Langway
In den Wolken
- Jul 7, 2006
- 32,433
- 9,151
It would be something of a cop out if he did because his job as a teacher is to essentially groom their habits. The more worrying thing to me was after Game 2 when he said he can't really tell players to shoot in certain situations because that wasn't his mentality as a player either. If he can't polish their instincts with the puck then I can't really expect much of any progress unless by some miracle McPhee happens to put together a strong defense for once. This year's 4-6D group sure as hell ain't it.He's not going to come out and say he wishes he had a team with more hockey sense.
They've had a lot of system/defensive play drilled into them over the past two years to the point where they really need to get back to fundamentals with the puck and offensively in general. So much of their success this season was predicated on the opposition just not pressuring them all that much and them winning races to pucks all over the ice. Once everything becomes more contested they haven't displayed the necessary sort of structure and crispness.
The biggest weapon, the PP, has been largely negated and at no point late in the past two games down a goal did it seem like they were capable of slowing down the moment. Ward's individual play was about it in terms of creating something. They still may take the series but their game under duress is pretty terrible.