Sunday, October 19, 2008

Defensemen and Power Plays

Last night's exciting victory over the Flyers in OT reminds me why I love hockey. Albeit a regular season game, it had everything from hits, fights, saves and a timely comeback by the home team. I had a bad feeling about this game. Somehow the Sharks fought back from three separate deficits, 2-0, 3-1, and 4-3. Credit the team for their 'resiliency'.

As I look at the stat sheet for the season, three of our defensemen (Vlasic, Boyle and Erhoff) are in the top 5 in scoring for the team. This is what I imagined as McClellan has emphasized the our blueline to shoot more. This is a good thing! Lots of good things happen when you shoot the puck.
Erhoff already has more goals then he had all of last year!

Now lets take a look at a concern. Despite the defensive breakdowns, I am still more concerned with our power play. At times guys are still standing still and waiting for someone to make a play. Even Cheech admitted to doing that. Old habits are hard to break and guys need to move around and have one guy in front of the net. Sounds simple on paper but harder to execute on the ice.

1 comment:

Jonathan said...

yeah. power play is a concern.

im also concerned about our giveaways. we turned the puck over so much last night. 18 it was? we just can't do that against great teams. speed will kill us.

im concerned for thorton. he looks kind of off so far...