it and his es scoring has been almost nil. He really needs to step it up.
Alzner got burned by an unlucky break last night, and while in isolation it's a bad break you tend to get bad breaks against you when you're buried in your own zone. Unfortunately, Alzner has been the worst on the team at even strength in terms of shot attempt %, scoring chance %, and expected goal % and it's not even close:.
I scanned the site rules and didn't see any arbitrary threshold for post quantity or "freshness" for types of threads. If you don't find them worthwhile, there is an easy solution....3 pages of gdt? can we stop with the gdt's? they are past their freshness date.
and....kuzy? burt? orlov? offense?
That entirely depends on what assignment you have in mind for Alzner-Carlson.
Alzner is the d you want against the opposing first line. That will by its definition force Carlson to be more defensive. He is the team's best offense producing defenseman.
The reason to have him on a non-shut down pair is to get him on the ice with offensive players in offensive situations. zone starts as a for instance. On the shutdown pair he gets more d zone starts and another pair gets to offensive zone starts.
I don't want to rely on Orlov for that. So far against better competition in the top 4 he is doing next to nothing(1 esp is as close to nothing as you can get)
My view is that Alzner and Niskanen are the best shutdown pair. I would put them on the oppo first line and the d zone starts. I would put Orpik back with Carlson for attack situations. I would put Orlov and Schmidt back together for a high minutes 3rd pair.
I am fine keeping it the way it is until Carlson gets back to 100% and give Orlov plenty of time to get his game going.
I scanned the site rules and didn't see any arbitrary threshold for post quantity or "freshness" for types of threads. If you don't find them worthwhile, there is an easy solution....
Orlov and Niskanen would be the #1 pairing..