one2gamble
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It made them worth watching from an entertainment perspective. From a hockey perspective it likely lowered their overall chance of winning.
Did the system change make us a worse team or a better team?
- Thread starter TomasHertlsRooster
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Fistfullofbeer
Moderator
Yeah. Its fun to watch them generate a lot of SOG's and spend time in the offensive zone. But its quite the opposite to see them give up an odd-man rush and have Jones or Dell give up a goal. If I was not a Sharks fan and watching the games as a neutral viewer, it would be very enterataining. As a Sharks fan though its been a frustrating season to say the least.
Used As A Shield
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I can understand the team D issues and not like it, but god I can not understand how the powerplay is STILL terrible.
one2gamble
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its frustrating but to be honest, I think they lost a lot of fan support playing that way.
If the PP wasnt high school hockey bad they would have probably 3 more wins right now
Fistfullofbeer
Moderator
Personally, I would rather play a style that fits us better even if it was boring. But I totally get what you are saying. From an average fans perspective it totally makes sense wanting to see a more exciting style. And in their defense, we never won it all with the boring style and still expect to make the playoffs this season despite playing our current style which is more 'exciting' though not best suited to us.
Now, I really doubt DW cares much about this entertaining style given how bad we have looked on the ice at times. For him, it has to be cup or bust.
Used As A Shield
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My issue is we can still have this up tempo game, but have the D and another forward sitting high that acts as the bumper and is also ready for the turnover to transition to prevent the oddman rush. But seriously, if Vlasic would just sit back and do his thing with Karlsson doing his, I don't think there would be all this bitching.
Fistfullofbeer
Moderator
That seems like one small change but, yeah, it would have a snowball effect. The Vlasic decides to sit back, we can roll Vlasic-EK65 as a pairing again. That way Dillon-Braun become our 3rd pairing and get sheltered minutes. Nothing against Dillon but him and Braun as the 3rd pairing works a lot better for us as a team just because that moves Braun to the 3rd pairing and we can also shelter the pairings minutes.
hohosaregood
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I thought the way the played in 2016 was a pretty quick paced style but it devolved a lot over time. One thing I remembered liking was how they would pass to a guy sitting at the opposing blue line who would move it into the offensive zone which allowed for the other forwards to be skating full speed on the entry. Straight up haven't seen that in 2 years. I thought it was a good controlled entry style.
TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
I’m waiting for one of the beat writers to look at this and realize that the issues started last season and stop giving the Sharks an early pass on this season. Based on last season, what’s happening now isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that the coaching staff didn’t adjust based on personnel.
OrrNumber4
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I know; I was referring to the comments that the system the Sharks deviated from was what they had run in 2016.
TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
The roster as a whole may or may not be worse than it was then but the defense is definitely superior. They essentially replaced Roman Polak with Erik Karlsson and suffered a decline to Vlasic-Braun.
OrrNumber4
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When Burns and Karlsson are on top of their games, that alone makes it superior. But, given Ryan's minutes (and I still don't think he is as good as 2016 Paul Martin) and Vlasic-Braun's massive regression, the difference is not as massive as it should (could?) be.
In regards to team defense...the 2016 forward group had more defensive competence. Aside from maybe Chris Tierney, there wasn't a forward on that team who wasn't at least defensively competent. Thornton had his best defensive season, Pavelski and Hertl were dominant in all three zones, Couture had shades of his 2011 season. Not to mention, Marleau and Ward.
The current roster...not only have some of those players lost a step, but Kane, Labanc, and Karlsson are below average defensively.
TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
The way that I see it, we can debate the 2016 on paper vs 2018 on paper all day long. I’m personally of the opinion that they aren’t that far off from one another, both at forward and on defense. As it stands, I would probably take the 2016 team, simply because they had the best line in the NHL actually playing at that level, but it’s pretty close.
I don’t think it’s worth debating in this specific context, because the level at which the team as a whole is playing, defensively, is far worse than it was in 2016. Even a poster who believes the team has declined, purely personnel wise and from a defensive standpoint, can acknowledge that the decline isn’t as pronounced as 8th best in the NHL in 5V5 GA/60 and and 3rd best in xGA/60 to 2nd worst in the NHL in 5V5 GA/60 and 11th worst in the NHL in 5V5 xGA/60. That’s a drop from a high end/just below elite defensive team to one of the worst defensive teams in the NHL. That is not a function of the personnel.
