Sens1Canes2
Registered User
- May 13, 2007
- 10,670
- 8,297
I don’t think our defensemen are particularly bad at breaking the puck out. Slavin is about as sure-handed as it gets when making the first pass, barring a once-a-week brain fart. Hanifin has the athletic ability to skate it out by himself, even though he doesn’t often do it for “system” reasons. TVR is good with the puck for a bottom pair guy. Faulk has average ability but questionable hockey sense. Only Pesce and Fleury really seem below-average at breakouts, from an athletic/brains standpoint.
The problem is up front, IMO. We flat out don’t have forwards who can skate with the puck. Aho is pretty good and at least an intelligent player, TT is probably the best on the team in terms of athleticism. After that? Skinner and his endless turnovers, Williams who is crafty but limited in his abilities, Staal who is just a mule offensively, Ryan who’s effective in a very limited role, Lindholm who’s becoming anonymous very quickly, and then a bunch of guys whose best role is looking for opportunities on the forecheck.
So, basically, there are two guys who can reliably handle a breakout pass and skate it into the zone without a turnover. And those guys play on the same line. Who can blame the defensemen for being hesitant and trying to slow down the play? The alternative, from their standpoint, is to watch Rask make his 18th turnover and then have 3 opposing forwards coming over the red line at full speed. I wouldn’t make that pass with confidence either if I were them. Dump and chase, thank you very much.
This is one of those areas where I’m not sure whether it’s on Peters or not. On one hand I don’t think this team can be successful if they don’t play with tempo. They are not built to win a grinding, slow paced game. On the other hand, they don’t have the horses to win a track meet. The talent just isn’t there. What they’re trying to do is meet in the middle, playing an up-tempo dumping game that creates turnover chances off the forecheck. I don’t think that’s a terrible strategy for the team we have, but at the same time it’s brutal to watch Slavin stand there and wait 5 seconds for everyone to get ready, just to set up a tip-in at the red line.
I’m going to simply, respectfully, disageee. There’s just not enough offense coming from the back end and the D doesn’t scare anyone into backing off and opening up the neutral zone.
The forwards are limited. I agree with that. But it starts with the D in my opinion. It was ok when they were playing their best defense, mostly at points last year, and we were all very excited about the defense corps as a whole...but now that they’ve seemingly regressed, their lack of offensive abilities are really glaring.