When Salmo came to the Finnish national team he said it's clad to play hockey again...it wasn't in Chicago that way, just dump the puck and skate after it was his words. Hmmm. (But it's words from a european player)
And your ex coach Alpo Suhonen have said that Blackhawks are staying too much in the "old way". Where's the problem or are they wrong or just european?
lol. it is certainly not because he is european.
but if you want to discuss the differences in the hockey between europe and NHL we can. the rink is smaller in the NHL, so there are more defenders on you when you try to carry the puck into the zone.
the ability to hold on to it is not all skill. Havlat is skilled, but he looses it all the time carrying it in. It could be him, it could be that teamates aren't getting open quick enough for him to get rid of it before it is taken away. Regardless, the Hawks failed at it. They also failed at dumping it in.
My point is simple, while you may have a preference to the type of system used, they both work. I really like it when we carry it in successfully and setup a play. But dumping it in and pounding them at the boards is good to do once in awhile. It shakes things up, wears down there players, put them in the pocket and make s your team un-predictable.
I can't tell you how sick I got of us staying on the perimeter, the boards for too long then just loosing the puck. Very frustrating.
But rather than point to the system as the Hawks woes, the truth is the players failed to impliment anything.
Also, as far as Salmo and Alpo. They have there opinion. Someone always does when losing is involved.
It doesn't suprise me that Salmo doesn't believe in the system when it never worked for him. He probably feels like it put in a situation where he couldn't succeed.
But he really should dig deep inside himself and stop looking for an external reason for things not working for him. Some players can make it work and he couldn't. Again it is a team game. You can play a system to the tee, but if the other 2 players on your line aren't where they ares supposed to be when they are supposed to be, the line fails, despite the individual.
Salmo also lost th epuck when he carried it in instead of dumping it. He got knocked off to quickly to get a decent shot.
IMO it doesn't make them bad players, just seemed like we had a lot of players that weren't good at keeping the puck. We need that type of player, which we had in Zeus, we had in Calder. We need to compliment the Havlats, the Salmos (who only work well with space), with the glue type players.