For me amongst our best players, we lack a heavy drive the puck right to the front of the net with aggression ability or even mindset.
Sometimes in very close, tight checking games, you need someone to just put their head down and bring the puck right into the area you're most likely to get crosschecked, slashed or even take a huge hit. This can result in anything from the opposing defensemen taking a penalty, scoring clean off the play or even causing enough traffic that a trailer can come in for an easy tap in. Maybe you once even get lucky and the opposing player pushs you into the goalie and the goalie gets injured and you get a PP
.
For example lets just use Meier from last night against TB.
Both the goals he scored he skated himself right in front of the net for easy tap in goals but there was another play he made at 5:44 of this video. They regain possession in the neutral zone and Hertl attacks the blueline with essentially a two on two with Meier. Hertl fades back once into the Ozone and Meier continues to push forward to the top of the FO circle where the TB player picks up coverage. Meier doesn't stop or curl off for a potential pass but still keeps driving towards the front of the net. Hertl throws a pass that gets caught in both players skates but Meier has position and leverage and was able to drive that sequence right to the front where it actually resulted in both a chance on net but defender knocked him into the post and knocked the net off. It didn't result in a goal but its stuff like this that you see translate alot to playoff success.
Sometimes in these big games it seems like we've had trouble scoring off these type of chaos type plays where you just either throw pucks to the front of the net and swarm or have someone themselves just bulldoze their way to the front of the net.
