Hockey Duckie
Registered User
I don't know why you keep bringing up young defensemen like I'm talking shit specifically about Lacombe and you need to get ahead of it. It's a combination of factors. Sure it doesn't help that Zellweger and Mintyukov are inexperienced and in the latter's case, he seems to be suffering from confidence issues. But we have vets too. Our structure is dogshit. Our players aren't ready to battle for position or they make stupid defending decisions. Our forwards aren't properly trained to help the defense, and the numbers speak for themselves.
(before updating with tonight's numbers
They slipped past San Jose for second to last in goals saved above average after San Jose had a couple shit games.
Second to last in shots on goal against per game, again, a hair better than San Jose.
First in medium danger shots on goal against
Second in high danger shots on goal against (only four fewer than San Jose)
Second to last in takeaways from opponents. Somehow Washington is bad at this.
Dead last in faceoff percentage which does matter for defense.
I wasn't expecting this team to be some defensive fortress but considering how much emphasis they claim to be putting on defense, these numbers are unacceptable. And yes, the fact that offense is being suffocated to league worst numbers in the bid to try to improve defensive performance is also unacceptable. It's all unacceptable.
I broke down our issues with development between forward and defensive youths. Why bring up LaCombe and neglect that I brought up Helleson in the same paragraph? Because you are too busy jumping everywhere so you can CYA b/c you condescendingly ignorant of what I was talking about. Only this time, you're wanting to save face by putting up even more stats and shit than me. Why a hypocrite response.
We're both on the same boat of not liking Cronin. I called out Cronin's inability to know how to win due to several factors last season. I got lots of pushback from it and still do despite being correct about in year 2 of Cronin. Also, it was so boring to watch last season that we meme'd "We are not entertained." in the GDTs, provided we didn't pass out from watching it. Verbeek was happy with last year's production and I said he was crazy, but the majority on the board didn't want to believe Eakins was better than Cronin back then. I am not surprised with the similar production this season, whereas you are coming off emotionally devasted.
We don't have a top-pairing D-man on our roster. We have one top-line forward on the team. The rest are third liners or below. Verbeek traded away two of our top-3 FO specialists at last year's TDL and didn't replace them. I really don't know what you were expecting with all the limiting factors listed along with Cronin's coaching, but it feels like you've set them exceedingly high.
Simply put, the biggest difference between last year and this year is that our goalies have been standing on their heads to help us earn more points and stay in games longer than we should.
