@WaitingForThatCab said it in the other thread.
@Gentle Man referenced a comment from me last year.
i've been thinking about this again, too. i guess i'm judging based on a few things - winning races and battles is part of it but defensive structure and the effort and discipline it takes to maintain that is also so important and maybe is not valued high enough. i think i have tended to put too high a value on the forecheck and recovery efforts, probably because it's the most obvious. you know, big hits and waves of cycles with recoveries, takeaways and OZ time dominance.
when you look at a series win like this though, it makes you think. there may be more but i can only think of one goal that came off the forecheck. def had more rush goals and i don't recall many consecutive shifts where we imposed our will via forecheck. we lost the OZ time battle last night by a wide margin yet still, aside from those 2 spectacular saves by bob, the lightning weren't really able to open us up. that's impressive. even the PP goal they scored was defended very well right up until that shot thanks in large part to effort. (bob might want that one back but that's another story... he's been great overall.)
i think what's been very consistent is the defensive effort and structure. we've won each game in a very different style. maurice said earlier in the series that game 1 didn't look like a "panthers style" game thanks to more controlled exits and entries. last night was another one of those. not many odd-man rushes against, great back-pressure and amazing DZ work to stay in good defensive side position. all that really choked the lightning.
aside - i wonder if there was a strategy to look for more off the rush in this series vs. forecheck? some analysts were talking about us being able to impose our will via forecheck because of their lack of footspeed but maybe we zagged when they were looking for a zig; maybe their D is/was more vulnerable in transition?
