It's not a great team on based purely on offense:
- Nash is the only legit top line player.
- Stepan needs to repeat this year's production and play before I put him in that category.
- Hagelin is not a top line player on a Cup contender.
- I love Callahan, but he's not a top 3 player either.
- Richards is on the downside of his career.
- Zuccarello is still an unknown entity who still has not played a full NHL season's worth of games.
- Brassard has shown flashes which is nice. But it also means he's inconsistent.
- I don't feel like I have a good grasp on what Dorsett is, but to pencil him in on the third line is presumptuous.
- Clowe has seen his production go down each of the last three seasons.
- The fourth line is devoid of offense.
So, no it's not a great team based on offense.
Thats a "very good" lineup to you? Especially at forward?
This year, only Stepan and Nash could be considered "very good" in my eyes. And my definition of very good are players that fill roles successfully to a Stanley Cup caliber. Callahan is always good, but I dont think hes been overly impressive this season. Hagelin is all speed and little anything else. Zuccarello looks like a wizard against the dregs of the NHL, and is a non-factor against top-half teams. Richards? Do we even need to get into him, and the season hes having?
The bottom 6 has been a comically tragic revolving door all season. Guys like Brassard and Dorsett, members of the NHL's doormat for years, are supposed to save it? Clowe? Too bad hes not the old broken down version we've acquired, or I might be able to give a "very good" award to him.
Pyatt? Boyle? Asham? Powe? Lets put our hands together for them. These are the guys, often 33% of the forward roster, that literally serve little to no purpose on any given night. You're trying to say that 4th liners are, by definition, not very good? Maybe they wont go coast to coast and score a beautiful goal, but there are tons of 4th liners that know, accept, and execute their roles -- usually to provide hitting and energy. We've got none of that.
I've readily admitted there are systemic problems with this team. Namely their grotesque transition game in the neutral zone. But to push this false illusion that this roster is a cup contending team, and a coaching change is all thats standing in their way, is an absurd notion.
Asham doesn't hit and provide energy? Come on man. He's a typical 4th liner. And actually, I thought he was one of the very few players that actually played with some composure in game 1. Everyone else was throwing the puck around like it was an armed grenade in the first period.
Look around the league. Are there teams that have better rosters than us? Yes. But let's not overstate it here, there are also ALOT of teams that have fill in players that play on their first line and do it well. Vancouver with Burrows. Pittsburgh with Dupuis and Kunitz. Look on any team on any given night and you can argue that "well that guy isnt a 1st liner," but he plays there because he gets the job done. No team sans maybe Anaheim with Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan has a "Nash-Richards-Gaborik" first line of all first line players.
What we're missing in offensive talent we more than make up for in our defense and goalie. You can't just look at our forwards and go, oh our offense is bad. Alot of teams include their defense in their transitional play and offense, which gives their forwards more space and
makes them look better. Do we? No. We force our forwards to get the puck and go north all the time with or without offensive support. The few times Del Zotto joins the rush are the few times our offense looks good.
Look at the ****ing Islanders. They create offense because they use their D and their forwards hold up, hold onto the puck, and wait for support from another forward or defenseman. We don't do that. Again, that's why they've outplayed Pittsburgh so far this series.
Look at San Jose. They don't play a one dimensional game. They get the puck and make decisions. They move the puck back to their D and regroup if they don't see a rush they like. If they do dump it, it's either strictly for a change or it's into an area where it's a 70/30 puck for their team and they're confident their team can get it first. Not a 50/50 puck. They attack as a group of 3, 4 or 5
ALL THE TIME. That's why they scored 5 goals last night, and also why we can't even sniff 1 or 2.
My point is, even if this isn't a 1st place team, this is not an 8th place team either, and we shouldn't be struggling to score 1 goal a game. We're not getting the most out of our players. We could get so much more. We're not going to score when were all clumped together 3 guys grinding for the puck in the corner with no one stretching out the defense and in a scoring position. That's why we make slow-footed AHL defensemen look so good. We don't force them to move. We let them just tie us up in a small space and thats that.
Regarding Zuccarello; do you really expect him to look good in a grinding system? Are you serious? Open up into a puck possession system and he would look 10x better against anyone.
