Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<
Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<
So your saying that the Garbo, the forward, should have known that the D was pinching in behind him, and where two Clarkson players are, one of which was also behind him, and yet give a pass to Noyes the D man on a SHG? As far as "assuming" comment, maybe I should have said instead of "assuming" Garbo should be able to count on his teammate playing the correct position and hustling. Your basically faulting a guy who hustled back and tried to make a play while three other players are nowhere to be found.
Oh, and you're correct, Noyes is the third man back after the goal is scored. I'm not impressed. If he stays in position on that play there isn't the breakout and thing might have turned out different.
I'm not trying to blame or vindicate anyone. This is a team sport and we need to start playing as a team - offensively and defensively. No one player is responsible for our disappointing season thus far.
I think the first thing we need to keep in mind is that this situation/sequence is not the norm. First; we are on a powerplay, which is a "Special Teams" situation; and second, the sequence of the puck glancing off a linesman on a zone clear, which ends up on the oppenents stick, at the opponents blue line, causing a breakaway; is probably not something you practice. From that standpoint, maybe just bad luck is to blame. Maybe we are parsing this too much. But, for the sake of argument...
As for Garbo; I'm pretty sure he should have or could have known that he was alone at the top of the Clarkson zone (along with Saracino) in that situation. Hence all his teammates were lower in Clarkson zone and less able to defend a breakaway taking place behind them. This was a broken play so everyone was caught off guard. I'm all for him going for the puck there "if" the puck was still in the Clarkson zone. It's worth it to try to keep the puck in the Clarkson zone for the PP. But the puck was outside the Clarkson zone, so even if Garbo steals the puck there, we still need to get all our players back on-side, so there was no offensive opportunity there. It became purely a defensive situation.
And, to be a complete hard-a**; if he's going to go for the steal or intercept there, he needs to come up with something. He didn't get the puck, the player's stick or the player himself. Actually the player he was going for, #21, was in *
perfect* position for a rebound on #32's shot, if there was one. If nothing else he needs to make sure that, what became his guy, didn't have such a perfect position for a rebound.
If Garbo had instead skated back towards our goal in the middle of the ice, where he was originally, he would have been parallel with Clarkson #32, the goal scorer. He would have been between the puck handler and the eventual scorer, which would have made the pass much more difficult, if not impossible. Now I know this is all 20/20 hindsight and I don't expect him to have eyes on the back of his head, but I think he needed to be cognizant of other Clarkson players on the ice and actually look for them before he goes for the hero play there. He also should have trusted that his senior defenseman teammate (Saracino) had the puck handler contained (which it seemed like he did) and instead he should have been looking for other potential threats, like an open player behind him streaking toward his goal. Like I said earlier, we already gave up a SHG in the period, like 10 minutes before, so It's not like we didn't know Clarkson had the skills to do it again.
We can argue the team's playing philosophy of pinching the D-men, but from what I've seen, that's how we play, that's "Tiger Hockey" - aggressive. I guess we'll have to take that up with coach Wilson. I'd think if the coach didn't want his players to do that, they wouldn't keep doing it.
