How confident are you in the defense

[Do Make Say Think]

Really. Hoping 1 player improves 100% is gonna make us Golden.

Reminds me of a joke. What do you call a smart Blonde? A Golden Retriever!!!!!!!

Yes

If Cowen can hold his own while playing with Karlsson that lets us put Methot on the second pairing which is ideal

At that point we'd have

Cowen - Karlsson
Methot - Gryba
Phillips - Ceci

I think that's fine

By golden I dont mean Cup winners, I mean we're set and we just need to ride out the wrinkles

 

[DylanSensFan]

a lot of the issues from last season revolve around team defense, which means the forwards need back to check, should leave the zone as a unit with the D with short crisp passes. They should not float like our last fearless captain.

 

[pm88]

a lot of it has to do with Cowen. He's got a lot of potential so we shouldn't give up on him just yet. If he can play well, we might not be as bad as we feared we would be

 

[Back in Black]

Sounds like some of you are expecting your magic puffs next year!

 

[Do Make Say Think]

No, not really

We're just saying that IF Cowen lives up to his potential and manages to be a competent top 4 D it would really change the team's outlook

 

[Back in Black]

Man, I hope your right......

 

[Xspyrit]

Opinions are heavily based on the results for GA, which was 27th last year. But they didn't play that much worse than 2012-13 where they finished 2nd for GA

Difference is that goalies were below average (very bad first half for Andy, and bad 2nd half for Lehner) and the system was inefficient overall. The team was not playing in-synch as a 5 men-unit. That's all. Impossible to win consistently in the NHL without strong cohesion

Puck support is the key. Anyone remember the first game against the Wings and Alfie? They won 6-1 and showed some amazing puck support. Not sure why they couldn't do that more consistently but it has probably something to do with the overall youth and lack of experience. And also some pretty bad starts to the season for previous injured players (Karlsson, Spezza, Cowen, Michalek, Andy...)

That being said, the team who people here say was terrible and awful still managed to get 88 points, 6 more wins and they're a 100 pts team.

 

[Sensinitis]

They still played pretty terribly lol.

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

If Karlsson and Cowen improve drastically next year(on defensive end of things) this D-corpse will be one of the best in the league.

That's right. Cowen and Karlsson were terrible/bad defensively. If they become assets in our own-zone, we can challenge for the division.

 

[Sensinitis]

Cowen-Karlsson
Methot-Ceci
Phillips-Gryba

Can be interesting. Limit 3rd pairing minutes and keep it as a shutdown pair of sorts. More PK time than anything.