oh Ffs! Get off this crapwagon.

Stamkos is a weird case to me. He's obviously a stud, and you cant deny his production, but his possession numbers always seem pedestrian. Maybe because he shoots like 18% every season?

No clue how much, but that would negatively affect his numbers. If his on-ice shooting percentage is 150% above his opponent's average he won't get as many rebound opportunities, which lowers the shots for by a bit.

I think what Geddy's saying would have a direct correlation to that, though. If you are a player who looks for those kinds of holes, a lot of shifts in the offensive zone are going to end with missed passes instead of shots.

true, but then again he often plays with MSL, who is one of the best playmakers in the game. and Stamkos has one of the very best shots in the game, so the 18% shooting doesn't totally stun me. it's a good combination for sure.

very interested to see Stamkos' progression, he seems a lot better than i thought, a better all-around player than i thought, seems to understand the game and takes it all very seriously (like say Toews), quite a high gaf quotient which bodes well. a total package.

Why, because it's true? You can watch all the USA Hockey x and o videos in the world and it won't change the fact that a very select few players have the ability to read and react at that level of proficiency. It's a gift.

It's kinda like watching Gale Sayers highlight videos; you can't teach that kind of blend between spatial awareness and instinct. Some guys just see the game differently, it's what makes it fun to watch them. Alex Mogilny had this gift in spades.

Very true. Stamkos isn't a cycle sustainer-type forward, he's a finisher.

it's the same narrative we've heard before with any number of skills. you realize that 20 years ago people were saying you can't teach elite skating? then it was stickhandling. then it was finishing ability. then it was hockey vision.

it's lazy at best, and disingenuous at worst. pretty much everything you see on the ice is a skill, and we can certainly figure out a way to teach and practice those skills.

I don't remember anyone telling me as a kid that skating couldn't be taught. Some kids can fly like the wind but just about everyone can work on creating a more efficient stride. If that were the case, my old man spent a lot of money on summer power skating schools for nothing.

I spent summers firing 200 pucks a day off a wooden plank waxed by my grandfather to work on my shot. I spent hours stickhandling with golf balls in the basement to work on my stickhandling. I certainly wasn't alone in this rhetoric and I don't recall anyone ever telling me these types of skills were either inherent or absent. I personally feel like puck control came much more naturally to me than, say, my brother, but we were never under the illusion as kids that those were skills you couldn't enhance.

But the ability to perform lightning quick - and correct - analysis of your situation is a completely different beast.

as with all things, it's probably bit of both...that reading plays and "hockey sense" might be undercoached, while some players have better innate grasps of it.

i'd like to hear from some of the posters who have experienced higher levels about what kind of coaching they've received in this area. i know i never got much of any coaching focused on reading plays, getting open, or stuff of that nature in high school. it was all just skills and systems. oh yeah, bigger guys were told to stand in front of the net. maybe that counts. of course, that was ages ago and in lolusa, so i'm sure the coaching was pretty unsophisticated compared to now.

Meh, some things are timeless. I got powerplay time in university by playing in front of the net. I'm a big guy, I didn't mind taking the abuse and I had decent enough hands to get tips and put home garbage. The formula still works because you almost always draw someone to you and it creates a 4-on-3 on the perimeter to work with, let alone impeding the goalie's vision and comfort level considerably. I'd advocate it as a coach.

Just because it's a "different beast" doesn't mean it can't be taught and practiced. Reaction times, reading the play, correct decisions are all things you can get better at. There are limits to individual ability obv, but this "can't be taught" is a load of crap.

is it being taught?

btw people, answers are due by tomorrow afternoon, dunno if i made that clear

I'm exceptionally disappointed with the sudden clamming up of answer-giving-away-ing ITT the one time I wait to submit my answers

wait, wait, wait Sean Couturier was born in Arizona? What a turncoat mother ****er

and Tyler Myers was born in Texas...

I tried to ace the questions except the winter classic one but there's a fair amount of doubles to be hit if you're just trying to not brick an answer

To be fair, if I was born in Texas or Arizona I'd claim to be Canadian too.

Well muresan just ruined one of my bonus peehs questions

Kovalchuk's picture on the front of nhl.com right now is so awesome (under EJ. Hradek mailbag).

Why I'm checking nhl.com at 10:35pm on a Wednesday in August i do not know.

gamblor has yet to get his questions in...

Gamblor might beat me if he doesn't submit and gets every question scored as incorrect.

this stuff 100% gets taught. the problem is that most guys are too stupid to listen or recognize situations.

coaches in 1-on-1 time (i.e. before/after practice, or even during other drills) will, say, help a player recognize when to back up 10 feet or pop out or get down low or something during a cycle.

but in a game situation, most guys just are too dumb to remember that stuff, or they do it when the guy with the puck is too dumb to recognize whats going on.

you do see a lot of guys who are smart guys do things like this, but their, or their teammates' games are weak enough in other areas that they just don't advance farther.