As a lightweight in understanding hockey, I appreciate people that do. With that in mind, what do you guys think might change for the Hawks and especially their offense to get them back rolling again? It looks to me that their opponents are eliminating everything going on in the center of the ice and forcing them to dump the puck in and chase. Any ideas?
For one--getting Kane back is going to help--as aforementioned. He can carry the mail past a trap with some regularity. Secondly, it being the playoffs, a lot of players get into a different mentality. Play tends to devolve to a grittier type of game. Players tend to go less for the highlight reel and more for doing what it takes to get the job done. You'll see players take more risk in terms of personal damage than in the regular season. Basically, every player on every playoff team knows that they have anywhere between 4 and 28 games left, and it's going to take 16 wins to reach immortality. Not all players switch mentality, of course, but over the course of an 82 game season (especially if a team is safely in the playoffs), they won't always go full-tilt. Now, they will. I would expect some of our stars to stop playing as if they believe their own hype or as if they have the talent to win on talent alone and start playing a grittier, more "blue collar game" (I.E. I'd be expecting more boardwork from Saad and guys like Sharp to stop looking for the perfect snipe and look for a filthy goal).
That's basically what it comes down to. Think of it like this baseball parallel. During the 160-something game regular season I would not expect an outfielder to go full-tilt into the wall trying to make a catch every single game. Once the playoffs hit, you'd expect them to do so.
