Or is our front office?
I have to be missing something.
Here are our weaknesses, as I see them:
1) Physical play from the defense. We don't defend our forwards. We don't punish anyone. We may well fight occasionally but we don't may you PAY for trying to dig the puck out of the corner, and we don't punish you for skating through our zone with your head down. We LET you skate.
2) Giving up our own crease to opposing forwards. We tend to allow the opposition to camp in front of our net. This is related to #1.
3) Goaltending. We have a serious issue with soft goals. Rebounds, bouncing pucks, weak shots from the circle, etc.
4) Two-way play from our forwards. We have one, maybe two guys who play both ways. Hossa does a good job of it and Toews is getting better every year, but most of the rest of of our Top 6 are waiting for you to miss a shot so they can take it the other way and do something that'll get them on Sportscenter.
5) Special teams play. We suck on the power play, and we suck at defending it.
6) Physical play from the forward spot, ESPECIALLY on power plays and in front of the opposition net. We don't have that Ladd or Byflugien anymore. Those were the guys who picked up the trash goals, screened goalies, harassed goalies, etc., and that led to points. Those guys are gone.
SO, that all said, I thought that in free agency and the draft we'd go after the following:
1) A physical Top 4 defenseman with a rocket from the point who could keep opposing forwards away from our goal, beat them to and for the puck in the corners, muscle people off the puck skating across the front of our net, and unleash fury from the point on the power play. A nice slap shot that causes a rebound would be great IF we had someone in front of the paint.
2) Someone to BE THAT GUY standing in front of the paint to grab that rebound and bury it. A 6'2", 215 pound 2-line centerman who could play both ways. We don't need a big goal scorer, just someone who can play both ways, take and give a hit, distribute the puck to our snipers, and work well with the puck in possession or on rebounds, in front of, beside, and behind the net.
3) MAYBE a goalie if we struck out on both of the above.
Well, we didn't do JACK in free agency other than sign Johnny O (who I like fairly well but not as well as his paycheck would suggest) to a Special person contract, and re-sign some scrub depth.
In the draft we needed a salty defenseman with the size and maturity to play now, or a "quick to the show" center, and instead we signed ANOTHER undersized, nifty with the puck, can't hit a lick, wouldn't know defense if it bit him on the ass, fancy-pants winger.
I'm not a negative Nelly, but I'm starting to question what the hell we're doing. ESPECIALLY after this draft.
Can someone tell me what the hell is happening on Madison?
