Re: B.U. Season Thread 4. From a weekend that will determine playoff seedings on....
I asked this earlier but no one seems to know, exactly what does Buddy Powers do?
Bavis worked with the forwards before and during Quinn's tenure. You'd assume that Powers worked with the defense. Everyone besides Gryba and Warsofsky seemed to regress on defense this year.
Not having Quinn or a CREDIBLE d-coach was a huge problem. Quinn could dissect the plays and come up with viable suggestions. Buddy was like a fill-in and really was well out of his league. I think Quinn leaving, left Parker in a desperate situation and this ultimately affected the growth of the D. That being said the boys should have been able to up their game.
Warsofsky had a good year and was very consistent. He just needs to make sure to not play in his own rink all the time. Sometimes he just tries to do too much.
Gryba technically sat out two full games for penalties. Tough is good to a point but he may have gone over the edge this year.
The power play spent too much time up top and needed to cycle low to free up the point and weakside shot. The problem may be the fact that the forwards for most part were not terribly tough on the boards. They simply lost too many battles.
C Cohen is worse defensively than last year. He will need to develop much more than an NHL shot. I hope that he can pick it up in his senior year as I can't believe that he will sign in the off season.
Shattenkirk seemed to struggle and it may well be the pressure associated with leadership. He certainly showed positive flashes but not as consistently as one would expect. I think he will go pro.
Nicastro and Escobedo came a long way, but with the proper coaching may have come farther sooner.
Overall, what happened was predictable. They didn't have the forwards that could bury the puck in the net on a regular basis. They generally were not tough enough to win the battles when they needed to win them. But most of all the forwards did not meet their defensive responsibilities in all three zones.
Another huge problem that I saw this year were turnovers in the neutral zone. HORRIBLE. This put a lot of pressure on the D because these usually created odd man rushes. More often than not the d men made the first pass but the next pass just seemed to get picked off. Maybe they were too predictable.
Hopefully the team learns from this year and comes back strong in the future.
