Alwalys
Phu m.
- May 19, 2010
- 25,894
- 6,140
Demers took more risks because his puck skills and vision are better than Vlasic that he is afforded that privilege. Vlasic rarely made any up passes because he either can't or won't. Either way, it's limiting to his skill set that it is that way. Vlasic is every bit as good as either Braun or Demers at making the release passes that are short and fairly conservative. But that's not an offensive catalyst and it isn't really him that is making the play in that scenario regarding neutral zone advancement and zone entries. There's a reason why Braun and Demers had far more takeaways than Vlasic and puck skills is a big part of that.
This all boils down to situation. Vlasic faced top comp while Demers faced bottom-tier comp as a 3rd pairing D. Not only is the forecheck Vlasic faced better, the consequences of a turnover were much greater. Vlasic made the first pass well regularly, far more regularly than Demers.
Same with takeaways, that's the result of facing lesser comp while Vlasic regularly faced the best possession players in the league.
And let's be real here. Vlasic is elite defensively. That's where his elite status ends and you don't necessarily have to be the best at puck skills to get to that level. He had a good year with his puck play this year but he was not at any point the best PMD on this team.
As the saying goes, being good at defense involves not playing much of it. Winning pucks and getting them out and back up ice is the model of good defense in the modern NHL, the slow stay-at-home D is no longer valid.
He was in fact the best PMD overall this season which highlights both Dan Boyle's decline and the reason his loss caused offensive difficulties. Make no mistake, his consistent, efficient play was a big part of our elite 5-on-5 offense this year. It's easy to miss that when one has watched Boyle do his thing for years, but it's important to understand it as it is the answer to what happened to the team.
People who fixate on PMDs as flashy skaters and long stretch-passers are left scratching their heads about intangible concepts like heart and killer instinct, while those of us who realized our system didn't hinge on that kind of puck movement anymore (again in response to Boyle's decline) know exactly what happened.
The team was clearly starting to drop the style of play that brought success in games 1-3. That's what I mean by stagnating regardless of Niemi ******** the bed.
They didn't "drop" the style of play, 1) they didn't get the same puck luck, 2) they didn't have the matchups, and 3) the Kings changed their lines to address their ineffective alignment in games 1-2. Game 3 does not belong in the same basket as games 1-2, they actually were outpossessed in game 3 by the largest margin of the series and were lucky to win it. The more accurate result would probably have been losing game 3 and winning game 4.
Last edited: