after much pondering. I think the problem was multi-fold.
First yes, the KCD line gets shutdown way to easily by just focusing on Crosby.
BUT how much of that is personnel and how much of that is the coach.
Against boston the typical zone entry was crosby lugging the puck many times along the wall, 2 boston defenders challenging him at the blue line, one winger is all the way across the ice on the opposing wall, the other is behind crosby somewhere in the center.
They literally would take the passing the lanes away and challenge crosby to beat 2 guys by himself. Crosby would invariably either get baited into the bad pass across that become a great scoring chance for the other team, or he would get stripped up of the puck because it's the playoffs and he's gonna get a little more interference trying to slip through.
The problem here is that he shouldn't do either, and the coach needs to adjust the zone entry as well. If Crosby see's that he has to have an outlet behind him and either almost do a mini high cycle of the puck (chicago did this a few times) or go back to the D, reset and attack again.
There is no point to dumping the puck just to turn it over, and it's even worse to turn it over at the blue line when you have all 3 wingers skating in. We talk about net front presence but we didn't maintain possession in the B's zone most of the time long enough to have one. Our forwards were not close enough to support each other so many times it was a 1 vs ?. We have to have better puck support.
I think that Malkin was able to generate better chances because mainly when he goes into beast mode he has a big enough frame that it's a lot harder to get the puck from him.
Would another puck lugger on Crosby's line help this situation, yes Bennett is the obvious solution. But it can be done with the folks on that line if they are a little more patient and if our coach changes up his plan.
At least that's my 2 cents on it. sorry for long post, it's a slow day at work...
