Can we hire a special assistant to help this coaching staff? I understand people want to tank, but what we have right now is a full on losing culture. Realistically, we will still finish bottom 5 in the league. What the team is doing now is how players regress and we get a lack of development from our younger players. Zero ability to fight back from a deficit, lack of passion, no1 stepping up to defend Johnny after he gets cross checked and mauled. A continuous merry go round of “we have to find a way together” with no real changes or results. The worst part is that changes need to be made, but Larsen trots out the same system and disgusting PP every game. We can improve every game and be more competitive with changes.
PP Breakout
Ottawa was incredible on their PP breakout. They isolated players at different levels and the structure was awesome.
6:30 in the video is where it starts. At 6:32 you see Stutzle cutting through the middle of the ice with Cat cutting across the opposite way behind him. Two players are isolating Kuraly, the high forward in the 1-3 and forces him to be reactionary and flat footed to the two threats. Stutzle drops the puck to Cat and he attacks with speed. The Sens isolate the wide defender with Tkachuk on the halfwall and Cat attacking the left middle of the ice. Upon entering the zone the puck is moved to the open half wall player who has 4 options. This almost always happens since the wide defender must respect the speed of the player coming into the zone. He can drop the puck to the trailing defender supporting the play, rim to the far side, pass to a middle option, if it’s open, or skate with the puck. The way they isolated different levels of our 1-3 and attacked with speed was incredible. A good PP system should simplify decisions and give options to players no matter the situation so that skilled players can play fast and succeed. Why doesn’t our coaching staff replicate one of the best PP’s in the league? The breakout isn’t new, Tampa used it against us as well. Please fire the entire coaching staff this offseason. Stutzle also has the option to skate if Kuraly cheats the drop in the beginning of the breakout. He would have a halfwall player on the other side and the breakout/setup would be flipped but the same exact structure.
Neutral Zone
Larsen’s emphasis on the stretch pass destroys our ability for possession. It’s like throwing a Hail Mary every play. There are situations where stretching works, but it’s mainly on quick transition opportunities where the opposing forwards are caught too far up ice and you’re attacking two defenders with wingers stretching and supporting each other. If the opposing team is well coached and they are set in their neutral zone structure, they trap our breakout. Opposing teams have their forwards working harder to stay above our wingers and the wingers just end up standing at the blue line. That’s why it feels like the team never controls play and is very inconsistent at it. Larsen’s coaching and emphasis on “attacking quickly and with speed ends up with our wingers flying zones and stretching way too frequently. There should be flexibility and much better coaching on when to stretch and when to track back and properly support our defenders who are trying to breakout. Off puck movement in the neutral zone is so bad. The biggest affect this has in possession is that the wingers standing at the blue line aren’t just limited as options on the breakout, it’s pretty much impossible to forecheck and retrieve pucks from the opposing team because we are standing around when the puck inevitably gets dumped in. Trash system = no retrievals and no entries. Larsen needs to have wingers, especially strong side wings tracking back and supporting our D, getting lower in the neutral zone and d zone on controlled breakouts so that we can come at teams with speed and control play. The stretch can be coached solely on quick transitions, attacking with speed doesn’t mean mindlessly skating up ice as quickly as possible. More support will also help our inexperienced and improve their development. What we do now hangs them out to dry. More forward support will help with decreasing turnovers. It’s been 100 games
Larsen seems like a good human being, but he just doesn’t have the hockey smarts to coach and develop our talent. The rest of the staff is bad too.The longer this goes on the worse it will be for the team, especially the young players trying to learn and improve at the NHL level. We really need a special assistant to at the very least study film and help our young players with the finer details of hockey.
