Wilderness Walk: Cup Final Soon

Posted Thursday at 03:55 PM

I totally agree on the way the team is built versus the way they are coached to play. There is a big disconnect within the organization and BG needs to fix that. The biggest issue I see with trying to change, is do they have enough speed/skill guys to run it? I am not convinced. If you play run and gun forward offense you better have shutdown strong defense.

So, what does strong shutdown defense look like? Does it look like Middleton? Does it look like Brodin, Faber? Does it look like responsible defenders who can skate up with the forwards, yet is a good enough skater to get back, like a Spurgeon? Does it look like a bunch of redwoods, or, maybe just rows of pine trees?

Does it look like:

For starters, I think if you're looking at that defense, you can't really protect Addison on the 3rd pairing, so you'd essentially save him for PP time, and maybe late game come from behind and run with a rotation of 5, or, you play 11-7 and save Addison for a "break glass when we get a PP." One would think if you go run & gun, you would be drawing more penalties.

I just don't see this scenario working out that well. The other option is trading Addison to help us acquire something we don't have. Also, if you do go run & gun, it is important to have strength down the middle, a weakness currently on our roster and in our system.

Our prospect pool has been built with a solid large bodied goaltender. Also, one we rescued from the scrap heap with a similar body type and training. Our defenders are puck moving middleweights with a couple of shut down options. Our forwards are smallish, both in height/weight, though we have some occasional height. We don't have much grit in there. We also don't appear to have a lot of strength in there.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how the above paragraph can be glued together as a Stanley Cup contender? I'm not really seeing the vision. In fact, it seems like it's opposite the look most Stanley Cup contenders look like.