|
Demitra at the World Championship (and other WC notes)
One thing I noticed about Demitra playing at the World Championships (thanks to whoever posted the link to those videos @ mediazone.com) was that he got PP time playing the right point and quarterbacking the power play. I think part of that was to give Visnovsky (who looked STELLAR offensively during the tourney) a break, but the other part was that Palffy and Stumpel wouldnt get off the damn ice.
The other notable thing about Demitra was how defensively aware he was, he had very good coverage in the defensive zone, and played "high" in the offensive zone in dangerous situations. Palffy was more skilled, but his long shifts were a determiment to his team as a whole imho.
Mattias Norstrom looked great for Sweden, he really handles the big forwards well. I thought Matty neutralized Rick Nash better than anyone else in the tourney, and Rick was absolutely tearing it up during the tourney. Matty had problems though against the speedier smaller forwards.
IMHO Aaron Miller is going to have a lot of trouble with the new rules in the NHL, he is all about the clutch and grab. Where Matty had some good positional defense, I thought Aaron got out of position or got beat enough (so he had to clutch and grab and take a penalty) where it was a little worrisome. But it could be that Aaron was being matched up against the small fast forwards, I havent finished watching all the USA games but that was what caught my eye about him.
|