I apologize in advance for this. Is anyone besides me bothered by the cantaloupe (melon) colored home uniforms of the Nashville Predators! I don't know why, but I have a hard time appreciating those uniforms, especially the helmets that look like a bunch of melons rolling around on the ice. (I know I'm being ridiculous) I thought Subban going to New Jersey was a good move for Nashville, because in spite of Subban's strong shooting and play making, he had two bad faults that seem so ingrained in him that it might be impossible to correct. (And he is by no means the only defensemen with these faults.) He has a penchant for passing back rather than forward and when his team is a man up he brings the puck up the ice so slowly you wonder if his team will still be young enough to play by the time he passes or gets to center ice. Both of these bad habits cost time and momentum. It's particularly egregious when your team is a man up. You've only got 2 minutes, why dawdle in your end on the ice when every second counts. While your killing the clock for the other team, you're also giving the other team time to jam the ice between the blue lines and get set in the ideal defensive positions to intercept forwards and cross ice passes. Then the worst possible thing to do is once you get to mid ice and find the opposition cutting off your passing lanes, because you gave them a month of Sundays to size up the play and position themselves to break it up, you pass the puck back to a trailing defenseman because you have no play other than to shoot the puck into the opposition zone and chase it -- which would at least be better! When you pass the puck back toward your own goal, you cause your forwards to immediately put on the brakes to keep from going offsides and lose forward momentum. Subban was a constant offender when he was with Nashville. I'm certain the Devils will suffer now the same wound to their power play unless the coach nips his bad habits in the bud. Next time you're watching Subban play on the power play make a point of contrasting his methodical, slow as molasses play to that of say a team like the Capitals, and I think you'll see what I mean. The Capitals are going to bring the puck up the ice at breakneck speed and none of this giving away momentum at the blue line. They'll headman the puck and carry it in, or shoot/flip it in and chase. There will be none of this holding everyone up on the blue line while they pass the puck back a regroup.
So continuing this busy thread> I want to comment further on defensive play in the NHL, and also on the power play-- particularly Boston's contrasted with Nashville's when it was led by PK Subban. This post relates to my comments in the first post of this thread in which I took Subban to task for his defective play when a man up. He is an outstanding player, but with serious faults. The comments below are mostly in regard to the Bruins and the Lightning. Kids are taught that when defending their own net they should position themselves between the opposing player and their own net. Lets call this the "inside position," and if the opposing player is closer to the net than the defending player lets call the defender's position the "outside position." Regardless, whether the defender is inside or outside they must be closer to the player they are defending against than a stick's length. The closer the better, and it should be in the inside position. The outside position, which I see routinely played in the NHL, is the wrong position. When outside you have only one play, which is to play the puck. When inside you have three plays, the man (usually best), the puck, or the opposing players stick. The worst possible defending position is outside and more than a sticks length away. The next worse is close but outside. Equal to that in effectiveness is inside but a stick's length or more away. By far the best position to defend against an opposing player who is close to your goal and in front of it (dead in front or ~+- 180 deg to either side) is inside, behind and slightly to the stick side of the opposing player. (Of course you must not screen your own goalie and not allow the opposing player to screen. The man you are defending against will try to screen and you will try to push then to one side or the other without getting an interference call.) When in your own end, and your team has control, you, as a defenseman, are free to move away somewhat from opposing players, but you've got to be ready to resume the inside position in front of your net if the other team should regain possession. This means you will have to have eyes in the back of your head. You will constantly reposition yourself according to where the puck is, who has it, and with the intention of maintaining the inside position whenever the opposition has the puck and there is an opposing player in front of your net in scoring position. Now I ask you, how many NHL teams violate this basic position rule when defending the front of their net? They all do! When defending, failure to occupy the inside position close to the attacking player leads to numerous goals. So it's a matter of which teams violates this basic rule of positional play the least. One of those teams is the Lightning. This was a factor in their defeat of both the Bruins and the Islanders in the Stanley cup playoff games just completed. The Lightening are one of the best at positional defensive play in front of their own net. Boston, on the other hand, is rather terrible at it. The Islanders are perhaps a little better than average. The Boston power play is the best in the league. If you read the PK Subban faults I mention in the first post in this thread, you will observe Boston to do everything just the opposite of the Subban led power play -- at least when he was at Nashville, perhaps he has reformed is play. The essential attribute of the Boston power play is the speed with which they bring the puck up ice after the shorthanded team has iced it. It comes back at breakneck speed. Most of the time the goal tender does not wait for a Boston defenseman to come all the way back to retrieve an iced puck. Instead the goal tender often makes the first pass up ice to a player at mid ice streaking down toward the opposing players blueline. Then the puck is head-maned again, carried in, or shot into the offensive zone. Never is it passed backward, the worst of all choices, as that completely robs the attack of momentum. The speed with which Boston moves an iced puck back up ice leaves the defending and short handed team with little time to get set up in the neutral zone. The Bruins are already over the blue line by the time the defending team can get positioned to jam up the neutral zone. Using their goal tender, as they do on their power play, momentarily gives the Bruins effectively, not one, but two extra men in bringing the puck up ice. So little time is wasted turning the puck around that they in effect turn each nominal 2 minute power play into what is effectively more than a normal two minute power play. They end up with the puck in the defending teams end of the ice far longer than does a team that methodically brings both defensemen back into their own end of the ice before taking a month of Sundays to brings the puck back down the ice. A team that wastes valuable penalty minutes lollygagging about their own end of the ice gives the short handed team time to position itself in the most effective way to jam the neutral zone. And a team that first skates the puck up ice and then having reached their own blue line with no one open to pass to -- because they took forever to skate the puck up ice rather than pass it up -- then passes backwards to a trailing defenseman, ala Subban, commits one of the worst of all power play sins. This drives me nuts whenever I see it. With such a powerful powerplay, why did Boston lose to the Lightening whose power play is similar but not quite as skillfully executed as the Bruins? It was because of Boston's incompetent defensive play. They habitually failed to achieve the inside position when defending their net and were often caught more than a sticks length away from Lightning poachers who regularly slipped in behind the Boston defense to occupy the position where the Boston defender should have been.. In this regard, Chara's, the Boston Captain, play was particularly weak. Chara, a much respected player, is getting old. And though still an excellent position player, he was among the worst offenders on the Bruins when it came to achieving the inside position against the opposition. His passes were right on the money as always, but he was taking a fraction of a second longer to get them off. It is probably a matter of only a couple hundred milliseconds, but at playoff time everything speeds up, and you have to speed up with it. Chara's a great player, but the coach should have recognized when it was time to put a younger faster defenseman on the ice and give Chara a rest. Chara was by no means the only culprit. Over and over, one was wondering where the Bruins defense was with one or two Lightning players camped out in front of the Boston net unchallenged. I noticed that too often three Bruin's players would be in a corner occupied by only one Lightning player. One of those Bruins should have been in front of the net. The Lightning also make use of their goal tender to pass the puck up ice rapidly. They are not quite at Bostons level of execution, but I swear they improved on the power play during the Boston series. They must have been paying attention to what Boston was doing. The Lightning's defense is better than Boston's. They far more often get the inside position when defending their net and are good at maintaining position. As a result they are very good defenders of their own net. And too, they have statistically the best goal tender in the league. That can't hurt. The Dallas Stars will give the Lightening all they can handle in the final series starting tomorrow night. Both teams are physically big teams. I expect the Lightning to prevail however.