This is interesting to me for a few of reasons. Correct me if I'm wrong...
- STC and Neil appear to be working well together defensively, against average competition. They just haven't converted on opportunities. Don't abandon the SDC experiment just yet.
- Pageau and Condra are failing against below average competition, although they start in the defensive zone a LOT! Ziba Time?
- Ryan is obviously being dragged down by 19, 9. Moving him to the Turris line is the right move. Give them more ice time.
- Kassian stinks. Full stop.
Also , who cares how many 'natural centres' you have on a team. Watching the california games, one team, LA I think, has 6 or 7 of them on the roster.
- Stringer74
No, you're misunderstanding the chart on point 1, actually.
-SDC is facing average competition, but is getting the most offensive zone start time after the top line. In otherwords, he's not really being used defensively. That said, he isn't getting crushed out there, he's just not doing anything special. Neil is facing weak competition, in defensive situations, but doing well at that.
-Correct about Pageau and Condra, but they also have that boat anchor Kassian tied to their line often. It looks to me like they're getting Greening when they're starting in the defensive zone, and Kassian when they're starting at the other team's end.
-Not sure if I would blame the Ryan drag entirely on 19 and 9 themselves, it also can be taken from this chart that coach is deploying a hurt Spezza and a Michalek who hasn't looked like himself against the other team's top players night in night out, and I'm not really sure why based on how bad they've looked.
The last thing that sticks out to me is that Colin Greening is being thrown to the wolves out there, he's getting the same treatment of defensive zone starts as Turris/Mac, and almost the same level competition as Spezza/Michalek - it's no wonder he hasn't been doing much so far. He's not good enough to be facing that sort of adversity.
