2/9 - Sharks @ Butch Cassidy & The Corsi Kids

cshea

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Nov 15, 2006
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I'm OK with the bye now. Gives them a chance to catch their breath after a whirlwind week and get ready for the west swing and stretch run.

They are 3 up on Toronto. Toronto will play 3 times before the Bruins play again.
 

NYCSox

chris hansen of goats
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My hot take 8 periods into the Cassidy era is that the structure is far looser. The result is they are far more creative offensively, but the trade off is they give up more chances and are more prone to odd man rushes against.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens on the road. I worry that the Krejci and Spooner lines (as currently constructed) will have matchup issues against quality opposing lines. Claude always made sure someone on each line was defensively responsible, to the point of playing guys like Schaller way above where they should be. But it definitely worked on the road.
 

FL4WL3SS

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Great start by Cassidy, but I think we need to be cautious. I was saying this to TFP, but teams (and especially Montreal) had the book on Claude. This is similar to how a team calls up a rookie pitcher and has immediate success until the league starts to figure him out.

Great great start, but I'll reserve judgement for a few weeks.
 

TFP

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I'm fully supporting of the game thread megathread, by the way. Take us all the way through the bye week
 

Haunted

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Great start by Cassidy, but I think we need to be cautious. I was saying this to TFP, but teams (and especially Montreal) had the book on Claude. This is similar to how a team calls up a rookie pitcher and has immediate success until the league starts to figure him out.

Great great start, but I'll reserve judgement for a few weeks.
Not that your point isn't valid, but did Vancouver or San Jose have his system figured out too?
 

FL4WL3SS

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He's been with the team for 10 years with mostly the same core. Other teams know what the Bruins were trying to do, so yes, I'd say so.

There were basic tenets of his system that were not a secret and he may not have had the horses to run his system this year. The league hasn't seen Cassidy for 12-13 years, so it's not far fetched to think they're not as prepared to counter what Cassidy is trying to do than what Claude was trying to do.
 

joe dokes

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My hot take 8 periods into the Cassidy era is that the structure is far looser. The result is they are far more creative offensively, but the trade off is they give up more chances and are more prone to odd man rushes against.
This makes sense. And since they were giving up chances anyway in the last 8 weeks or so, might as well crank up the offense to see if it ends up taking pressure off the D.
 

biff_hardbody

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Apr 27, 2016
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Great 3 games after the Julien move. I think it is to be expected that there will be an initial fire under a team after a head coach gets let go so I'm hoping they don't slide back into mediocrity.

The aggressive style has made up for some shortcomings in the defensive zone. You can see some odd man rushes broken up by guys getting their sticks in there. I think the classic Julien-training defensive style works to their advantage - guys know how to positionally be in the best spots, how to make judgment calls on when to play aggressively, but now don't need to worry about losing minutes for trying to make a play. That could work to their advantage the rest of the year.

At the very least this has been a refreshing style of hockey to watch. I was not a fan of the firing of Julien, specifically the timing, but I'm coming around to the idea that the move needed to be made.
 

FL4WL3SS

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“It’s a level of intensity that has gone up, a level of commitment that’s gone up, a level of execution that’s gone up, and a level of belief. It seems like a different team when we are out there, even when we get scored on,” said David Backes, who finished with a primary assist on Krejci’s power play goal in the second period. “Our Achilles heel prior was that the next couple of minutes were a continued lull. But [against Montreal], obviously, we don’t get scored on.

“But, the mentality that we go out there with, believing that we’re going to win, and guys really starting to buy into the little things that it takes to win games. You look at the penalty kill and how that’s performing. That’s a great place to start.”
Maybe complacency had set in and this move was necessary to wake the team up. Let's see if they can keep it up.
 

Zososoxfan

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Great 3 games after the Julien move. I think it is to be expected that there will be an initial fire under a team after a head coach gets let go so I'm hoping they don't slide back into mediocrity.

The aggressive style has made up for some shortcomings in the defensive zone. You can see some odd man rushes broken up by guys getting their sticks in there. I think the classic Julien-training defensive style works to their advantage - guys know how to positionally be in the best spots, how to make judgment calls on when to play aggressively, but now don't need to worry about losing minutes for trying to make a play. That could work to their advantage the rest of the year.

At the very least this has been a refreshing style of hockey to watch. I was not a fan of the firing of Julien, specifically the timing, but I'm coming around to the idea that the move needed to be made.
I think the bolded is optimistic, but probably the best case scenario. I don't think Cassidy is some kind of wizard, but his system is obviously less rigid than Clod's. Hopefully, Clod's training along with a looser system will make for an effective mashup.
 

soxaddict

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I know they are going to the West coast, but a full week off on the schedule?

edit: I remember hearing about the NHL bye week, but totally forgot.