i have watched over 3/4 of the habs games, and i have come to this conclusion: our forwards for the vast majority do not know how to play defense. just recently versus the canes, how often has our d-men been left to waste by the forwards not picking up the guy streaking to the net?
i dont care what any one has to say, theodore has been playing well, and i know as a goalie, that when your team doesnt play 'team defense' you start hearing footsteps and try to be in 2 places at once instead of where you should be: maintaining centre-position and distance-proximity. its true hes not playing hart-calibre but he sure as hell aint redlight racicot; this guy has done about as best as he could with what he has: an inconsistent defense pairing that has a) inconsistent souray and markov b) 3rd pairing rivet c) bouillon who should be playing for anchorage in the echl and d) streit who is taking too long to adjust to this game.
the forwards outside of bonk, sundstrom, and koivu - all of whom should be either traded and/or waived (sarcasm intended) - are the only three that know what their own end looks like. tonight, higgins and zednek both got beaten badly for goals. i am not sure what the defensive assignments are or what the defensive system is supposed to be, but maybe they should take note of what gretzky has donein phoenix: play team defence by necessity and let the offense work from the transition.
Rick Green was always a passive minded defenseman and this is what he is teaching our new dmen. Whereas Larry Robinson was proactive. Attack,attack attack.....What happened to Dandy??? This guy would always jump into the play. I don't even think he knows what the offensive zone looks like anymore. This is by no means an attack on Green but our D coach should be giving these dmen a little leeway. Especially the offensive ones.