Sunday, December 11, 2011

Power outage for the Sharks offense again. 0-6 on the powerplay last night in St. Louis and give credit to the Blues defense for being so stingy through the neutral zone and allowed no setup for the Sharks powerplay. They also were better on the boards and won the battles for the puck, especially on the "dump and chase". Elliot played very solid, no rebounds, no second chances. The Blues defense was more of the story though. The Sharks had very few shots on net and even fewer quality scoring chances. 

Sharks are lacking in their scoring over the last couple weeks. Sure they beat Dallas with their backup goalie in net. Other than that the Sharks can't get the pucks in the net. The powerplay isn't even a threat lately and most of that is due to a lack of entry into the zone. The Sharks are going to have to come up with some new way to get through the neutral zone and setup their offense. 

Let's look at what St. Louis really did though. The trap style defense and what it is doing to the game of hockey in the NHL. When the NHL moved the blue lines back again in 2005 after just moving them in 1998. They idea was hockey needs more goals and more excited offense chances. This has back fired badly in my option. By making the offense zones bigger, the neutral zone gets smaller and smaller. There by allowing coaches to change the way they coach their teams to play defense and implement a trap style defense that has caused the game to slow down more and more. This is making hockey boring to watch and frustrating to play if you are a playmaker. You can't fault defenses for doing what they have done. If the rules change players and coaches have to make adjustments to their game plans. The problem is, now we have a trap style defense and it works. Tampa bay obvious with their 1-3-1 trap. So how do you fix it? Do we move the blues lines back. No, hockey players are bigger and faster then ever before. So if you want more offense you need more ice. I am not talking about making the net 6 inches smaller. They need to think about adding ice which would mean losing some seats. But more ice equals more speed and more exciting hockey and more goals.

No comments:

Post a Comment