Defense 2002-03

[jk]

It's quiet and I'm frustrated watching *other* teams in the postseason, so I thought I'd start a thread to bring together some of the discussions about the defense scattered on other threads.

Is it fair to consider Schneider and Fuher the most "offensive" of the top four defensemen?  If so, then perhaps they are in different pairs:

Hale, Schneider

Jones, Fuher

Leinweber, Greene

Marvin

Most everyone seems appropriately worried about a lack of offensive skill at the defense, but an even more important issue for me is how the defense handles the puck in its own zone.  Moving the puck to the right man and out of the zone with control is crucial to success.  On this point, I think we saw pretty good progress toward the end of the year.  The own-zone puck movement that we saw in the last two periods of the last game of the year was excellent.  If they can build on that, the team could really blossom this year.

One thing that can be said about this group: there are a bunch of tough SOBs back there.  None of them individually will be as physically dominant as Commie, but as a group, they will be more punishing than any I can remember in the Blais era.  

Hale and Schneider are both very tough.  I hope they save their fighting DQs for a league game.  I didn't expect to see the physical play the Sioux got from Jones, but I thought it was very impressive, especially for such a young guy.  By reputation, both Greene and Marvin like to make their presence known to opposing forwards.

The Sioux will miss the experience of Mazurak and Schneekloth, but their play seemed to slip a bit from their junior to senior years, I think mainly because of injuries.  Even though the top two pairs will be junior, soph, soph, soph, at least they are all very experienced, having played basically every game last year.

[diggerdan]

Very nice, jk.  I thought that the play of Mazurak and Schneekloth slipped after their sophmore years.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Leinweber instead of Fuhrer on the 2nd defensive pairing - I think Chris really picked up his game towards the end of the year.

As has been said repeatedly on this board, this team needs a quarterback on the blue line.  Schneider made great strides in his offensive abilities but I don't think you can compare him with Ballard.  Naumenko, Murphy, Willliamson, Roche - we've been spoiled.

Another area where I'd like to see improvement is clearing in front of the net - both opponents and rebounds.

[sioux_hockey]

I know this is really, really early, but is Dave Hale supposed to stay all four years?

This will still be a very young defense, with 1 senior, 1 junior, 3 sophomores and 2 freshman. All of them besides Lienweber are very big and physical!

[dagies]

At this point I would be surprised to see David Hale leave early, but hey, one good year can change all of that.

For as tough as we like to think David is, we/I don't see a lot of that on the ice.  He's doesn't strike me as a physically dominating presence the way Commie was.

And I don't think David's puck handling and puck decision making skills are all that solid.

So, IMO, I hardly think he is ready to go to the Devils and I would find it surprising if he improves SO much that he would go after next year.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not saying that David can't or won't improve.  I just think he has a long ways to go and it might be a lot to ask that he do it in one year.

The Devils seem to like to look at college D men.  Rafalski?, Commie, DeMarchi, Martin...I would think they expect them to be pretty ready by the time they leave school.  Commie left early but he was having trouble getting a fair deal with the WCHA refs and everyone was instigating with him, knowing that he was already on thin ice.

[ScottM]

I'm not sure if it's the overall youth of the d-men or what, but I wasn't overly impressed with them as a group.