PuckSniperPensel wrote:
It was just a lack of creativity
I wholeheartedly second this. We have guys that can take punishment infront of the net and still tip in point shots (Vanek, Gaustad mainly). We have guys who have proven on a few occasions in the past they can single-handedly deke around defensemen (Connolly, Roy, Stafford). And we have gritty guys that will rush the net to get a goal if they need to (Mair, Ellis, Kennedy, Kaleta, etc).
The problem is creativity! You can only dump and chase so many times. We need to come up with new, creative ways to get the puck over the line and make a play. Drop pass the puck when there's actually a guy behind you! No more blind passes! Creativity is doing something that the other team honestly didn't expect, but the trick is that the whole team needs to be on the same wavelength. Bringing defensemen up into the play was a creative idea and it worked for a while. Better teams are catching on though. Creativity is not entering their zone, stopping at the point, then making a half assed passes to guys lazily coming over the blue line. That's how the puck gets turned over 100 times a game.
Next practice should just be a fun one where every player is forced to think of a couple of new and interesting ways to enter the zone...