Doug Prishpreed
Registered User
Thanks for the great summary! Makes a lot of sense. Makes me think that Ruff probably isn't the guy for this team. What about Woodcroft?For me, Ralph's key failing was neutering his blueline. It was a directive - and he would cut ice time if they violated it - to not attack, not pinch, not leave the blueline. AND he had his defensemen playing really wide which tended to open up the most dangerous part of the ice (the middle) rather than denying it. Considering the team had assembled a group of PMD's, including a couple of guys best used as rovers in early Dahlin and Montour to completely hobble what they are good at was shocking. That's not something I see Granato doing.
Granato's defense tend to be pretty active and if anything, his forwards blowing the zone early is way more akin to what they were doing when Abysmal was their HC. Think back to the times when there are graphics of Risto, under forechecking pressure as the only skater in frame in his own zone because he was supposed to get the puck up the ice cleanly to all of the forwards. He wasn't able to because it's hard to do at the NHL level. And instead of bringing people back deeper, it was stretch-pass city. I see way too much of that out of the current Granato group as the forwards are constantly cheating for offense. The wingers don't have to come back deep and there are clearly times when they rotate who is supposed to be the defending forward when who is the hot player in that situation is confused. Two guys come back or no one comes back.
Krueger wanted to grind and chip and chase from what I remember of his offensive plan and he wanted the forwards to do that without blueline support. I'm not sure what pre-Red Kelly hockey coaching guide he got that from but it is not NHL in it's origins. Granato is much more about pressing the attack and moving the puck. What seems to have broken down is that the important area to take shots from, the "home plate" area that Marty will show in intermissions, is somewhere the players are passing or moving away from. Is that the players? Is that the coaches being unable to get through to the players to do that? I think it's a bit of both. It drives me nuts because it's another lack of basic hockey.
Rolston's teams looked like the most unprepared team until Housley took over. I didn't think anyone could have a team that under-prepared again and now we see this team not disorganized but sleeping through the opening frame over and over. I've heard players talk about how Housley's teams had something in excess of 60 breakouts for the players to memorize. And if one guy went to the wrong spot? Transition ended. I'm not seeing that exactly, but I do see blueline hanging and a lack of commitment to be on the right side of the puck. And there are people who will say that being on the right side of the puck does inhibit scoring somehow. I would point out that Tampa is on the right side of the puck. Florida is on the right side of the puck. The Colorado Avalanche are playing on the right side of the puck. It can be done, but hey, it requires WORK and perhaps discomfort or even PAIN to make the right play and this team is not held to that standard.
Don's gotten results out of a bunch of guys who were crushed in their development, including one they just traded. But they don't need that now, they need to bring out things that are missing and still missing and that is going to require someone who DEMANDS they play the right way and enough players willing to do so to pull the rest into that stylistically.
I definitely have noted before around here that they look like they're being coached by Bylsma at times, but even Byslma had them clicking on the PP, it looked less chaotic.
