‘Necks need to capitalize on the power play
Granted I’ve only been watching the Roughnecks for the last 3 years but this has to be the rockiest start I’ve seen in franchise history. I’ve been asking myself why this year? What is causing such a back and forth between wins and losses? Part of the answer seems to be the power-play.
Our boys can’t seem to capitalize as much as they used to when they have the man advantage. Take, for example, our last game against the Toronto Rock. At one point, during the third quarter, we had a two-man advantage. Rightly so the ‘Necks took their time setting up plays and working on their passing game but we failed to score the entire time we had the advantage. That amounted to approximately 3 minutes of the game.
This has been a running theme throughout the season so far. I have yet to see stats that say we were even close to 50% on our power-plays — I’d even venture to say that 20% is pushing it. Most of the stats I see put us at 0–X (X obviously being whatever number of power-plays we have for the game). If we could create more scoring opportunities and keep the pace and tempo up during the power-plays I’m sure the stats would change dramatically in our favour.
The same goes for Hockey. You have to take advantage of every open opportunity you’re given. If you can’t, than its usually your fault and you do not deserve to win.
There are times however where the opposing team plays incredible defense. But more often than not it is the teams that under-perform that end up losing.
Written by Colin D. Devroe on February 15th, 2006