``I was all alone, with nobody close to me,'' Kovalchuk said. ``I like to play against the Rangers. They're a real offensive team and we always get lots of chances.''
Yep, gotta love our defensive system and players. I think Kovalchuk also said something along the lines that the game was a like a men's league game with no defense being played.
I'm really beginning to wonder about Renney & his "sysem". For a while, several of us have speculated that either this is a system that in either very flawed or the players are not getting it. If it is unteachable, it is an inditement of Jackass & Renney. If the players are not getting it, then it still falls to Jackass & Renney as they are not good teachers.
For all the talk I heard about how Renney is a pure "systems" guy, the single most damming inditement of him is the PP. If you are all systems, then how can you have such an abysmal PP?
Another strike against Renney is that he apparently is just as much a pushover as Jackass was when it comes to accountability. Either this is still a directive from Jackass or he (Renney) is not willing to bench his so-called "stars" either.
although it's impossible to tell. Watch the way in which the forwards cover for the defensmen sometimes. Espcially on the PP. There is little covering going on. Watching the Wings' PP, you realize it even more as players are always moving - towards the net, towards the blue line, everywhere. The Rangers are static.
Move on to normal play. Now, watching the Flyers is a decent example of this. The defensemen on the Flyers do not have to be that great as the support from the forwards is amazing some times. A bump here. Lifting a stick there, etc. The Rangers constantly blow the support function. Defensemen are forced to beat guys one-on-one, one-on-two. For all the slack Messier has taken, I think he's been one of the more responsible in his own zone. Problem is, that at 43, he's not always as effective, but his positioning ain't so bad. Holik constantly misses his assignments. Hlavac doesn't have any. Nedved's been up-and-down, all over the place. Ortmeyer's diligent and learning, but seems to make a mistake for every great play. Lundmark's diligent, but often too small. Rucinsky's been good. Kovalev's been OK (Except for the recent stick lift). And Simon and Barnaby have been fair.
And further on, there's little trust on this team. Watch Poti and Leetch. Leetch has a tendency to follow everything, even if it's Poti's assignement. Leetch is used to doing all the chasing as in the old days, Beuk would clear the front of the net, or take out a guy coming down the ice. He wasn't all over the ice. Forwards are sometimes on top of each other, or, if they sense that they will be on top of each other, both peel off.
Is it the system? I dunno at this point. Perhaps it was a lack of practice that attributed to this. Perhaps it was matching the wrong players, both on defense and offense.
Been saying for months that if there's as big a failure in the NHL as Glen Sather, it's Tom Renney...The guy has been a disaster in the NHL and his cluelessness is staggering once you get past his idle words...
Yeah, I don't know if it's a poor system, the poor teaching of it, or the assinine inability of making players conform to a system..My bet is that it's all 3...One player screws up or lazes around and a system is shot....And odds are, with the Rangers, that happens 90% of the time..So, yeah, this is also tied into Sather's delusional philospohy of star hockey, his double standar approaches for sinners like Messiers, and the total lack of accountabilty we have all been screaming about..Still ,that doesn't disguise the fact that Tom Renney does not belong anywhere near an NHL rink...
