Dustin Schwartz. I shat on him a lot but Stewie is looking like what I imagine Grant Fuhr was like back in the day (lets in the first couple but shuts the door the rest of the way). What are they doing differently? Did they give him permission to let in the first few as long as he closes the door the rest of the way? Or is it rest? Or is it the defensive system?
Or did Knob/Coff step in and give Stewie or Dusty some pointers?
I think its a lot about the defensive system and also his level of confidence in himself and what was going on (the chaotic defenisve execution) in front of him.
For me its a little like trying to play a position in a team sport when you cant rely on the players around you to do their job properly. You lose the structure in your game by over compensating and then you quickly lose confidence.
Thats IMO was happening to Skinner early on. Really tough for a rookie goalie to find his game when there is chaos happening in front of him virtually every game.
I think that the coaching change (and the embarrassment of losing so badly) snapped this team to attention. Sometimes new voices make a difference too. They responded and started committing to the hard work required to play with structure. No more exiting the zone early...no more lazy backchecking and lazy line changes. It helped that both Knoblauch and Coffey tweaked a few things as well.
So IMO it had very little to do with Schwartz. He was and is just an easy target.
