What do you guys think about Bob Hartley and his system ? Complaints ?
I've been meaning to post about this for some time, I'm kind of torn about the system and it's really the only thing I'm not 100% on loving about Hartley.
It seems to be built on minimizing big mistakes, rather than trying to actively create offense, so our scoring is largely determined by the other team's play. We can get away with this because of our team speed, so we don't need a huge mistake from the other team to end up with a bunch of space to make a play.
When we're in the defensive zone, it seems our only real play is to have our D fire the puck at our wingers at the boards and hope they can chip it out. We almost never exit our zone with control of the puck unless the puck is dumped in and our D get the puck settled without too much pressure on them.
Also, our breakouts tend to involve all 3 forwards close to the enemy blue line, and our D fire a long pass for them to tip in. A lot of other teams will have the center back supporting the D close to their own blue line, which opens up a lot more controlled passing options. The short passes tend to result in more controlled breakouts, but bad passes in this situation tend to lead to odd-man rushes and dangerous scoring chances. Our approach is a lot safer, since the worst thing that tends to happen is an icing, but it also doesn't create as much offensively.
I think this might be the biggest thing that separates us from the true cup contenders. I don't think we'll be able to generate a lot of scoring against a top-tier team that's firing on all cylinders and isn't making the type of mistakes we tend to capitalize on. In contrast, teams like LA and Chicago that have a ton of possession are still able to create scoring chances even against quality defensive play.
I think this general philosophy has been a great thing for us this year, since it makes our offense less dependent on getting sustained zone time and more about capitalizing on mistakes which lets us win games where we get outplayed. However, as Monahan, Gaudreau, Brodie, and our other young guys continue to develop and mature, and guys like Poirier and Bennett make the team, making us more skilled, I'd like to see us move more towards a more possession-oriented style.