Nylander played just over 4 mins in the 3rd even though Kadri was hurt. The only players with less toi in the game were brown, Gauthier and lindholm.
This guy makes no sense.
Dubas has to pull a money ball. It's clear he and Babcock do not see eye to eye on who should be playing the most.
Yeah. The thing that has always bothered me about Babcock is that he's cautious to a fault. I think you can see that in player usage, in our systems, in his situational decisions. Many coaches do that, for example you keep seeing coach after coach using Tavares a ton in OT despite consistently bad results, but Babcock takes it to the extreme. Instead of giving ice time to guys that can beat the heavy forecheck, he gives it to those who can weather it a bit better. When Blues force dump-ins, he doesn't go to guys who can break that down, he sends guys out who are better at winning those battles. All decisions where he just reacts to the other team, rather than try to force the gameplan our way. We
owned this game in shifts where a Nylander, Matthews, or Marner came down low and built up speed. There was one shift where they tried to put pressure on us but Matthews and Kapanen ran circles around them in the neutral zone before breaking into the offensive zone with control. How many times didn't Nylander break down their neutral zone defense completely by just beating the forecheck and attacking with speed? I have no idea why we don't do this more often. Coaching staff seem to think that since we are a quick team we need to stretch the ice, but that's not taking advantage of your legs. That's making your legs a non-issue and letting the puck do the work.
I've largely been a Babcock supporter but he does things that are very hard to understand or support, and the issues I have with his coaching feels like the biggest issues I have with the team right now.
