Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand
Yes and no. Still is situational. K Schulze was far and away the leader in minus the previous year but not because he was the worst defender. Soleway and Davison both took a fair number of GA due to others mistakes as well. Jed was often on the point of the forecheck and completely out of a scoring line rush against play, and Davison was many times hung out to dry with Jurusic on a neutral zone turnover. Which isn't to say that they are particularly good defenders, because they're not. Just that +/- is a small and can be a misleading part of the story. You can be a traffic cone as a D, but if you're out with the top line a lot, your +/- isn't going to look too bad.
I think TJK is right. If Jed just works hard on playing in front of the net on the PP, ups his cardio and skating a bit, and can manage to play within himself, his value as a faceoff specialist is huge and I think it's going to be really hard to justify sitting him no matter how skilled the new guys are.
With Timmy- well he's improved from "I just don't think you can play that guy" to "we can maybe live with him" defensively. He's gifted with the puck on his stick. He needs to maybe find a Tom Gilbert highlight tape and just watch it over and over a million times, as Tommy was one of the best we ever had at positioning and playing the body as though the puck didn't exist. Oz can help him. He's got the ability to do it.
Originally posted by oldicecoach
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I think TJK is right. If Jed just works hard on playing in front of the net on the PP, ups his cardio and skating a bit, and can manage to play within himself, his value as a faceoff specialist is huge and I think it's going to be really hard to justify sitting him no matter how skilled the new guys are.
With Timmy- well he's improved from "I just don't think you can play that guy" to "we can maybe live with him" defensively. He's gifted with the puck on his stick. He needs to maybe find a Tom Gilbert highlight tape and just watch it over and over a million times, as Tommy was one of the best we ever had at positioning and playing the body as though the puck didn't exist. Oz can help him. He's got the ability to do it.
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