Wednesday, March 7, 2012

How NOT to Play Defense: Maple Leafs Edition

As I'm sure most hockey fans do, I tend to watch the highlights of the night's games. Whilst watching the highlights of the Leafs-Bruins game, I wasn't too surprised to see them losing, but this goal in particular boggled my mind.

Are you ready for some more MS Paint? Good.



Here, we see two Leafs forwards (Dave Steckel and Tim Connolly) covering the same guy at the point: Patrice Bergeron. Um. Why? Bergeron makes a quick pass to a wide open Zdeno Chara, and, newsflash: this guy's good at hockey. Chara then has all the time he wants to do whatever he wants with the puck. The two Leafs defensemen in front of the net (Schenn and Gardiner) seem to be doing their job for the most part. However, as Chara moves in, Schenn inches closer to him and even goes down on a knee to try and take away a cross-crease pass. I have no issue with that. Jake Gardiner then inches away from Caron (eventual goalscorer) which allows Caron to get free for Chara's pass.




Now, even though Gardiner leaves Caron wide open for one of the easiest goals he'll ever score, I'm more bothered by the forwards (Steckel and Connolly). Had they both not been at the point holding hands and enjoying a cup of tea, this could have been easily prevented. One of them covers Bergeron, the other follows Chara, and then Schenn and Gardiner don't have to react based on the play that's developed.

Who knows? Maybe I'm overlooking something or maybe I'm flat out wrong about this, but it all seems pretty logical to me. I'm sure (I'm not, I'm just hoping) Randy Carlyle and Brian Burke will somehow eventually fix this, though, so no worries, Leafs Nation.

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