Re: Bentley Hockey 2012-2013: The New Era of JAR Pride Begins
"Then the defenseman loses track of a man one-on-one, who toe drags and beats Doc low. That's on the dman for letting a guy by him in a one-on-one. That wasn't a system play at all."
Anyone watch what happens before the puck crosses the defensive blue line? All game long...
Credit Bentley for running the system on the pp at the end and nearly scoring a goal. They hit the post two or three times on the power play (AGAIN). There were wide open looks on net created by the system, and these guys just flat out missed them."
the "system" isn't run on the PP.
Actually, there is a system on the pp. Grieve sets up in the middle with Switzer on the right and Gladiuk on the left. Gensler (now in place of Blomquist; he used to play up where Switzer is) is on the right, with Weinstein on the left on the blue line. Grieve wins the draw, and the puck goes to Weinstein. Gensler cycles drawing a defender with him and gets the puck. Gensler comes to the middle of the hashes in between the faceoff circles and goes to Switzer on the right. Switzer hits Weinstein's tape up top, who looks left or right. He eventually goes to Gensler who has the authority to determine which way to go based on coverage. Gensler goes outside to a shot to switch directions cross ice through the defense. IT lines up a shot from the outside on a wide open net. If it's saved, it can't be saved cleanly, and Grieve is there in the middle to put it back.
You want proof that the pp system works? Gladiuk has 4 pp goals and Grieve has 7, the most since Dustin Cloutier, who was a pp wizard when it came to shooting because all he had to do was shoot the puck on his own. Cloutier's system was to get the puck and everyone get the hell out of his way. Gensler occasionally can take the shot himself, but so can Weinstein, and Weinstein can also come off the line if he sees the defense split enough. Weinstein himself has five of six goals on the pp. The threat of Weinstein stepping up and passing it off to Gladiuk or Gensler is enough to open up a shot lane, and his shot is good enough tos neak by.
That's a system play by design every single time. Bentley never changes the pp system when the top line is out there; it happens every single time. It's one thing to know its coming, it's another to stop it.
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Other counterpoint on your love of these players - last year's team statistically. Last year's team statistically wasn't great, especially at the beginning of the year. They opened up the season 1-5 (granted two of the games were at michigan and one was at umass). Took two points from four games against NIagara and mercyhurst by going 0-2-2. Swept by RIT. Couldn't beat HOly Cross.
The team got hot at the end of the year by going 4-1-2 in divisional play. That's about what they need to have happen this year. Somebody said it (I don't remember who) that a bye would be doable by going 6-1-1. Now they're 0-2 with games left. What's that mean? Well, it means that they can still do better than last year's team IF they turn it around. They'll end probably in the same spot, which is saying something considering. The system is exactly the same as it was last year, and I fail to see a time last year when someone didn't come up with a big play. And they went into the playoffs and laid an egg in Game 2 against SHU. But they were within a mad dash comeback and double OT game of beating RIT at RIT, where dreams go to die. When that series ended, RIT fans were shocked they'd made it through. It took 63 shots and 2 OT to beat that unit in Game 2, and that was on a team predicted to finish 10th last year. This year they predicted 4th and now they're 10th.
I'll look inside the stats since stats can be bent within the confines of what you're trying to prove. I go back to the Holy Cross tie at home on the second to last day of the season. Gensler and Marginsky get sent to the can for 2 full minutes. Mike Switzer and Trent Bonnett stayed on the ice for the entire two minutes, and the only player that switched out was the forward on the PK. THat was switching between Aaron Stonacek and Jamie Nudy, two more seniors who were, as Snively pointed out, PK specialists. It was a huge kill, and there was always the chance of a goal. Yet with those guys on the ice, you KNEW, you just KNEW that they were probably going to kill it. Switzer and Bonnett made Komm play that much better by limiting position.
Is it Soderquist's fault that he didn't adequately prepare for life after those guys? Yeah a little bit. But we're forgetting one major piece of the puzzle. Micah Williams. Williams quit at the end of last year because he was unhappy with his playing situation. If you insert Williams into this rotation, all of a sudden the whole dynamic of inexperience is different. And it's nobody's fault other than Williams that he quit. He didn't want to be there, so he gave it up despite all signs pointing to a leadership role on this unit. All of a sudden the defense has Weinstein-Blomquist, Marginsky-Ledford, and Williams-Maher/O'Brien/Reardon. Maybe Reardon becomes the tough guy 4th forward in the form of Kayfes. I know this.... when Ledford went to the box, that PK unit would've had Micah Williams on it instead of multiple freshmen. That's not the coach's fault that a guy quits. It's a coach's fault when 5 guys quit (see also: BU)
My last point is about Soderquist the coach. He's a 2-time AHA coach of the year. Despite having 12 scholarships as a limit in the AHA, Bentley offers less than that. He's managed to have terrible facilities and put a team out there that's still considered a program on the rise. HIs system coaches have gone onto coach elsewhere; Mark White is down at Brown coaching a defense that's one of the best in the country right now. The funny thing is that White's doing it with a team that's using a converted 14th forward on the depth chart and a goalie that hadn't played in 2 years before this year. It's all system down there, and Brendan Whittet brought in Mark White for his recruitment/system knowledge. Soderquist was mentioned as a name alongside Paul Pearl when Rand Pecknold turned down the UMass job. He's considered one of the better coaches out here, and he's put Bentley in a position to play teams like Michigan and Northeastern and compete....unlike what AIC did when they gave up 72 thousand goals to Minnesota last year. He's one of the best at scouting an opponent, and he knows how to get it done.
PK - you've been on Soderquist's back and I commend your commitment to that. But at this stage of the game, we need the players to dig deep and find heart. Hell, you can win a title with a terrible head coach even if Soderquist is that bad if you want it bad enough. At some point, the game becomes less about coaching and more about the players doing what it takes on the ice. The coach isn't the problem at this stage of the season. We could always have CJ Marottolo or Gary Wright. Thenw hat would happen?
