The Blueshirts' power play is a bigger problem than our defence
PP's been costing us games for two seasons running and half this thread still wants to blame the D-core 🤡 We pay premium money for a blueline that can't run an entry, that's on the system and the coach, not the chequebook. What's the actual conversion rate been lately, like bottom third? I'd put a C$50 prop on Laviolette not fixing it by Christmas, sure thing, mate 😏
Show me your ROI first 😏
Bottom third? Show me where you got that, because two seasons of "feels right" isn't a stat. Plenty of teams pay big on D and still can't buy an entry.
you just know it's the system, watching this PP for two seasons I'm screaming at the tv 😤 same.entries sideways, same look across, same turnover, somebody fix it Coach, this is on Laviolette not the chequebook, backing my D-core all day, been saying this since the Buffalo game 💪🔥
One love, one side ❤️
Faithful's direction is right, though nobody should quote "bottom third" until someone actually pulls the numbers. Small stretches of schedule make PP percentages swing wild, so look at the two-season sample before anyone plants a flag 📊. Watching the tape, the entries are the giveaway: same sideways curl, cross-ice look, turnover, every single time, and that's a scheme problem you can see with your own eyes. Fix the entry structure first, and suddenly this blueline stops looking lost.
I keep my own tables 📊
Kev wins this thread in one post, honestly. The D moves the puck fine at even strength, then the PP zone feels like watching the Leafs cycle into nothing. System's cooked 😏
nah Kev doesn't win anything, sorry 😤 bad entries beat good personnel? then why does our PP look fine some nights and dead the next with the SAME guys out there?? personnel doesn't change between Tuesday and Thursday, the effort and the structure does. and Gary screaming "it's Laviolette" since the Buffalo game. Mate you were screaming the same thing about the D-core in October, pick a villain and stick with it lol
tbh I think you're all missing it, our lot never make it easy, it's the forwards not getting to the dirty areas, standing still on the flanks waiting for a perfect look. Fox could run the entry clean every single time and it means nothing if nobody crashes the net 🔥.section 118 agrees with me, I've asked them 🙌
One love, one side ❤️
Sophie's got a point worth chewing on, but I've sat through enough Tuesday-Thursday swings to know streakiness was never a personnel problem either, back in the day we said the same things about guys who were fine the rest of the week. Bad entries beat good setups, and good setups can go cold for a fortnight; both things happen. Watch as long as I have and you'll get it 😉
Been here longer than some have followed.
Sophie's variance point is the real tell here, same six guys, same setup, wildly different results most nights. That screams coaching and prep, on condition that someone actually shows us the entry attempts differ game to game.
Hype isn't an argument.
Sophie and ValueDan are circling the same drain, and I can back part of it with my own scribbles - I've charted zone entries in a notebook for the past two seasons, carry-ins versus dump-ins with retrieval, and the night-to-night swing is wilder than any lineup change could explain. Depends how you count an entry, sure, and I'm generous with mine. My even-strength notes have those same defencemen moving pucks clean, then the PP carry-in rate falls off a cliff the very same week. Same bodies, different prep.
The caveat I'd add, though: variance stops being a defence once you're two full seasons into the same failure mode. A bad month is noise, a bad year and a half with the same six guys is a system. So count me with the coaching crowd on this one, eh, if anyone wants the pages I'll bring them up to section 118, handwriting uglier than a goal-line scramble 📊
Do the math before you argue.
My kid's hockey coach has a saying: you can run the same drill all week and get eleven different looks on Saturday. That's basically this argument in miniature. RideOrDieZone's notebook is the closest thing we have to evidence here, and honestly the wild entry swing with a static six says prep and structure fluctuate, which points at the bench. There's a nuance though - variance that big can also mean the personnel fits poorly, so some nights the matchups bail them out and some nights they don't. I've kept my own PP conversion tables by opponent type for two seasons and the split is there too, small sample though on the good nights. So colour me unconvinced either way: system, personnel, or some ugly cocktail of both, I want a bigger slice of data before I pick a hill to die on. Section 118 can hold my seat. 📊