21 games into a season and it's time to have a little look back at what has happened. I read a pretty blunt and unforgiving take on the Toronto Maple leafs the other day that will serve as my template.
There's no point in handing out a C when you mean F or a B+ when you mean a C. We'll grade to the curve so that the forwards as a group get the grade they deserve.
As a group
We all know the team is in the thick of things. 6 points out of first, 2 points out of 7th and 2 points ahead of second to last in the conference. A bottom midddling team so far. And the offense has been OK, but rather middling as well. An acceptable 53 goals over 21 games, however, has been inflated by some big outbursts and masks the losses due to lack of punch.
As a group, the forwards have contributed these outbursts and most of the 53 goals, and have been pretty sound defensively at times too. But it's not all positive. The group has to bear the brunt of the responsibility for lacklustre comeback attempts, a largely ineffective PP and for not being more than middling in goalscoring overall.
As a group, I'd give them a C+, a passable performance thus far, but knowing that one needs to be better than rivals, not enough.
Tomas Plekanec: A-
It's possible he's been cast in a role that it's impossible for him to fill: the all-around leader of the Montreal forwards. It is perhaps not in him to carry a team on his back when a huge turnaround is needed. Still, Tomas provides that reliable Plekanec hockey that any team would be pleased to call upon. Nearly a point per game and lots of impressive performances make him the best of the bunch.
Max Pacioretty: A-
Has stepped into the role of Habs primary goalscorer with panache. His shots are well chosen and well weighted, and he's been rewarded with 9 goals so far.
Brian Gionta: B-
A tale of two 10 game stretches. he was at times criminally absent in the first ten games and the Habs record showed for it. Since that time, he has retaken his mantle as leader and is climbing up in these marks.
David Desharnais: B-
His critics are both right and wrong. he has benefited from a few very hot starts at times from wingers and he has obtained assists on goals where he hasn't been the main protagonist. All the same, he does keep finding men open for good shooting opportunities with simple and unheralded passes. He's been a pleasant surprise given we didn't know we even had this player in the system, but is probably underperforming as a top line centre. When goals are needed, he has sometimes been a conspicuous absentee from danger areas.
Erik Cole: B+
What Erik has provided isn't easy to record. After an unforgivable start (unfit at camp???), he has been a point-per-game sparkplug since Game 8 and his first Habs goal. His main contribution may be keeping the stumbling PP above water, as he creates more than 2 goals per 60 minutes when let loose with the man advantage.
Michael Cammalleri: C-
Too many times we have been left saying how dangerous he looked without real benefit from the danger. teams that win have dangerous players who find a way to score. This is the player that Gauthier presumed he had signed in 2009, not one who would be on pace for 16 goals 2 years later.
Andrei Kostitsyn: B-
He's been a handful for many of the defenses he's faced, but like the Canadiens forwards as a whole has been frustratingly slow to step up to the plate when a hit was required. If he can return soon, the situation may be ripe to move him with Pleks and unite Gionta with Gomez, which could benefit both AK and the team overall.
Travis Moen: B
Travis had a great start, but for the last 14 games (that's 1 7th of a season) he's been busy showing us it was mostly just a fast start. He's been outstanding defensively at times, however, especially at ES (possibly due to a little bit of luck looking at his chances +/-), and has been a workhorse on the very effective PK.
Lars Eller: C+
When someone present you with a silver platter, don't put more than half of your shots off net. It's very encouraging to see Eller's confidence and all that, and he has had some truly impressive carries. He's also had his fair share of great shifts. But at the end of the day he embodies what an average Habs forward has been this season. A lot of fancy possession stats, but too often happy to go round the outside and eschew the best scoring chances.
Scott Gomez: F
Gomez has played 12 games now. He has had one, maybe two games where people want to stick their necks out to defend him. Regardless of his money, he is a veteran and a player who can lead the younger ones. He has too often set the wrong example.
Mathieu Darche: F
It's true that Mathieu Darche only has 4 fewer goals than Tomas Plekanec and 3 fewer than Cammalleri, but can you remember a goalscoring opportunity from this guy? I do remember a breakaway he parked in the pads with a half shot. Darche is on the team to be a veteran player who can pick up some slack when others are having off nights. So far, he has yet to do that.
Petteri Nokelainen: C-
He's been better than the alternative (Engqvist) but not much more.
Michael Blunden: D-
It's hard to give a player like Blunden an F, so I'll give him the grade just higher. He did nothing more than play passable hockey and that's slightly disappointing for a team that seems to be in perpetual need of someone with Blunden's physical attributes. Perhaps he was only the victim of an unforgiving coach, after all, he only took one really dumb penalty to put him in permanent doghouse.
