I see that we give up alot of shots, and that the King has to be godlike every game for us to have a chance.
What is the difference between AV and Torts defensive system ?
And what is the other teams playing?
If someone could explain it to me with some clipboard action it would be great.
LGR.
There are various types of NHL defensive schemes, just like in the NFL (thought clearly not as many). Torts, from what I can remember, basically had us playing a box plus one, where four of the players basically park it in a square formation in from of the net, leaving one guy to pursue the puck. This clogs up the front of the net and makes it really difficult to get shots through, particularly from the point--if you'll remember, a hallmark of those Torts teams was a huge amount of blocked shots. You can also line your guys up in other way in your defensive end--a 2-3, a 2-1-2, a strong side overload, other types of passive zones, etc.
That's just the actual defensive zone. A big part of playing defense is how you defend the neutral zone. Some teams will really try to clog things up an play a 1-3-1 or even a 1-4 ("the trap," as it's known) making it really difficult for the opposition to move through the neutral zone and into your defensive end. The Devils and Lemaire popularized this, and even now you see pretty much every team implementing some form of this late in games when they have a lead. However, other teams are more aggressive--stretching into offensive philosophies here--and will have more guys forechecking and therefore less in the neutral zone. And then again, there are a whole bunch of offensive strategies as well. We like to play a quick transition, and part of that is our forwards don't come back as often and wait for the stretch pass. If it doesn't come, or is bad, we're outnumbered and in trouble.
The Rangers, however, play a pretty strict man-to-man defensive system, which is exactly like it sounds: one player on the Rangers is responsible for defending one player on the opposition. If you have a team that's strong, aware, and can really skate, this I guess could be a successful system. You beat this system by being strong, fast (notice the similarities between beating it and employing it effectively?) and making quick switches--where forwards shift spots with one another, which forces the defensemen to either switch their assignment or effectively keep up with their original man. You can also beat the system by being big and strong, as you'll win pucks in corners and along the boards and come out with it with the defender behind you.
So, you can kind of see why we've had problems with our own system. We've had guys that are strong, like Girardi, but they can't skate and easily lose their man. We've had guys like Staal, who can skate well enough and are strong enough but lack the awareness to stay with their man (or maybe lack the peripheral vision). Or you get a guy like Skjei, who in theory should be able to check all the boxes, but is still adapting to the speed of the NHL and is having problems adapting to a system that not a lot of coaches employ. The list goes on. And remember, it's not just limited to defensemen: the forwards are responsible as well and need to stick with their man. So we like to run a transition game to generate offense; it's great until we turn the puck over, then everyone has to race to identify their man and get into position, and a lot of times they can't. The result of the last two paragraphs is that we're really disorganized, we don't play a system conducive to keeping down shot totals, and our personnel isn't always a great fit.
Vastly different systems yielding vastly different results.
