Sunday, May 9, 2010

The D-Bone's Connected to the O-Bone











NorCalVol said...

Spot on.
It's frustrating to watch, but you've articulated the nature of the frustration.
Opportunistic goals may be the only way out of this little hole we find ourselves in. And, you can count on those for only so long - ephemeral.
But all we might need are a couple.
Keep hope alive.

Anonymous said...

My husband, who knows zippo about hockey but has been glued to the TV ever since January (I have ultimatums)says the same thing. "We don't have good control of the puck", he echoed last night.

I agree.

Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we had?

I was daydreaming today about this: healthy guys like Markov, Gill, Mara, O'Byrne, Gorges, Spacek all playing on the same night. Imagine that. Maybe they'll surprise us tomorrow night? A girl can dream, no?

Let's go miracle team! Give us one for the ditch!

MC said...

A very good analysis. Let's hope desparation will make the offensive-minded D like Bergeron, Hamrlik, and Subban to play more aggressively. Bergeron gets in trouble when he thinks. When he reacts and moves the puck quickly he is much better.

Doesn't it make you wonder what if Markov and Spacek had been healthly? The Habs have been close without them.

If Spacek has the inner ear problem causing vertigo that is rumoured, I will be very surprised to see him. A friend of mine had it and he could not even drive a car for almost a year.

Patrick said...

Wow, J.T., you're surpassing yourself. Brilliant reflexion on Habs problems, better than a lot of fast-food junk "sport-journalism" that gets carried around ESPN, TSN or RDS.

Wow, thanks!

I was making similar reflexions recently. It's obvious that there's no decent offense without a good moving defense, something we now lack of because of injuries.

Thanks for putting it in cristal clear words..! :D

Anonymous said...

Great analysis of the Habs' puck-moving problems. Every time they get the puck out of our zone after a struggle along the boards, I'm thinking, "OK, now do something with it," only to see them dump it in and skate off. It's so frustrating, and you have explained exactly what the problem is. Without good puck-moving defensemen, we spend two-thirds of the game in our own zone, the other third trying to create something off faceoffs or puck battles along the boards in the attacking zone. This means we get few chances, and, if the goaltender is on, even fewer second chances. With a healthy Markov and Spacek, we could be ahead in this series.

CheGordito said...

As this series has progressed, they've lost their poise on defence. Especially in the last game, the defense wasn't passing back and forth to each other. Bergeron in particular was making bone-headed plays and losing the puck rather than passing it to his defensive partner to receive it back. Those quick 1-2's are very effective if your forwards aren't too far away - lots of options open up. And it's how they need to play - defensively responsibly, but smart, to get through the Penguins.

pierre said...

Our opponents o'zone time have been high against us in both series but our commitment to play good D as a unit of 5 + 1g has proved to be effective even when put against an undisputed scoring champ like Washington..... according to some of their fans MTL was the matched-up to fear on their way to the Cup and fell confident that their team would cruze trought the Penguins just as they did during the regular season without loosing a single game against them.

I never fantaisised about our chances in making it all the way to the Cup final in this year playoffs even thought we won a 7 game series against the best team in the NHL and that we were the better team for having done so,.. " the best team won net and square " was the Capital's owner's comment after the series..... indeed... but I only realised it the day we won a second time on the 4th game of our present series..... only at that moment I realised how EVERYTHING would have been possible for us in these playoffs had we not lost Markov on the way.