And there is the key to the whole defensive problem.....we have a coach who will not let players play their game or even adjust HIS system to their strengths.
I don't know about that. I'll try to explain. Skjei is a great skater. He is ALLOWED to lug the puck into the offensive zone by himself. He has done this on many occasions. So AV and the staff are, indeed, playing to one of Skjei's strengths.
The problem is, many times, once Skjei has gained the offensive zone -- even behind the net! -- the logical thing is for the forwards to give him support so that he can peel back to the point. This is not the case in the man-to-man system. Skjei is ALLOWED to become the forward and one of the forwards covers his defense spot.
When the play in the offensive zone disintegrates because of whatever reason, the forward has the defenseman's responsibility. Skjei hustles on the backcheck, but there always seem to be confusion about who he is supposed to pick up because of the propensity to play man on man. Once the other team's players make a fast switch on a cycle play or something, our coverage is shat up the creek.
Another oftentimes scenario is when a dman like Skjei is deep in the offensive zone, the puck cannot be shot wide for a carom to be picked up by the other team for an odd-man rush the way. Yet our shooters are terrible at hitting the net when we actually have a good offensive opportunity. Instead we get burned the other way.
The system is also predicated on keeping an offensive zone play/pressure alive, and the defensemen over-aggressively pinch, many times skating as far down as into the corners to keep the puck alive. The same scenarios then happen: we lose the puck and we're caught the other way. Defensemen are constantly scrambling back in our system.
The system is wrong, that's fact.