Looking back on the stretch of games from the point where Bowman departed, the Attack held leads in every single game, except the last one against London, the 1-0 loss.
Many of these games , the Attack lead by two or even 3 goals, and in all but one game, the collapse happened in disastrous fashion, with the team surrendering three and four goals in a row.
So my opinion is not a lack of scoring, period, from anywhere in the lineup.
The deficiency is the inability to protect a lead.
In five of those games, the team scored four or five goals, and won once.
In the other five games, they scored three or less and won once.
As far as lack of secondary scoring in the slump, primary scorers-Suzuki, Gadjovich, Sushko, Dudas and Zippy (Who's been playing first line for a few weeks ), have scored 16 times. Durzi added two.
Secondary scorers- Campbell, Friend, Groulx, Struthers, Russell, Laczyrchuk (one could argue he SHOULD be a primary scorer), Phillips have added 9 more.
I'm not sure what percentage of primary vs secondary scoring one should reasonable expect, but I'd suggest this mix is about what it should be.
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate your thoughts.
Sounds like you're looking at games since the Windsor/Michigan road trip (Bowman left the team when they got back to OS). Just curious, but what about the dropoff from the 6-1-0-2 start (14 out of 18 points) to the month of 0.500 hockey? Would you say the reason for that decline is also due to an inability to protect a lead? Something else?
Based on the games since Bowman left the team, beginning Nov. 22 vs. Niagara up to the Christmas break, the team played 11 games. The numbers you cited from primary/secondary scorers is 27 goals total over that period, which works out to 2.45 goals/game. IMO, that's not enough scoring to win games. FWIW, Helvig is leading the OHL in GAA with a 2.42 right now...which is basically identical to the combined primary+secondary scoring over the stretch that you've talked about.
As for the proportion of goals scored by primary vs. secondary scorers...you raise a great point, I've never heard before what a 'good' or 'reasonable' expectation is for this. Over the period you're looking at, you cited 6 primary scorers who scored 18 goals and 7 secondary scorers who scored 9 goals. That's exactly a 2:1 ratio, which I personally think leans a bit too heavily on the primary side. If you consider that the 'primary' scorers represent a relatively small contingent of a team, and that the 'secondary' scorers (and some would even say there's 'tertiary' scoring) make up a larger pool of players per team, then the proportion, IMO, should ideally be closer to equal (I'm NOT saying it should be equal, just closer to equal). FWIW, I recall off hand last spring that Erie seemed to be getting consistent contribution from Foegele, Maksimovich, and Lodnia.
Looking at the secondary forward players' individual numbers (not meaning to be critical of the players, just looking at the numbers):
- Lazer had 5 goals in his first 8 games; 1 goal in past 16 (note his good start and the 6-1-0-2 team start)
- Struthers had 5 goals in his frist 8 games; 3 goals in past 22 games (note his good start and the 6-1-0-2 team start).
- Roberts had 2 goals in his first 4 games; 1 goal in past 19 before injury (note his good start and the 6-1-0-2 team start).
- Campbell with 3 goals on the year in 33 games.
- Russell with 1 goal on the year in 27 games.
- Zippy with 5 goals on the year in 32 games (I know you put him in the primary group, but IMO the secondary group is a better fit).
I've pointed out a few times before that the team has progressively declined in the W column over the course of the season (6-1-0-2 start, then a month of .500 hockey, now a 1 W in 11 game skid). I crunched some numbers on the goal scoring over these 3 stretches (I took out EN and SO goals scored)...
6-1-0-2 start (Sep. 23 - Oct. 15)
9 games
48 goals scored
5.33 goals/game
Month of 0.500 hockey (Oct. 21 - Nov. 22)
13 games
47 goals scored
3.62 goals/game
1 W in 11 games (Nov. 24 - Present)
11 games
32 goals scored
2.91 goals/game
So, the correlation between decline in W's and decline in overall scoring seems clear enough. Especially since there has never been a decline in goaltending numbers over the season; for example, one can't point to a decline in goaltending as the reason why the good 6-1-0-2 start came to an end.
You raise a good point about the inability to protect a lead. I don't think the gameplan was ever to keep the puck out of the net. Going back even to last offseason, the team acquired a career 3.50+ GAA goalie to backstop the team on a supposed deep playoff run (I don't recall what his career GAA was prior to this season, but I'm pretty sure it was between 3.50 and 4.00). Furthermore, reportedly the new #1 had not played since December of last season due to injury. Add to that the lack of a top-end shutdown D-man or two, and I think its clear the strategy was to rely on all the returning players and depth at the F position to beat teams 5-4, 6-5, etc. The team is not built to keep pucks out of the net, its built to play puck possession hockey and run up the score. As the scoring has declined, the W's have stopped coming. This is why I see the scoring as the biggest issue. Its the team's biggest strength and the team has been increasingly unable to leverage the strength into W's.
I have also said before that I think the scoring issue is also fundamentally a coaching issue, as other teams have figured out how to contain the team's offence we have not had much of a response (increasing lack of quality scoring chances, majority of shots coming from the perimeter, etc). I'm wondering whether your point about being unable to protect a lead could also be related to coaching? If so, its possible we could both be talking about essentially the same thing!
