I posted this in another thread, but submitting here so everyone can at least see what Lindy is talking about and judge for themselves.
I’ve got a busy day at work but this has been tearing me apart, I had to see what egregious play Ruff was referring to (sorry in advance for the bad quality video). So I went back and watched the 2nd period. I’m 99% sure he’s talking about this play with about 11:25 left in the 2nd. It’s dumped in and Foote retrieves it, throws it to Holtz who has come down along the boards to support. He tries to advance it up the wall but the Canadiens player has pinched very quickly, and gets his stick on it. So the puck defelcts to the middle of the slot and they get a scoring chance. Holtz had zero time to make a good play, but in that case you would like to see him recognize the lack of time before he receives it, and eat the puck along the boards or feed the puck down low to Foote.
It was a no-win situation for Holtz but he can’t let the puck get to the middle, even though it was an unlucky deflection. I have to believe this play was in direct violation of something the coaches have been talking about, because bad deflections happen all the time. In my opinion this is not an egregious turnover, it’s not like he was trying to do something fancy in his own zone. Shouldn’t be grounds for a benching in my opinion.
by brmgp1
6 Comments
Well if that’s the case that play gets made 5-6 a night by other players without the same ramifications. Specifically Jack and Luke do that ALL the time. Bratt too.
I’ll preface this by saying Luke Hughes is the truth and a future multi-all star. However, he has made some mistakes this year that have literally given me second hand embarrassment.
If I was Holtz, I would be absolutely livid with the double standards Lindy has.
This is exactly why I can’t be swayed by a six paragraph defense of Ruff. Why the fuck is he targeting just one player? Why is it solely on Holtz to be absolutely perfect or he gets immediately demoted or benched?
Can’t wait to see Holtz be moved out and bloom under some other team (cough Shango cough) once he’s done being Ruff’s personal punching bag
Hope he mentions Marino and Nemec that failed defensively which caused a goal each.
Reposting my armchair analysis from the other thread where you posted this
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Here’s how I see what happened:
* Foote passes to Holtz while Holtz is about to get pinched
* Puck bounces toward the slot after getting pinched. An argument could be made that it didn’t even go off his stick between the two people there
* Bahl and Foote both try getting on the puck and try sending it in the direction of center ice
* A Canadiens player is tied between both of them with another crossing in front trying to keep possession
* Bahl and Foote’s attempt to move the puck goes to the Canadien crossing them and goes to the Canadien player who was in between them, who then takes the shot
I’m already bad with player names on teams not called The Devils, so forgive me. But if my summary is even remotely accurate than Holtz has very little to do with what happens after. The defense makes a move on him to retain posession. Two of our defensemen then can’t make enough of a move to clear a high danger chance. Nobody else on the team is near where the puck is. In essence, Lindy is blaming 1 person for a high danger chance when it was a collective failure which thankfully didn’t result in anything. Wanna make a point? Sit Holtz for a cycle or two so he has a moment to reflect and collect himself. And why would Holtz still be sat after his goal in the third well after this happened? What a fucking asshole. Get Lindy out of my state
And another thing about Holtz usage. Coaches shorten the bench to 3 lines all the time. Every coach does this, it is not new or unique to the Devils.
I get that fans love scorers, but Holtz is not a top 6 player. Hasn’t been all season. In a tie game, wanting to move to 2 scoring lines and a grinder line isn’t a wierd thing. It sucks but bottom six scoring forwards that are average, at best, on defense are going to get sidelined in favor of better defenders.
It’s not that deep.