Speculation: Roster Building Thread Part VII: Now with less frenzy!
- Thread starter Gardner McKay
- Start date
- Status
Defense in hockey is about overloading.
Good teams in this league have good defenders. We tried to be a good team, with a pretty suspect defense.
What would have fixed our defense would have been to stop pressuring and back down. It’s as simple as that. If we do that, we stop winning pucks and don’t get and transition plays. Pick your poison.
The impact of what you guys are talking about, in relation to the other man-man defenses in this league, is quite frankly an urban myth or whatever it should be called. It’s pretty ridiculous to be honest.
Why would Spooner, Kreider, Hayes(contract season) project anything less than 50 points? Namestnikov with only 15 goals?
HFsNumber1Heel
FKA Roo Returns...Still A Contrarian Apparently
Those projections look kind of realistic if common trends continue, although I think Kreider can hit closer to 26-28 if he stays healthy but stays as inconsistent, and I don't think Zuc produces that much. He's a 50 point guy.
The key to the Rangers being competitive is team defense and if the young guys like Chtyil, Pionk, and even DeAngelo can produce solid support role points (30-35 points for each).
The key to the Rangers being competitive is team defense and if the young guys like Chtyil, Pionk, and even DeAngelo can produce solid support role points (30-35 points for each).
Amazing Kreiderman
Registered User
- Apr 11, 2011
- 45,075
- 40,935
Irishguy42
Mr. Preachy
Need to pair him with Skjei, even though they're both lefties.
Inferno
Registered User
Yeah no. It's not about just overloading. There are tons of ways to defend. On any 50 50 puck on the board the rangers send in 2 or 3 guys to try to win the puck. If you win it great, except you've also now got 3 guys along the boards and aren't breaking out. So what so they do? They have their weak side forward also flee the zone if they even sniff the chance at a rush. So if you don't win the puck...and your far side winger is gone...you've got all sorts of hell breaking loose in front of your goal. To say pick your poison is asinine. The rangers have been like this for years. It's a brutal system.
- Nov 2, 2011
- 7,967
- 8,333
One guy takes the body, the other guy takes the puck. Defense in hockey IS about overloading. Saying that the problem for us was that we ‘overloaded’ — which many do, not referring to you — is a head scratcher...
I would say with a tremendous amount of certainty that a at least 19/20 of chances given up by us in the slot were related to players not being where they where supposed to be as opposed to us losing a calculated gamble.
Playing man-man defense is a huge advantage offensively. There is a reason for why only around 10 teams does it despite that advantage. It’s hard and the mistake you make costs you a lot.
It’s a made up description that fits the narrative, the problem is that it’s childish and have little to do with reality... You don’t have to listen when I describe the real world but here it is:
Our biggest problem — by far — is that when you play man/man, in hockey, it’s part of the game plan that you sometimes — ONLY when it cannot be avoided — change positions on the ice. Ie you pressure the puck at all times, if a skater goes from the corner to the blueline the D ‘hands over’ the assignment to the forward if possible. But if the entire attacking unit has rotated, the D must keep pushing even if it takes you to the blueline.
And the attacking team of course tries to take advantage of this.
This makes you vulnerable in three ways;
1. You can get players in a position they are not used to.
2. You are vulnerable when handing over the assignments when the attacking team rotate and change positions.
3. You expose yourself to miscommunications whether to change marking assignments or not.
All these issues — that are significant and exclusive to the man/man scheme — requires a lot of the defending team. A LOT. And nobody can do it for 40 minutes a night. EVERY man/man scheme focus on getting the puck back ASAP, by — drumrolls, wait for it — yes overloading, when you get a chance. Just watch Babcocks teams or Quenville teams. It’s a copy cat league and we copied those guys.
We can talk about execution. We can talk about coaching from AV to Ulfie to Beuke to Ruff. But to claim that we had some kind of significant element to our defensive scheme that other teams playing man/man didn’t isn’t in touch with reality... Almost all break downs I seen from this team is to be referred to 1-3 above. Ie real breakdowns and mistakes, not calculated risks that should not have been taken. Maybe we have seen different games?
Inferno
Registered User
pld459666
Registered User
GeorgeKaplan
Registered User
- Aug 5, 2010
- 13,881
- 9,514
I don’t remember what the argument was but this description is pretty spot on. Way too many times there was a breakdown in thinking and / or communicating whether D should have continuing to pursue toward the blue line or switching. Is Staal (for example) need to pursue and appear at the blue line chasing some speedster or DD (for example) to rotate and wind up defending the front of the net against a 6’3” forward? Time after time after time.
Edit: this is not even addressing communication breakdowns where both teammates wind up nowhere near they needed to be neither pursuing nor covering the slot.
Mac n Gs
Drury plz
- Jan 17, 2014
- 22,836
- 13,560
Definitely Honka. Kilingberg is arguably the best contract in the league when you factor in his performance, and he's honestly taken steps towards solidifying himself as a top-10 defenseman in this league. He has 4 years left at just over $4m, which is going to provide insane value to the Stars.
LaffyTaffy
Brooklyn-Belarussian
Glen Sathers Cigar
Sather 4 Ever
Klingberg was the third highest scoring D in the league last year and was 6th in Norris voting.
Honka has 9 career points in 58 games and has barely shown an ability to play at the NHL level consistently.
I think asking if one of them would get traded compared to the other is significantly different.
egelband
Registered User
- Sep 6, 2008
- 16,210
- 15,069
No idea either way, but I’d say last year was a bit weird. Players went into the season expecting to challenge for the Cup and then midway through the rug was pulled out from under them. Not making any judgments or predictions. Just saying we might throw out last year’s results when predicting next years. Particularly with Zucc and Namestnikov and even Hank.
Yeah, the notion that it was some kind of nutty extreme design is just not in touch with reality, but it fits some kind of narrative.
I am not saying that the design couldn’t be better and so forth. But there is a big offensive advantage playing man/man. You get off on the counter attack so much faster. Always have speed under your skates. There is a reason for why only about 10 teams in the league play man/man. When it doesn’t work really well it’s a disaster.
Last edited:
TheTakedown
Puck is Life
- Jul 11, 2012
- 13,694
- 1,493
The bold is LITERALLY due to the overloading that you're trying to argue in favor of....... Nice one -_-
- Aug 5, 2010
- 13,881
- 9,514
Not if overloading is done at the right time , at the right place and the right players.
rangerfan_79
Registered User
- Jun 1, 2007
- 762
- 299
Featuring the Rangers in several articles. Not bad reads on the Rangers
Three questions facing New York Rangers
Three questions facing New York Rangers
- Status
