Ok, I'll try this one more time and then I'll just keep it to myself after that (I can hear you all cheering now - stop it!).
I have repeatedly acknowledged that the team's offense as a whole was perfectly capable of scoring last year and did that seemingly more than enough, ranking # 9 in the nation in goals (so you don't need to keep telling me that). My point has always been made and expressed accepting that the team's defense and goaltending were of primary concern. My concern was the one "chip in the armor" of the offense that I believe could make the difference between an 8th place finish and possibly contending for a first round bye, given that the goaltending and defense are not very good. The first time I brought it up was in a post that I made where I addressed ALL aspects of the team and what I thought as the issues that could have been causing the problems. Of course being on a message board, everybody focused on what they felt was fueled by "crazy juice" rather than the post as a whole.
So AGAIN...
The offense scores plenty of goals which is fine and they are not by any stretch the biggest issue, but... The fact remains that they rarely score a "Big" goal, i.e. late in close games or in critical power plays. The job of scoring such goals usually falls on that true elite # 1 "Go-to" line rather than one of the three reliable # 2 lines they have. This may not be a major weakness normally, but is greatly magnified when the defense is weak and the goaltending is not spectacular (or even just mediocre at times like last season). RIT is pretty much assured that the opposition is going to score goals, so the offense is going to be depended on to score goals, score many late close game goals, and take advantage of as many power plays as possible especially in the third period. It seems kind of unfair to say to the offense: "You're really good, but the rest of your team isn't very good so you need to be even better", but IMO that is kind of the situation they're in. What would be even better is if the defense and or goalies stepped up their games and let the offense do what it does, but it doesn't look like that's about to happen.
