Already we see clamoring for Wally over Fasching. It's pretty simple. Fasching is a net nothing and Wally is a net negative. Dude has bad hockey sense and is terrible without the puck in all three zones. The "ceiling" for Wally is only higher when you look at offense. We care about wins. For now, give me the dude who played net positive hockey in the playoffs until he loses his spot.
In the last 20 years of watching this team, how many times have I said to myself that the 2nd line is better than the 1st line? It has be the majority. Barzal and Horvat looked fine, but man is that some Islander fan Stockholm Syndrome. The fact that Horvat went from a 50-goal pace to a 2-goal pace the second he donned blue and orange aside, we need them to be dominant. When I'm looking for a goal, I'm looking to the Nelson line, like I have for the vast majority of Nelson's career here (usually because Tavares had some revolving door of whatever on his wing just like Barzal does). Hmmm...
That really is the ticket to us doing well this year. A one-two punch of scoring threat from the top two lines, net nothing from the 3rd line (i.e., shut down), and the 4th line doing their thing. That's my fun-loving October outlook. Somewhere in the middle of the winter once Clutterbuck gets hurt, Horvat has 1 goal, and the PP is 32nd in the league, and we'll know why we're a middling wildcard team at best.
I'm piling on Horvat a little when I think his game was fine. But we got him to be better than fine. There's something about this team that we grab a player that was scoring like that, and then he doesn't add that scoring to the team and elevate our offense. Instead, we bring his offense down to Islander levels. What is that? It's systemic and regime agnostic. Oh well, it's game 1 -- hopefully this year is different, but I see a lot of gold-ribbon-for-participation celebration for Horvat generating shots (and the nice no look pass from Barzal). I still like him as a player. He's a good leader, and we've created a team of a lot of leaders. The problem I'm seeing is we bring in scoring leaders that turn into just leaders and well, someone needs to score. If this team wants to "score by committee", the rallying cry of teams without any superstar scorers, we're not going far because the league has changed. 3rd and 4th lines are good and can add "scoring by committee" across the league, but that's in addition to their offensive superstars.
The PP sucks. A lot. Again. We have two elite entry players too. But we have no QB. We have nobody who can create any space that leads to offense. Barzal can create space for himself all day, curling along the half wall, but generating that towards the net is another story. And no other player can make a subtle play to break down the defense and create time and space. They're statues in their spots on the ice and they only look to triangle pass around people instead of making a move to open space and creating new angles. On one of the PPs yesterday, they were statue-passing back and forth with the 3 high guys on perimeter of the umbrella, essentially generating nothing, and then one of those passes got intercepted. Can't even pass it along the outside of the perimeter, a clear 3-on-1 or 3-on-2 advantage, without it being telegraphed because we're passing people into corners with only one other option to pass to and no creative ability to create more space. That's garbage. The worst PPs in the league pass along the perimeter (what the defense gives you) and does nothing else with their set up. We can't even do that.
Lastly, I just don't get Lambert. Wasn't he a Trotz disciple? The way I see it is, ever since Tavares departed, this team's core, offensive ability, speed, and talent level has been pretty much the same. Maybe speeds a bit worse with the loss of Leddy and Toews. But my point is there are no superstars, we don't have the horses to run and gun you to death, and we certainly can't play an up tempo game. Trotz saw this and committed us to structure, defense, and opportunistic scoring -- basically what this roster needs to compete. And we made two ECFs in a row. Trotz leaves, Lambert gets promoted, we abandon that defensive structure that defined us, and we suck again. What am I missing? I get theoretically trading some defense for offense, especially if the league is shifting that way, but the results aren't there with this personnel. Either get different players (impossible for this franchise outside of the draft) or change the style. The Tampa Bay Rays can't structure their team the same way the Yankees do.