News Article: Igor Larionov - The Beautiful Game

[Fire Sweeney]

Fantastic text that fires shots at a familiar coaching mentality.

http://www.theplayerstribune.com/miracle-on-ice-hockey-russia/

Click to read more...

 

[rcduthie77]

So I'm of two minds.

Perhaps it was coming through the game myself that gives me duality on this issue.

Finding the players who can go end to end and provide that consistent spark, consistent effort like a Datsyuk or Kane are so incredibly rare to find.

At the same time, I played with guys who at the forward position who had a little bit of that flash and dash but would turn the puck over so often and put the team in bad situations that it's hard to say to those guys "just go for it and fly".

Even myself, I played like an extremely poor man's Torey Krug (except I got used on the PK a lot). I could fly with the puck, create odd man chances and I was generally encouraged by my coaches to go for it, BUT I had more then my share of moments where I turned the puck over in a bad situation or tried the dangerous pass coming out and led to a goal and for that you see a bit of pine.

I would like the Bruins to be a bit more open offensively HOWEVER, Larionov is not being entirely intellectually honest with his statement. Yes Detroit lets Datsyuk fly, Yes they push the tempo, but do they not also play a smothering style of defence as well? Same for the Hawks.

I think even under Claude there can be more of a median ground where you are defensively responsible yet still have freedom to take chances and I think were starting to see that shift a bit with Pastrnak, with Krug, with Hamilton and hopefully now with Spooner.

 

[BNHL]

He's right. When I coached I always encouraged the kids to handle the puck,don't be afraid of turnovers and have fun. I discouraged safe hockey and dump and chase. I've heard Bobby Orr preach the same thing.

 

[Bruwinz37]

Excellent article.

Biggest problem in youth hockey now. Stifling creativity.

Also makes you wonder about Julien giving countless chances to Caron while Spooner stays in pvd

 

[LouisSleigher]

Excellent post.

Those who watched Wayne Gretzky know that he had a lot of Spooner-like turnovers and lazy backchecks in his career. Have to take chances--can't always just make the safe play--and sometimes, you'll get burned.

 

[BsEuphoria]

Excellent post.

Those who watched Wayne Gretzky know that he had a lot of Spooner-like turnovers and lazy backchecks in his career. Have to take chances--can't always just make the safe play--and sometimes, you'll get burned.

Clode would've traded him. In all fairness to teams that play the insanely defensive shutdown game, they do it because it unfortunately works.

 

[Aeroforce]

During the Stars/Wild game last night the NBC announcers had a great old Jacques Lemaire quote regarding Wes Walz.

They said Lemaire referred to Walz as a '50 goal man' because he scored 15 and prevented 35.

I also thought Darryl Sutter's quote when he arrived in LA hilarious, but also sadly somewhat true. That many nights, the NHL is a race to 3 goals.