1) how do you operate a possession system with 2? maybe? players with puck possession skills
By sending more than one player into the offensive zone to retrieve the puck at a time? There's no pressure on the opposing breakout through 40% of the ice.
Last night, Ennis stopped at the top of the crease while Foligno, also in the offensive zone, retreated to the blueline while two Bolts dropped back to bail out the puck carrier behind the net. Other teams are sending Ennis immediately below the goal line to push the play towards a Foligno hovering around the slot.
2) who? Foligno and maybe... Girgensons?
Porter, Flynn, Larsson, Kaleta. The team has guys who can be the first men in a pressure system (Ott, despite his terrible corsi last year) and guys like Vanek and Ennis, who can create off of turnovers created by this pressure. The problem is, one guy is expected to come in, retrieve the puck with no systematic help, possess it long enough for the rest of the team to set up, then make the correct play to the open man.
Rolston says he doesn't want to turn games into track meets, but how fast can you run with somebody nipping at your heels the entire race? And this team is so starved for chances, everybody tries to do too much the few times per game the stars align and somebody on the other team does something dumb with the puck on their own.
3) best defensive forwards on the team; Porter, Kaleta, Flynn, Girgensons? so you make that the defensive unit and play it against teams top lines... o wait thats happening and people are complaining about Porter's ice time
Ott's the best defensive forward on the team from a goal prevention standpoint, so it's kind of impossible to have a checking line with him not on it. Rolston is also dividing "scoring minutes" between three centers for half of most games, so the top six is averaging 35% OSZ while Grigorenko does nothing.
4) I'm pretty sure you are talking about Larsson, so let me lay this hypothetical on you.
Larsson plays all of Porter's minutes every game this season
would you then;
- play Hodgson's line, Grigorenko/Ennis's line, or Larsson's line against Crosby, Stamkos, Datsyuk
Why would you play Larsson over Porter? I've repeatedly advocated a Porter-Larsson 3A/3B bottom six center setup (Porter getting the higher QoC, Larsson getting shafted zone-start wise to start) with Grigorenko starting out between Ennis and Stafford. This removes a ton of defensive responsibility from the top six, and also stops the "Grigorenko playing the easiest matchups on the team and doing nothing vs them" problem, because if he's out there, Ennis and Stafford are too, and they
have beat that matchup so long as they've gotten it consistently.
this roster is not the place for these kids right now, and even that goes back to Darcy not pursuing any random crap UFAs to prevent them from being here, Girgensons and Larsson should be playing 20+ a night in all situations in Rochester, not experience this disaster in Buffalo, this is why I wanted pending UFA's wearing letters, cause this is going to be a miserable season and I didn't want anyone important to be involved with any more of it than necessary, Darcy is gonna draft all the right players and then destroy them with his inability to manage a hockey team
Histrionics.
To start camp:
Foligno-Hodgson-Vanek
Ott-Ennis-Stafford
Leino-Porter-Tropp
Scott-McCormick-Kaleta
Flynn
Not a single waiver-exempt forward had to start the season here. This roster would be a decent place to develop youth if Rolston would stop *****footing around with Grigs.
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