Normally, I'd agree with that point of him playing with Picard. However, the turn-overs that are leading to goals have nothing to do with Picard. It's P.K. skating with the puck, making a bad decision (i.e. bad pass) and turning it over. A player like Picard, who enjoys playing up a little from time-to-time, will see P.K. with the puck and will advance on the play a bit. P.K. will try to do it all himself, until he's pressured by a forechecking winger, at which point he'll try to rush a pass and lose it.
It's really hard to blame Picard for that. Especially since earlier on in the season, whne Subban wasn't turning over the puck the way he is now, this duo has looked pretty good.
A player like Picard, who enjoys playing up a little from time-to-time, will see P.K. with the puck and will advance on the play a bit. P.K. will try to do it all himself, until he's pressured by a forechecking winger, at which point he'll try to rush a pass and lose it.
This is exactly the problem though. And it's not necessarily a knock on Picard, the thing is PK would benefit a lot from being paired with a stay-at-home vet (I actually liked the Gill-PK pairing, because I felt both make up very well for the other's weaknesses : PK has the speed lacking to Gill, Gill will stay behind and cover well the front of the net and cut passes if there's 2v1s caused by a PK turnover, etc.).
You can't expect an offensive DMan not to create turn-overs, especially not a rookie one. Some elite ones like Markov create fewer (PK is clearly not there yet) but most WILL create these situations pretty regularly, vets or not. Hell, Spacek is a turn-over machine and benefits a LOT from being with Hamrlik. Try putting him with Picard and see how that pairing goes.
The thing is, you can't leave a guy bound to make turn-overs with the guy that is the least able to make up for his mistakes on the team. I mean, take the goal that Colorado scored on the back-hand last game, Picard could have stopped that play in a 1v1 situation but was too slow and didn't take the good skating path. If you have Hamrlik there, the guy would have had to take a shot from an impossible angle or on a shinpad.
If you have an offensive d-man, he needs to be with someone able to make up for turnovers and that will know to expect the possibility of them. If Picard goes too much on the offensive because PK is taking the puck up, that's a mistake. But that's also how he plays, so it's hard to blame him for it. He's just a 6th-7th D, not so good or so bad at either offense or defense. He can't make up or expect PK's mistakes, and it makes PK looks worse for it, just like PK's turnovers make Picard look bad because he doesn't have the skill to handle the situations that happen afterwards. They're also 2 guys that are not all that great in d-zone positioning, which showed more than once.
It was the same mistake when they paired Weber and Gill last year when they called Weber back for a bit early in the season. And it totally blew up on Weber because he didn't have the speed or perfect defensive positioning to make up for Gill's mistakes and slowliness, and Gill couldn't make up for Weber's mistakes because he was too slow, and so the pair was god damn aweful.
Defensive pairing is one of the thing I dislike the most about Martin (because I actually do like him as a whole as a coach). He tends to always leave a pair that has glaring weaknesses in it and then when they end up vs the other team's first line he benches them for letting a goal happen. We were fine with Markov in, but with him out I'd really prefer if he organized his pairings in a way that won't have a rookie paired with the least reliable defenseman on the team.
Surely it's Picard's turn to sit soon. He's been directly involved in a bunch of weak goals against recently. Play PK with Gill and Weber with either Hamr or Spacek.
I guess it makes sense though, you guys are a strong team this year, you can't afford to be giving PK anything too easily, so if the coaches think he's struggling, I'm sure they're willing to scratch him.
I'm also sure he'll come back better for it.
Sick Avatar man! Where can I get me one of those ?
He clearly has issues in his own end and in terms of defensive responsibility to work though. He knows what they are.
I'd send him to the AHL where he can play 25 minutes a night and screw up as much as he needs to. Give the coaches there specific instructions on what he needs to get into his noggin and once he does get it right down there, bring him back up.
That's not killing his development, that IS development.
Out of curiousity, isn't this almost an exact repeat of how the Habs handled O'Byrne? He'd get into a game, make a mistake and get benched again. But it seems to me once he got dealt to Colorado, his play picked up. When you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, with the egos in sports, that lesson is never learned until it is too late.
He makes big hits and is super popular, but the way he's played for the last month or so has been worthy of more than a benching.
If I were Montreal and had a chance to acquire a full fledged NHL defender, it would be Subban headed to the AHL to make room.
I still believe he'll be good, very good, but he needs to learn to be strong on the puck and clearly isn't getting that hint from the coaching staff, which is troubling.
The reason he is being benched is because he needs to improve on his hockey intellegence and overall team game. Going for those big hits will, more often than not, place you out of position and lead to odd-man rushes against. As well, he is going for too many risky plays that will work in NHL 2K11 but not in the real NHL. He needs to simplify his game and have a greater awareness of where his teammates are on the ice. Is the point covered? If so, can I safely go into the offensive zone to make a play?
Out of curiousity, isn't this almost an exact repeat of how the Habs handled O'Byrne? He'd get into a game, make a mistake and get benched again. But it seems to me once he got dealt to Colorado, his play picked up. When you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, with the egos in sports, that lesson is never learned until it is too late.
I know it's hard to fathom, but this is how most rookies in the league are handled. You're not given 82 games to prove yourself and if you make mistakes along the way then so be it. At least not on a team that wants to win games like the Habs do. Subban hasn't earned a roster spot yet, so he's sitting. It's really quite an easy concept to grasp, I don't know why so many people are struggling with it.
I agree with this decision, as bad as it might be for PKs confidence.
The problem i have with Subban's play as of late, isn't the fact that he's making mistakes. All rookies make mistakes and it's part of the learning process. The problem is that his mistakes and turnovers are costing us games. The other night in Colorado, the game was 2-2 and Pk's mistake ends up costing us the game. Same thing versus Philly and Toronto. You can make mistakes, we can all live with that. But when your mistakes end up costing us games, that's when it hurts, and that's when you'll end up getting punished for them.
but it seems some nights thats what JM would like him to be
