Re: RPI 2011-12 Part III: Our Goal is to be Offensive
The days of filling up the net are gone....both Yale and Brown used the trap over the weekend...heck the Tampa Bay Lightening are even trapping now check out the youtube video of them playing the Flyers and Pronger refusing to move the puck out of the zone quite interesting for sure...but love it our hate it its here to stay...any team has a chance to win w/this system thats why special teams are the whole game now.I believe you need to click at about 20-25% on the PP now to be a winning team...look at Cornell how many league championships have they trapped their way to...heck Union trapped their way to a championship last year w/one of the best PP's in the country.We can play with anybody I truely believe that but we need to get the PP in order...I think were what 6% if we can get that to 20% were going to be OK...if not it could get ugly...look at saturday we won w/a power play goal and Brown got blanked on their PP's that was the difference and will continue to be into the future...We seemed to have a little more confidence on the PP sat.and generated a lot more grade A opportunities than we have been so hopefully were on our way...we can thank Lou Lamarillo and Jaques Lemeire for this sh*t show...once you win a few Cups w/it everybody wants to do it !!!!!!!JMH-Having followed hockey for so long I begin to confuse the seasons-but you are right. This game has changed in so many ways. The entire emphasis has been altered. I know we have not seen a 30+ goal scorer in the ECAC in over 11 years-from any of the teams. I do not have a solution-I do not think they can take away shot blocking-it is just a very valuable part of the game. The goalies are better-for sure. The equipment is better. The defensemen are much bigger yet can skate as well as the forwards. When i first started in college hockey a big forward was about 175 pounds and the usual defensemen was considered huge at 190-200.pounds. Coaches spend so much time on defense and penalty killing that even a 5 on 3 is no longer a guarantee of scoring. I would not want to see too much tampering with the game-I am an old fashioned old time hockey guy. As long as it does not get as bad as soccer (with every game seemingly ending 1-0) I can live with what we seem to have now. Perhaps both our attitudes about low scoring might change once we start pumping a few into the net as this season goes on.
