Pavels Dog
Registered User
Other teams don't have to respect our d-men's ability to play the puck at all. That makes it a lot easier for them to be aggressive in their forecheck. They don't have to be afraid of any physical play either. That also means they can be more aggressive in their play.Wings are making a LOT of unforced turnover, inside OUR ZONE. and it's not just Smith and Kindl, even Kronner makes it. some of it is due to having not enough support near by and our D has no where but to get rid of the puck along the board and hope for the best. Teams are catching on to it, and those passes were completely and totally shut down last game. So much so some of them were tape to tape passes from our D backhand to Senator players. and this is just ONE problem out of many we have right now in our zone. I have already mentioned how players need to take the body right away and make it harder for Senators.
I dont rewatch games so maybe I'm wrong in assessing problem or maybe I dont know what the hell im talking about but Wings were completely owned in their own zone last night, and that is undeniable fact. Just repeating useless cliches like 'we need to play better, give 100%' wont make them play better in their own zone. There needs to be a change either in system or how they should be executing. I thought having bit more composure would help but Im starting to think this problem may go deeper than that.
oh and there's breakout pass problem. well I'm not even going to touch this because it was worse than what was acceptable at AHL level. It was refreshing to see our D skate out though. Guess what when they had a chance and did it, it actually led to successive breakout instead of misfiring pass into turnovers in neutral zone.
We desperately lack anyone on D that can:
A. Skate the puck out of trouble
B. Punish opposing players physically
C. Move the puck really well
Green addressed C a bit when he's healthy. Quincey has actually been perhaps our most physical d-man the last year or two, so point B suffers without him. But there's not enough. Ericsson, Kindl, Smith and Marchenko can't really do A, B or C. That's 4 out of 6 d-men that have no tangible strengths to their game.