Toggle sidebar

Michael Del Zotto

Status
Not open for further replies.
Beacon

Beacon

Embrace the tank
May 28, 2007
13,676
1,454
It's amazing to say this, but Del Zotto turning into a terrific defensive player. He reminds me of Leetch in that Leetch was horrible defensively in his first couple of seasons,but kept working on it and by the mid-90s, he was really good defensively.

Del Zotto started out being really bad defensively, then last year you could see that he's working really hard on it, but he has to think before every defensive play, it just didn't come naturally. Suddenly, it is becoming natural. He makes more good defensive plays than offensive ones one. The view of MDZ as a poor defensive player is outdated and no longer true.
Click to read more...
 
I'm a fan of Del Zotto but I think he definitely played better last season than he has thus far this season. I was really impressed with how he handled/carried himself last season... This year I think he's been 'okay'... Not bad, but not great or terrific either.
 
wolfgaze said:
I'm a fan of Del Zotto but I think he definitely played better last season than he has thus far this season. I was really impressed with how he handled/carried himself last season... This year I think he's been 'okay'... Not bad, but not great or terrific either.
Click to expand...


I think he's been much better defensively, though not as good offensively as he was last year.
 
Beacon said:
I think he's been much better defensively, though not as good offensively as he was last year.
Click to expand...

Spot on. I think he's our best defenseman when we give up odd man rushes and he's back. He knows when to be aggressive, when to stay put and when to drop to block a shot/cross ice pass. Also probably our most physical D-Man, along with Eminger.

Needs to improve his offense though.
 
Beacon said:
It's amazing to say this, but Del Zotto turning into a terrific defensive player. He reminds me of Leetch in that Leetch was horrible defensively in his first couple of seasons,but kept working on it and by the mid-90s, he was really good defensively.

Del Zotto started out being really bad defensively, then last year you could see that he's working really hard on it, but he has to think before every defensive play, it just didn't come naturally. Suddenly, it is becoming natural. He makes more good defensive plays than offensive ones one. The view of MDZ as a poor defensive player is outdated and no longer true.
Click to expand...

Terrific. The problem is he's hardly a difference maker offensively at all. What he does best offensively is rush the puck up the ice, something that is mitigated in the Tortorella system. When it comes to o-zone sets, he's hardly noticeable.
We have a lot of strong defensive defensemen. What we continue to lack is a great playmaker from the blueline. Isn't that why the team used a first round pick on Del Zotto?

Is the blame for that on Del Zotto? Is it on Tortorella for forcing him to focus more on defense than maybe he needed to? I don't know about that. But it's a problem, no matter how it happened. We need a real offensive defenseman, and Del Zotto doesn't seem to be that.

Also, you won't find many bigger Leetch fans than me. Probably my 2nd favorite player of all-time after Graves. Leetch was never "really good" defensively. He certainly wasn't a bad defender, but he was never a consistent standout in his own end.
 
Since he shoots wide all the time, i guess he got good at defending the rush coming back towards the Ranger net.
 
NYR Sting said:
Terrific. The problem is he's hardly a difference maker offensively at all. What he does best offensively is rush the puck up the ice, something that is mitigated in the Tortorella system. When it comes to o-zone sets, he's hardly noticeable.
We have a lot of strong defensive defensemen. What we continue to lack is a great playmaker from the blueline. Isn't that why the team used a first round pick on Del Zotto?

Is the blame for that on Del Zotto? Is it on Tortorella for forcing him to focus more on defense than maybe he needed to? I don't know about that. But it's a problem, no matter how it happened. We need a real offensive defenseman, and Del Zotto doesn't seem to be that.

Also, you won't find many bigger Leetch fans than me. Probably my 2nd favorite player of all-time after Graves. Leetch was never "really good" defensively. He certainly wasn't a bad defender, but he was never a consistent standout in his own end.
Click to expand...

Good post, but I disagree about Leetch.

Leetch played man to man better than most in his day, his positioning was great considering the defenders of that day. Most were not very good skaters and made up for it with size and strength. Leetch had that in Beuk, once he got here Leetch was free to learn BOTH ends of the ice. When you know you have a stable partner you have more range to learn, IMO.

Give Del Z some stay at home protection and let him go a little, what could it hurt at this point?
 
Beacon said:
It's amazing to say this, but Del Zotto turning into a terrific defensive player. He reminds me of Leetch in that Leetch was horrible defensively in his first couple of seasons,but kept working on it and by the mid-90s, he was really good defensively.

Del Zotto started out being really bad defensively, then last year you could see that he's working really hard on it, but he has to think before every defensive play, it just didn't come naturally. Suddenly, it is becoming natural. He makes more good defensive plays than offensive ones one. The view of MDZ as a poor defensive player is outdated and no longer true.
Click to expand...