Aaron Palushaj: D
He hasn't seen the best ice time, but after 11 games and 80 minutes of ice time, one might expect more than 0 points and one scoring chance from a forward. Call it fear of reprisal if you want, but Aaron let his true mandate slip away as he tried not to get scored on.
Andreas Engqvist: D-
From training camp through his early NHL debut, he did little if anything to make a fan or coach sit up and take note. His task on the team was to provide an NHL body until injuries returned. His task for his own career was to make an impression. he didn't fulfill either very convincingly.
Showing posts with label Quarterback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quarterback. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
How the Habs keep powering their PP
A lot of people round the league wrote the Canadiens off when they lost Sheldon Souray. Even more joined in when the free agency signings were totalled up.
But now many of these "experts" are looking at the Montreal Canadiens and wondering how they got to be third (let's dispense with the actual standings for a minute) in the East. And, critics and fans alike are wondering how their powerplay could possibly be first.
Looking at it logically, you can see where the write-offs came from:
The Canadiens missed the playoffs last year.
Much of their plight was due to a lack of scoring in critical games.
Most of their scoring last year was on the PP.
Souray scored a team leading 19 PPG – NHL record to boot.
So, take away Souray and:
The Canadiens PP will lose at least 19 goals.
The Canadiens PP will be worse than last year.
The Canadiens even strength may or may not improve, but most likely stay the same.
They score even less goals.
They lose more games.
I admire the logical process, I do. But it's like a calculation when you get a bit of the early bit wrong, the end conclusion will be way off. Most of the above thinking is logically sound, but the assumptions about the Canadiens PP and how it worked were clearly not very well founded.
Michael Farber, one time Habs expert, now occasional commentator had this to say on Souray and the Habs:
Sure, as Farber says, Souray could shoot hard, and sure this probably helped him score a few (let's say 8 to be generous). In my opinion, the shot from the point (or the middle of the ice) probably has the highest likelihood of actually going in the net or being deflected in. It is a great play. However, once other teams know this is the play, they will be able to take away the opportunity more times than not.
Now, even I have conceded that losing Souray cost us 8 goals. So why is the PP better?
In my assessment focusing our efforts into getting a Souray shot actually damaged our PP proficiency. There are several ways I see this being possible:
Souray misses, the goalie saves or defender blocks, and:
a) the puck was recovered by the other team
b) the puck went over the glass
c) the puck came out of the zone
d) the players recovered the puck and went about setting up for the big shot again
As we all know, a powerplay is a lot more complex than the goal that comes at the end of it. A powerplay that relies on a variety of plays, or indeed on that creates new plays on the spur of the moment, will be more successful in the long run because it better exploits the lack of defenders.
I would argue that the key to the Canadiens powerplay last year was the ability to set the stage for the Souray shot, and not the Souray shot itself. My conclusion is that the Canadiens PP this year and last were/are above the league's average because of the quality of the passers they have on the ice rather than the shooters.
So who is the one responsible for all this success?
Well, Michael Farber might have you believe that it's down to a decision to play regular lines rather than PP units. I might give this idea some credence if it weren't so banal. I might also think it benefits the PP, except that the regular lines change so much that the consistency argument goes out the window a bit. Plus, using regular lines is nothing new – PPs good and bad (and terrible) have been doing this for ages.
Farber's article also quotes an NHL scout, who like me opts for the ability to move the puck around, and he claims the key is Koivu:
Not to take anything away from Koivu, but he has only been on the ice for 11 of the Canadiens 22 PP goals, so he may not be the whole answer. Koivu plays a low position and is critical in puck control when he's on, but he does not orchestrate these affairs.
That job belongs to our PP conductor: Andrei Markov.
His tricks on the PP include breakout passes, gaining the zone, keeping the puck in, simple passing, cross-ice seeing eye passing, shooting from the point, and pinching when appropriate. His biggest trick is how he manages to do all this and garner hardly a mention from the critics who drooled over Souray.
If you watch him on the ice, watch his eyes. What you can see is concentration, poise and vision at the line. He passes and sets himself up for the next play seconds ahead of the opposition. He inherently knows where Koivu and Kovalev will be. When to pass to Streit and when to take on the defenders.
He's been on the ice for 17 of the Habs 22 PPGs. He's tied for 6th in PP scoring among defensemen. And I can't account for the number of times he's been the originator of the play that becomes a goal.
He's all we ever hoped Malakhov might be when we traded the talented Schneider and he's our top tier defenseman since Chelios.
The Russian (Cyrillic) characters PP would translate to RR in English. Luckily for us, in the town where Markov comes from, they seem to have taught their hockey players to translate PP into G.
But now many of these "experts" are looking at the Montreal Canadiens and wondering how they got to be third (let's dispense with the actual standings for a minute) in the East. And, critics and fans alike are wondering how their powerplay could possibly be first.
