PURCELL!!!!! (2.0)

and i would be shocked in any case if ken holland did that to lombardi. now…if it were edmonton, i’d have to think about it…no, i would still match.

i’m sure lombardi is not surprised; he signed the guy, after all.

Yep yep yep to your points. Want to add that Kopitar has improved under TM, no doubt. But where he has improved is in the defensive end. Show me an offensive player (or a player playing offensively) that has improved, especially a young one. Latest casualty is Moller. Once is an aberration; twice is a coincidence; three times is a trend; four times is a pattern. Boyle, Moulson, Purcell, Moller. This whole “Terry Murray is a good/great teacher” is wrong. He has a system that requires defensive first, second, and third. So when a team’s defensive numbers improve, one should not be surprised. The team had the explicit goal this year of improving 5-on-5 scoring. Couldn’t do it. And within such a system, both Moulson and Purcell were given public warning that their offense needed to improve; they had to put points on the board.

What TM does is put players in a quandry, saying to them: You and everybody else must think and position yourself defensively first AND score more. The only way to be on the same page with your line-mates is to stay in default-mode: defense-first. Very difficult to resolve this dilemma. They almost need to have a mini-mutiny on the bench and say to each other, "Ok on this shift we’re all going to the net; we’re all thinking offense first. Because if the 3rd man (high) is thinking defense-first, it’s 2-on-5 down low. Not good odds. None of the young players mentioned are good enough to consistently break a team down alone, they need their line-mates to help them. But unless they’re all thinking offense-first, it won’t work.

Where the 3rd man (high) is positioned is a topic that doesn’t get much mention, but may be a key in determining the success of our team offensively. Simply put, there is a huge difference in how much the 3rd man can contribute depending on whether he is 30 feet from the net or 20 feet. The first is safe defensively; the latter is more offensive. Furthermore is the willingness and readiness of that 3rd man to go even lower. It’s the difference between a shot basically from the blue-line and one from the high-slot; it’s the difference in being able to win more puck-battles along the boards and maintain possession. The lower that 3rd man is and the more willing he is to go even lower, the more good things can happen offensively. But you violate the defensive integrity of the system.

The positioning of the 3rd man is one of the two philosophical decisions that is at the crux of the problem. (Shot-mentality versus cross-ice passes being the other.) TM wants him high and to stay high. Which means that, by design, the Kings often play offense 2-on-5 down low. It’s a big reason why the Kings as a whole don’t score much, and young players—who know they need to follow directions to stick with the team—in particular don’t score much.

i think that can be applied to a few other players we talk about here who are now former kings…