What the **** are you watching? Del Zotto was, is and always will be a turnover waiting to happen in the defensive zone because his hockey IQ is about a 10!

The Rangers seem to a thing for drafting hockey players with terminally low hockey IQ's(Dubinsky, Del Zotto and Kreider).

Gotta love the people on this forum who never seem to have a problem overrating our players and making them out to something they aren't or will never turn out to be!
 
NYR Sting said:
Terrific. The problem is he's hardly a difference maker offensively at all. What he does best offensively is rush the puck up the ice, something that is mitigated in the Tortorella system. When it comes to o-zone sets, he's hardly noticeable.
We have a lot of strong defensive defensemen. What we continue to lack is a great playmaker from the blueline. Isn't that why the team used a first round pick on Del Zotto?

Is the blame for that on Del Zotto? Is it on Tortorella for forcing him to focus more on defense than maybe he needed to? I don't know about that. But it's a problem, no matter how it happened. We need a real offensive defenseman, and Del Zotto doesn't seem to be that.

Also, you won't find many bigger Leetch fans than me. Probably my 2nd favorite player of all-time after Graves. Leetch was never "really good" defensively. He certainly wasn't a bad defender, but he was never a consistent standout in his own end.
Click to expand...

Bluenote13 said:
Good post, but I disagree about Leetch.

Leetch played man to man better than most in his day, his positioning was great considering the defenders of that day. Most were not very good skaters and made up for it with size and strength. Leetch had that in Beuk, once he got here Leetch was free to learn BOTH ends of the ice. When you know you have a stable partner you have more range to learn, IMO.

Give Del Z some stay at home protection and let him go a little, what could it hurt at this point?
Click to expand...

2 really good posts.
 
We have terrific defenseman only players (Mcdonagh, Girardi, Staal when healthy. We also have a solid dman in Stralman, what we need from Del Zotto is to show something OFFENSIVELY, isn't that why he's supposed to be a PMD?
 
Mentioning Del Z and Leetch in the same sentence as a comparison should be an infraction .
 
When I saw this title. I thought it was a joke.

Maybe I'll start one that says Halpern to score 20 this year
 
One guy is in two Hall of Fames . MDZ probably not in the Stouville Ont hockey hall of fame
 
It's kinda hard for del zotto to show any kind of offensive prowess when seamingly nobody on this team is competent offensively. Good offensive defensenen always flourish on teams that have good offenses playing in front of them, del zotto has to be too worried about playing good defense since this teams offense is non existent.
 
Joe11 said:
When I saw this title. I thought it was a joke.

Maybe I'll start one that says Halpern to score 20 this year
Click to expand...

I love it and I couldn't agree more. They don't call him Del Zaster for nothing!
 
SwedishBullet62 said:
It's kinda hard for del zotto to show any kind of offensive prowess when seamingly nobody on this team is competent offensively. Good offensive defensenen always flourish on teams that have good offenses playing in front of them, del zotto has to be too worried about playing good defense since this teams offense is non existent.
Click to expand...

Oh, so that's the reason Del Zotto has like 2 assists in the last 7 weeks? Nice spin job dude!
 
Drewbackatu said:
Oh, so that's the reason Del Zotto has like 2 assists in the last 7 weeks? Nice spin job dude!
Click to expand...

last week the team was playing good, this week the team sucks.. noones playing well.. outside of hank, cally, step.. del zotto clicks when the team clicks.. noone is playing well right now so its hard to expect anything..
 
Drewbackatu said:
Oh, so that's the reason Del Zotto has like 2 assists in the last 7 weeks? Nice spin job dude!
Click to expand...

Oh right I forgot every "offensive defenseman" is supposed to have a confident offensive side to their game despite the team playing as inconsistent as ever over that period of time, great point.
 
He's improved defensively. Very far from what I would call "terrific". I think that's majorly pushing it.

Better than Girardi, but so are most things with a pulse so that's not saying much.
 
Drewbackatu said:
Oh, so that's the reason Del Zotto has like 2 assists in the last 7 weeks? Nice spin job dude!
Click to expand...

I wonder why you follow the team if you hate everything about it.
I have never read you say something positive about any of the players. Are there players on this team you like?
 
In many ways MDZ reminds me of Matthieu Schneider. He has stretches if being very good offensively and defensively, however they generally do not coincide. Both were better when they played with an edge. MDZ is a solid 3-4 who keeps giving you a taste that he could be much more. I would point out though that he is still just 22 and a long way from career maturity. The beauty of defenseman is that that often continue to improve (unlike forwards)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom