i think the new guys made me see a couple underlying system issues more clearly
with mp3, when he had the puck in our zone you could see him try to quickly read the breakout and see no options so he had to flip it out
and a bunch of times garland has the puck and is spinning around trying to do everything can to not pass the puck back to the point, but chytil is standing there wondering why garland isn’t passing to him
what this shows me is that the system makes the game hard for our players. a good system simplifies the game for them. yes, juulsen, forbert, desharnais, and myers most of the time can’t make a breakout pass to save their lives. but the forwards are also rarely in a good position to take a good breakout pass without hughes already having beaten one or two guys to create a mismatch. you could see it on mp3’s face, he’s like, wtf? i think when they were figuring out how this team plays, they got way too reliant on hughes being hughes and it was designed around having him back there, but what about the 35 minutes a game he’s not on the ice?
i think it’s the same in the o-zone. is it that they always pass it back to the point instead of taking it to the middle because they are lazy or lack confidence? or is it that the system doesn’t open up high percentage options? so garland is unique because he has figured out a way to always keep the puck moving towards the goal line, but as a fairly low vision player, he has robotically trained himself to do this without collaborating with his teammates. again, in his first shift you could see it on chytil’s body language. he was going, wtf?
that said, obviously ep2 was excellent and looks like he should stay in the lineup for good. i thought hronek had a fabulous game. and maybe just maybe mp3 and myers can form an octopus pair.
but best case scenario is still either acquiring a RD who can credibly play with hughes, or willander being that guy, so we can run mp3 and hronek on the second pair, and let whichever two of ep2, soucy (who can play either side), and myers is playing best be the third pair.
we’re also one impact forward short. would love to see boeser flipped for someone’s first rounder, then turned around and flipped for a boeser replacement. but we still need someone on top of that. i’m enthusiastic about chytil but is he really a 2C?
for now, the configuration i’d go with is
hoglander ep1 karlsson
debrusk chytil boeser
doc suter garland
joshua bluegers sherwood
until joshua rounds into shape and we can reunite him with garland and whichever of suter and bluegers is feeling it. for petey, i’d much rather have him asserting himself with two lower skilled guys who move their feet and have hands that aren’t completely stone than failing with two name brand guys who contribute nothing. there was that one shift in the third where debrusk remembered he is a professional hockey player and he actually played like he wanted to do something. otherwise, we might as well have being playing 4-on-5. and boeser, love the guy but he’s back to playing like his dad is dying. the puck is just dying on his stick. and hopefully having a really stout bottom six makes up for the obvious holes in the top six.
the ideal scenario is probably something like
debrusk ep1 [acquisition]
suter [acquisition] hoglander
joshua chytil garland
doc bluegers sherwood
but man, how are we going to get that 2C and who’s got one? and can he be horvat, pretty please?
