Sidney the Kidney
One last time
- Jun 29, 2009
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I think the system (or at least the way he wants them to play) results in a lot of these games where they look disorganized when they don't have their A-game because his system requires them to be skating at 100% efficiency for it to be effective since it relies on "constant puck pressure".Honestly don't think the system has much if anything to do with the struggles.
It's way more the lines and roster construction. Remove Carter and Dumoulin and have a healthy Petry and this is a good team still.
But we're going to continue to square peg round hole Jeff Carter into being a shutdown center and his line is going to continue to spend 90% of its shifts getting shelled in our end.
Also, North/South hockey that involves a lot of dump and chase and retrievals (again what he wants) also requires players to be 100% going full speed at all times for it to be effective. So on nights when the legs aren't there, they're going to constantly look like they're 5 seconds behind the play.
He needs to adjust to the fact this roster -- whether it be personnel itself or the age of the personnel -- simply can't play at 100% speed every night. So expecting them to have to be buzzsaws every shift in order for his system to work as intended needs to be changed.
There's a reason this team can look like a Stanley Cup contender one night and then look like an AHL team that's hung over the next. It's not because the roster is terrible, it's that the system requires an enormous amount of skating and effort to achieve positive results. On the nights when the old legs are there, they look good. On the nights when they're not at 100%, they look like ass. It's not a coincidence.