Well november is here and as isles fans we all know what happened last year. we all know that even though the (cheap cheap cheap) front office made some nice decisions to pay some young talent to stay here, the didn t address the blaring needs of this team. At least the needs that would have made us more of a contender consistantly. Lets break it down, shall we.......
One of the biggest upsides we have is a ton of talent. Highly skilled top 6/7 fowards and highly drafted and developing defensive talent.(hamonic,andy mac, return of striet) and some needed powerplay QB's in rolston and striet. The team played well from dec to end march and gave us fans alot to be excited about. AL Montoya finnaly showed he can be a no 1 goalie and so far Nabakov and even DP have played very well. So goaltending appears to be a strength even though no one is being allowed to grab the job by the .........
Now the negatives, for all the young and gifted players on the team, the much improved powerplay and PK. Nothing can mask the fact that the team is soft and the defense is too small. Milan Jurina should help a bit but he wasnt a Physical player to begin with. Coach has benched comaeu in favoer of Trevor Gillies for obvious size and grit reasons but then playing him for 2 shifts per game is Basically pointless. Its too late to bring in enough size to make a difference now but is it too late to coach this team to play tougher????? My perfect example is John Tavares. 2 years hes played like a skilled yet non physical special teams scorer. HE DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT.....HE WENT ON A MUCH PUBLICIZED STRENGHT, SKATING, & CONDITIONING program and this difference is immense. Hes a new player. Same headsy skill player but a guy who now fights through checks and skates through defenses trying to create offense. and along with his linemates, look excellent thus far. WOULD it be too crazy to put some of our other young talent through the same program. or simply coach them to dump and chase more and get more damn physical. Mike peca was 185lbs but played like he was 215. throwing hits all over and it helped those teams win games.
Anyway, getting back to now, its easy to say the isles played well the past 2 games but its easy to see that a non physical team cant crash the net and move defensmen. nor can they hit enough people to detur the forecheck. These are things that have to change. Do i see another 0 for november??? god i hope not. but i havent seen anything yet that shows me we are going to be even a .500 team.
some things we can try........WHERES HALEY??? and give him serious minutes with the 2nd and 3rd lines. If we are convinced comeau is too soft, then trade him ASAP for a more physical top 6 foward. not a draft pick. we need nelp now. If we are convinced DP is healthy, then dump nabakov and give the no 1 back to montoya. Perhaps JURCINA also helps the physical game. And perhaps some of those 30/40 outside shots start finding the twine. Also maybe time to have someone like mike bossy work w GRABS to teach him some finish on all those breakaways.
ONE LAST GRIPE...what the hell was JOsh bailey supposed to be anyway??? and was he simple a cheap draft pick?? he wasnt an Offensive talent, He wasnt a physical two way foward, So what the hell was his upside, and is he really a disapointment or is this what he was though to be. And since hes not even a shadow of the "pat Flatley" type hes being projected as now, Time to do something. Cheaper and more effective penalty killers are out there. Hardly worth a top 10 pick.
This month will tell alot, just hope it doesnt tell us what last November told us.....
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