Looking at it logically, you can see where the write-offs came from:
The Canadiens missed the playoffs last year.
Much of their plight was due to a lack of scoring in critical games.
Most of their scoring last year was on the PP.
Souray scored a team leading 19 PPG – NHL record to boot.
So, take away Souray and:
The Canadiens PP will lose at least 19 goals.
The Canadiens PP will be worse than last year.
The Canadiens even strength may or may not improve, but most likely stay the same.
They score even less goals.
They lose more games.
I admire the logical process, I do. But it's like a calculation when you get a bit of the early bit wrong, the end conclusion will be way off. Most of the above thinking is logically sound, but the assumptions about the Canadiens PP and how it worked were clearly not very well founded.
Michael Farber, one time Habs expert, now occasional commentator had this to say on Souray and the Habs:
"This shouldn't compute. When Sheldon Souray signed as a free agent with the Edmonton Oilers last summer, he took his Hammer of Thor slapshot and the 19 power play goals -- a record for NHL defensemen -- with him. Souray's shot, which put as much fear into the forwards who were expected to go to the front of the net for a deflection as it did into goalies, was a freak of nature. Doug Jarvis, the Montreal assistant coach in charge of the power play, put it to excellent use. The Canadiens might work the puck around a little, but everybody in the arena knew it was going to end up back at the point and the maestro would wind up and hammer it. Montreal's power play, among the top ranked in the league until it slipped late in the season, was basically The Anvil Chorus."
Sure, as Farber says, Souray could shoot hard, and sure this probably helped him score a few (let's say 8 to be generous). In my opinion, the shot from the point (or the middle of the ice) probably has the highest likelihood of actually going in the net or being deflected in. It is a great play. However, once other teams know this is the play, they will be able to take away the opportunity more times than not.
Now, even I have conceded that losing Souray cost us 8 goals. So why is the PP better?
In my assessment focusing our efforts into getting a Souray shot actually damaged our PP proficiency. There are several ways I see this being possible:
Souray misses, the goalie saves or defender blocks, and:
a) the puck was recovered by the other team
b) the puck went over the glass
c) the puck came out of the zone
d) the players recovered the puck and went about setting up for the big shot again
As we all know, a powerplay is a lot more complex than the goal that comes at the end of it. A powerplay that relies on a variety of plays, or indeed on that creates new plays on the spur of the moment, will be more successful in the long run because it better exploits the lack of defenders.
I would argue that the key to the Canadiens powerplay last year was the ability to set the stage for the Souray shot, and not the Souray shot itself. My conclusion is that the Canadiens PP this year and last were/are above the league's average because of the quality of the passers they have on the ice rather than the shooters.
So who is the one responsible for all this success?
Well, Michael Farber might have you believe that it's down to a decision to play regular lines rather than PP units. I might give this idea some credence if it weren't so banal. I might also think it benefits the PP, except that the regular lines change so much that the consistency argument goes out the window a bit. Plus, using regular lines is nothing new – PPs good and bad (and terrible) have been doing this for ages.
Farber's article also quotes an NHL scout, who like me opts for the ability to move the puck around, and he claims the key is Koivu:
"They got too dependent on Souray. Now they're throwing the puck around better, moving into spaces, getting some two-on-ones down low. The key is Koivu. I can't remember him starting a season so strong, with so much confidence. His passes are really sharp. Last year his passes were too hard sometimes, and guy's couldn't handle it. He's playing much better now."
Not to take anything away from Koivu, but he has only been on the ice for 11 of the Canadiens 22 PP goals, so he may not be the whole answer. Koivu plays a low position and is critical in puck control when he's on, but he does not orchestrate these affairs.
That job belongs to our PP conductor: Andrei Markov.
His tricks on the PP include breakout passes, gaining the zone, keeping the puck in, simple passing, cross-ice seeing eye passing, shooting from the point, and pinching when appropriate. His biggest trick is how he manages to do all this and garner hardly a mention from the critics who drooled over Souray.
If you watch him on the ice, watch his eyes. What you can see is concentration, poise and vision at the line. He passes and sets himself up for the next play seconds ahead of the opposition. He inherently knows where Koivu and Kovalev will be. When to pass to Streit and when to take on the defenders.
He's been on the ice for 17 of the Habs 22 PPGs. He's tied for 6th in PP scoring among defensemen. And I can't account for the number of times he's been the originator of the play that becomes a goal.
He's all we ever hoped Malakhov might be when we traded the talented Schneider and he's our top tier defenseman since Chelios.
The Russian (Cyrillic) characters PP would translate to RR in English. Luckily for us, in the town where Markov comes from, they seem to have taught their hockey players to translate PP into G.
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