Nashville's team D, physicality and goaltending required us to score hardworking, dirty goals -- getting rebounds, deflections, screens. Saros had a clean look at most of, if not all, of our best chances. We needed to take away his eyes on some of those and then fight for rebounds. Far too often I see guys flying by the slot/crease area. Or I see them hanging out on the backdoor but no one is bothering to get position on the D. Part of screening the goalie, is putting your body in a position that blocks the D from getting in the lane. Our guys are hiding behind multiple defenders hoping for the perfect pass. In games like last night -- which are the kinds of games you play down the stretch and in the playoffs -- you cannot rely on east-west passing, scoring off of rushes, etc. You have to get at least half of your goals as the result of winning goalmouth battles. We can dominate possession, we can even dominate the boards, but if we never fight for the blue paint in the offensive zone, we will always be a fun team to watch for the first 60 games of the year. Kakko, Laf, Chytil, Zibanejad, Gauthier, Blais, even Hunt -- all need to figure this out. Kreider is the only one who knows how to do this.
I would love for someone to work on this stat: What is our record when we score a rebound goal?
