CarltonTheBear said:
herman said:
https://twitter.com/markhmasters/status/1236189413035503617
Nooooooooppppe
I like (I think it was your) suggestion to try swapping Nylander and Marner. The PP needs a solid shooting threat on both sides. Teams are going to respect Nylander's shot more.
My suggestions from last year started with, let?s put our QB behind the net. It evolved to put Nylander on the PP1 because he?s their best carrier on entries and can pass AND shoot. This year it has evolved further to Marner behind the net so he can?t waste pucks shooting. I like Nylander back there and I?d probably still be excited about Marner on the half wall if he was on his strong side (harder to strip) and made better decisions than force an impossible pass to Matthews or take a lame wrister from far away.
Largely, the PP issues go beyond just Marner (and Barrie), i
t?s the general lack of movement. They?re just stationary turrets trying to thread passes and that?s pretty easy to zone out for the PK. The reason the first two/three years of PP with Hiller were amazing was because the PP units were always making attack runs at the net. PP1 would have Marner loop up and then drive down at the net off the wall to either pass down to JvR or across to Kadri for chaos. Willy and Matthews would both loop from the top of their circles and either zip a seam pass or rip one into the net from dangerous spots.
One-timers from Matthews is compelling but he can score in so many different ways. Same with Tavares and Nylander; all three of them have heavy wrist/snap shots, good slappers, pretty nasty backhands, can tip pucks, have the hands to wraparound, or bulldoze through the front for an ugly goal. Yet our PP QB thinks more shots from the worst wrister on the ice or the farthest possible skater is the solution.
At the end of the day, with the personnel we run, it should have every little to do with who is shooting and more to do with how many decisions/mistakes we can force the PK into making. Right now, Marner?s (McFarland?s) tunnel vision makes it very easy to stop and is wasting everyone?s capabilities.