"Swarm" Defence

[Up the Irons]

the folly of this swarm is 2-fold. as many have mentioned, leaving the front of the net to send 3 guys at the puck is... well, its obvious why that is risky. the second is, all it takes is one Crosby, Tavares, OV or Datsuyk to burn the first guy, or a Henrik Sedin or Joe Thornton to thread the needle thru all 3 forecheckers, and now its a whole different ball game.

this swarm may work in the A, where there are no superstars, but the best 100 players in the world eat the swarm for breakfast.

Eakins flexibility as coach is being tested here. he has to back down on this defensive tactic. he has to get away from this 'i got a way that no one else does' and just adopt the tried and true methods that all other NHL teams employ.

watch tape of Detroit, LA, St. Louis and Boston, and just do a variation of what they do.

it's proven; you can't go wrong.

 

[HemksyCares]

It's impossible to judge the effectiveness of the system when the team simply isn't executing it... In other words, we don't know if the swarm is working because we have yet to execute it for 60 minutes. According to Eakins, our GA are coming in the slot is because players are not keeping with their assignment under the swarm.

Eakins', or any professional hockey mind, diagnosis of the problem carries more weight than armchair HF posters.

 

[nightfighter]

the folly of this swarm is 2-fold. as many have mentioned, leaving the front of the net to send 3 guys at the puck is... well, its obvious why that is risky. the second is, all it takes is one Crosby, Tavares, OV or Datsuyk to burn the first guy, or a Henrik Sedin or Joe Thornton to thread the needle thru all 3 forecheckers, and now its a whole different ball game.

this swarm may work in the A, where there are no superstars, but the best 100 players in the world eat the swarm for breakfast.

Eakins flexibility as coach is being tested here. he has to back down on this defensive tactic. he has to get away from this 'i got a way that no one else does' and just adopt the tried and true methods that all other NHL teams employ.

watch tape of Detroit, LA, St. Louis and Boston, and just do a variation of what they do.

it's proven; you can't go wrong.

I don't agree that we need to follow a template that other successful teams employ. What works for Boston or Chicago won't necessarily work for us because the players and player types are different. And besides if every team just copied each other we would not have any innovation. Even the swarm is not an entirely new idea. Some systems are just easier to get a handle of then others. I have faith tha Eakins knows what he's doing more than we do and eventually when the whole team buys in the results will come.

 

[Up the Irons]

I don't agree that we need to follow a template that other successful teams employ. What works for Boston or Chicago won't necessarily work for us because the players and player types are different. And besides if every team just copied each other we would not have any innovation. Even the swarm is not an entirely new idea. Some systems are just easier to get a handle of then others. I have faith tha Eakins knows what he's doing more than we do and eventually when the whole team buys in the results will come.

fair enough. but Eakins can't think he's got some secret way that no one else does. i just hope he isn't stubborn about it.