I guess that explains the Paille deal. The top 2 lines still look fairly decent, but man is that 3rd line awful. We're really going to need some of those younger guys to have the break outs we've been hoping for.

I'd feel a lot better about the power play if they'd quit dicking around with the puck at the blue line. It's the same thing they did when they went into the funk towards the end of last season.

Cem21 wrote:

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The shorthanded goals against have been troubling for the PP too. Besides the lack of generating enough offense through the point men, they have also made bad decisions which have lead to clean break-ins for forwards. Chara and Wideman were huge on the PP last season, and have yet to get going so far. Chara lead the team with 11 PP goals and Wideman racked up 19 PP assists, which was only 2 less than Savard. The B's don't overload that much on the PP and generate everything off the half-boards to the point. Thus far, the point men haven't been able to get the puck through or take advantage of clean looks. Morris is a good addition, in my opinion, and even though it wasn't a true PP situation, the type of plays he made from the point to set-up the goals last night are exactly what they need on the PP from the points to get the production going.

Carolina killed them with this in the playoffs last year. They packed bodies into the slot and allowed the Bruins D to shoot from the point on the PP, but hardly anything was getting through. As a result, the PP became completely disjointed and was never a weapon. At some point, they have to start running some kind of sets from the corners, either an iso or a pick play, to start generating chances. They don't have to do it great, but they have to do it enough to make the penalty kill units respect it and open the points back up again.

On the SHG's, it seems like they've been really lazy with the puck for a lot of the season. On the PP, it's lazy passes back to the points without really checking if the lane is available. In their own zone, they give the puck up a lot or make poor breakout passes. I'm not sure why that is or how to really fix it, other than simply playing better.