The odd thing is that in pre-season when he came in he snapped a shot from the slot and it was the fastest I had ever seen him shoot a puck. He whipped it top corner in-traffic, it was on and off his stick. Just based on that I thought he would have another high goal scoring season but boy was I wrong.
Stutzle has a crazy shot but in the past years he was missing that quick release. He was often taking too much time to get shots off. Getting the puck, settling it down, and then go for a full on wrister which usually gave the goalie a lot of time to get in position or for opposing players to get position on him. That's what I'm seeing from him this season. He's hesitant when shooting - maybe trying for the perfect shot or trying to find open teammates as opponents converge on him when he's winding his shot.
He needs to get back to the basics and pucks will start to go in for him. He needs to simplify his game, use his teammates on breakouts, and stop playing two steps behind. Drive the middle of the ice with speed and get possession in the Ozone. His teammates need to help him on zone entries too. Tkachuk has not been helping him at all but he did better when playing with Giroux.
I would put Giroux and Joseph back with Stutzle. He needs to have Joseph on his line to be effective because he's the only guy on the team that can play with pace.
Joseph - Stutzle - Giroux
Tkachuk - Pinto - Batherson
Norris - Greig - Tarasenko
This is probably what I'd go with. Hopefully they can bring in another spark plug type of player to replace Tarasenko when he's dealt. That would inject some much needed truculence on this team. They're playing soft as butter.
