|
I don't think the indivual players on this team are slow at t'all. People like Leetch, Kovalev, Poti, and last year Bure are some of the elite skaters in the league. What we don't have is hunger. The players on this team are not willing to do the things that it takes to win. They won't out hustle, out hit, or out think their opponents cause they simply don't really care. They think they are somehow better than other teams cause of how much talent is in the locker room. That is the problem, and it isn't going to go away by making them work on skating in practice. Their team slowness isn't about slow players, its about lazy players.
It's the same thing as every other year, when our guys want to show up (whether it be for a shift, or a period) they look like a totally different team, they skate fast, take the iniative and act...but when they don't show up they look slow, tired and reactive.
The only cure I see is to inject youth into the line-up and dump the dead weight (probably more than half the team).
|