corsica.hockey
And I agree, to an extent. Of course I agree in quality over quantity but to a certain point the Greene and Santini pair just get hemmed in shift after shift it seems. I get that they're going up against top competition night after night and they're bound to spend a lot of time in the defensive end but at a certain point, if they're the top pair, they need to be better at countering. And that's our problem, they're our top pair. Santini is still so young and learning the game, Greene is clearly on the decline. They're getting trounced and it's really not their fault, it's just our depth.
We saw the same thing with our forwards in years past where mediocre guys were expected to carry the load and failed to put up many points.
I posted shot heat maps in the other thread. Paints a similar picture to what we're discussing. I just think bitching about Santini being in that role is dumb. He's there because he is the best worst option.
Santini plays the mitigating role. Protect the house, force the play to the outside, tie up his man and box him out in front, and make guys pay for getting close to the front of the net. Majority of the shots come from the point but Santini does a good job of allowing the goalies to see the puck.
Severson pushes the play up the ice better yet is prone to allowing higher quality chances. His numbers don't look to be too alarming, but Severson's problem seems to be mental. Once he starts struggling, it compounds and better players take advantage of that.
Ideally, you try to ease Severson into that role, but the same people that advocate for that will then be irate when Hynes limits his minutes and/or benches him when he's struggling.