Ilovemymum
recreational MD
- Feb 17, 2010
- 876
- 0
The only thing Pyatt is showing the rest of the team is how to play like ****.
There goes the hypthesis that they are slow learners
The only thing Pyatt is showing the rest of the team is how to play like ****.
Except for when they were killing time at the end of the game, the Rangers always forechecked with two men.
When it didn't work it was because the forecheckers weren't properly supported by the high F or the D men.
The forwards and defense were reluctant to drop too low to put pressure on the opposition. Considering Torts likely reaction to a mistake, I can't say I blame them. But it makes forechecking mch more difficult.
Whether you are checking or trapping, it is all about forcing turnovers. And aggressive forechecks are pointless if you are not willing to commit to pressing the opposition to turn the puck over.
All you are doing is wearing yourself out.
Placing one guy in front of the goalie is not an aggressive forechecking scheme. Having another "forechecking player" roam above the face off circles is not an agressive forechecking scheme.
What we saw time and again was puck carrier wait for 2 support players, one near the wall, the other in the face off circle. Puck carrier passes to support player 1 near the wall, he gets pressed and passes to support player 2 in the FO dot who then has 2 options, dish to the far side to support player 3 or give back to emerging player that started the breakout.
The problem with this is that forchecker 1 in front of the net needs to press the decisions made by puck holder behind the net. We never did that. We allowed time for support to develope and because of that we were beaten cleanly out of the zone ALL of the time.
An agressive forchecking system requires the guys to force the issue and make the carrier do things they do not want to do. Press the issue and defenceman can and will cough up the puck. We see it happen with our D all the time. That's what agressive forchecking systems do.
We do not do that.
Placing one guy in front of the goalie is not an aggressive forechecking scheme. Having another "forechecking player" roam above the face off circles is not an agressive forechecking scheme.
What we saw time and again was puck carrier wait for 2 support players, one near the wall, the other in the face off circle. Puck carrier passes to support player 1 near the wall, he gets pressed and passes to support player 2 in the FO dot who then has 2 options, dish to the far side to support player 3 or give back to emerging player that started the breakout.
The problem with this is that forchecker 1 in front of the net needs to press the decisions made by puck holder behind the net. We never did that. We allowed time for support to develope and because of that we were beaten cleanly out of the zone ALL of the time.
An agressive forchecking system requires the guys to force the issue and make the carrier do things they do not want to do. Press the issue and defenceman can and will cough up the puck. We see it happen with our D all the time. That's what agressive forchecking systems do.
We do not do that.
Do not or did not? Are you talking about Torts or AV?
Torts usually had 2 players below the hash marks. Those players had little support from the 3rd F above the face off circle and none from the D who were often not even in the zone. Being outnumbered 5 to 2 or 3 in the zone usually leads to an easy breakout.
I always thought Torts forecheck was just aggressive enough to wear the team out but not really very effective.
The Rangers have performed so poorly that I think its almost impossible to make an educated analysis of exactly what AV's system entails.
Ironically, besides man to man defense, the 2 wins this season looked a helluva lot like how the previous regime used to win games. Effort, grit, great board work, and winning the battles below the hashes.
It's also the only two games where Hank has been himself.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=8468685&season=20132014&view=log
You bring up the fastest guy on the team, yet ignore everyone else
Richards is slow.
Stepan is slow
Boyle is slow.
Pyatt is slow
Zuccs is not slow, but he's not a fast player either.
Gaborik had lost a step
Callahan is a great forechecking player.
Nash isn't and never was a great forechecking player
Asham is slow
Powe has decent speed.
The Rangers are NOT a fast team
under Torts we did not do that.
We got beat CLEAN out of the opposing teams defensive zone. All the time.
We never pressed players behind the goalie or forced them to make snap decisions and choices.
They were allowed time and space needed to break out with limited opposition.
If you are going to give the D behind the goalie time, he's going to take it and allow his wingers to set up to exit the zone with limited opposition.
This was most evident in the playoffs against Boston as they had their way with us all series.
The fact is, it was happening with more regularity during the season as well.
Slow teams do not forecheck well because once you are past them it opens holes all over the ice.
Slow teams trap very well because it clogs up the neutral zone allows for a quicker transition to offence as they have less of a surface to skate to go on the offensive.
The Rangers played a VERY safe style both on the forecheck and on offence. It was a gritty style that required alot of dedication and a willingness to put yourself in harms way, but it was not and is not conducive to winning with an offensively challenged group of forwards.
Canucks fans here. I've been following some of the threads here and can't help but offer my opinion especially reading about what apparently some Canucks fans have said. I haven't watched the Rangers enough this season to know what AV is doing here, but I think when analyzing AV it's important to start with what he did in Montreal and when he first arrived in Vancouver before Gillis became GM in addition to the success he had with the Canucks.
Before Gillis arrived, AV was known as a pure defensive coach. There were articles written about how AV kills offense. With the Canucks, I would classify AV's system as more of a trapping/counterattack system. Back when Therrien was having success with the Penguins, AV constantly denied that he employed the trap and defended his system saying it's no different from what the Penguins were playing under Therrien. According to AV, the difference was that the Canucks lacked the offensive the Penguins had. It's the classic Jacques Lemaire system does not stagnate the offense argument (Gaborik did score 42 goals under Lemaire). There's a strong argument that AV's defensive system got the most out of a team lacking talent.
When Mike Gillis became the Canucks GM, Gillis wanted his team to play uptempo hockey and AV actually had to convince Gillis he was capable of coaching that style. While AV certainly proved himself capable of coaching an offensive team, I still think he's a defensive coach at heart. I'm not sure if you guys have noticed it yet, but I think AV coached teams have a tendency to sit back, especially on a lead. Sure, the defense are encouraged to jump into the attack, but AV's system isn't a run-and-gun system. There is a tendency to fall back into trap-like system and wait for the counterattack.
Im all for a change in coaching staff
Good posts. A few things:
1. If a coach is offensiveminded or defensiveminded is purely a question of how much offense a coach wants to play at the cost of defense. Right?
In light of the above, how you play defense is not really part of the equation (!). IE, the same coach can play very offensive hockey if he is behind the bench of Chicago (that plays defense like AV) or have a team that is defending alot and plays a low scoring hockey if he is behind the bench in say PHX.
This is an interesting point. Canucks defensemen have looked pretty good so far this season even waiver pickup Ryan Stanton. Statistically, Canucks defensemen are giving the puck away at a more frequent rate due to Tort's philosophy of getting the puck out of the defensive zone as quickly as possible as opposed to AV's philosophy of having his defensemen look for that breakout pass whenever possible.Torts kind of "raised" many of our D's in NY, and while he de facto don't stiffle creative D's (see Dan Boyle), the D's that he do raise becomes extremely N-S, get the puck up ice ASAP, orientated.
If you had seen more NY hockey, you would have seen how ridiculously unsecure our D's have been in these areas so far this season. They all got a distinct deer-in-headlight look in these situations. There was a quoet about a week ago how AV had talked about the importance of making passes "tape to tape" in the transition game, lol that says it all. And the team as a whole just becomes very unsecure as a result of it. Sometimes a unsecure D makes a short pass in his own end to keep the puck within the team, then while loosing some time collecting passes etc, we move it up ice and go up against a collected D. Or we are behind 2-0 and the same D all of a sudden starts hitting the ice playing Torts type of hockey, just banging the puck up the boards, while the forwards are going deep to collect passes etc.