EastonBlues22
Registered User
Wtf was that defense in the neutral zone.
Blues have two forwards in deep, with Thompson the only forward high in the zone. Both defenders are matched up on a man, so Thompson needs to recognize that the Oilers forward (McDavid!) high in the zone is his responsibility.
One of two things should probably happen here. Either Parayko needs to bail ASAP and get back to defend with Thompson angling off the guy with the puck, or Thompson needs to turn up ice and fill the center lane (with Parayko containing his current man) in preparation for defending a potential 2 on 2. Most likely it's Thompson's responsibility to read what Parayko does and support accordingly.
Unfortunately, Parayko doesn't bail and Thompson continues to converge. Doubling here would be a fine play with numbers back, but that wasn't the case.
The Blues are now in a precarious situation. Dunn's side is overloaded and he can't possibly defend both potential passes up the ice. Stastny is trailing McDavid down the ice and has no real chance of catching him.
Their best chance is preventing the cross-ice pass, but Thompson's stick is in the wrong passing lane. It should be in the passing lane to his right, the up-ice lane which he should know is currently vulnerable and which represents by far the most dangerous threat. The up-ice passing lane should be the default lane that a defending player in this position should have his stick in, so this is a failure of basic fundamentals in addition to defensive awareness/IQ.
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Lucic makes the easy pass through a lane Thompson failed to defend, to a man that he abandoned, and it ends up costing the Blues.
I think Thompson showed a lot of promise this game, and did a lot of things well, but this goal was largely the byproduct of a couple of rookie mistakes that he made.
I'm not down on him for those and I'm certainly not trying to scapegoat him in any way for this game's outcome. I just think this serves as a timely reminder that contributions in all three zones matter in the NHL, both with and without the puck, and that it only takes one individual breakdown at the wrong moment to expose your team's underbelly. A system is meaningless if you can't count on everyone to be doing what they should be doing.
Thompson still has a lot to learn before I think the coaching staff will feel comfortable handing him a full-time gig.
Edit: Apparently we changed it so you can only embed three pieces of media in a single post. You'll have to follow the link if you want to see the 4th image. It's not critical to the post if you don't.
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