this series has become a fascination of sorts for me. Babcock has a young,impressionable, and offensively gifted group of players and i think he has incorporated a beautiful game plan to take advantage of it. the deflection is essentially their primary game plan. hell, its their secondary plan as well. its the Leaf's raison d'etre in this series...and i find that fascinating. Holtby and the Cap's D stymied opponents with pretty regular abandon all season...and now...they find themselves looking pretty mortal/ordinary in each and every game. Yeah, its pretty frustrating, but i'll be damned if I dont also admit I really admire the Leaf's approach at the same time. Their team has buoght into it 100% thus far, and its working.
Personally, I dont think Grub is the answer because I dont think Holtby has been the problem. The deflection
strategy has reduced that small fraction of a second Braden would normally have to react to a wrister or slapper... and reduced it to a miniscule fraction of a second instead. And the Leaf's have been very successful(in my opinion) not just deflecting pucks in the general vicinity of our net, but actually in. I dont
know that any goalie is going to hold them to 1 or 2 a night in this series. Cretainly not game after game.
So.. short of our goalie growing another arm or two by friday...whats the solution ? Do we hope their 'luck
runs out' with deflections and tap ins ? I wouldnt put money on that. Do we adopt a strategy of trying to block
the original shot before the deflection can take place-good luck with that, the only guy willing to put his body on the ice is currently on the shelf-quite possibly for doing just that. Turtling certainly hasnt helped. Flat out out-scoring
them(trackmeet hockey) hasnt given us separation thats held up. I just dont know, but I do find it interesting to
see what unfolds the rest of this series. Will the Leafs get cold ? Can Barry actually let the Caps keep their foot down for 3 periods ? Take away the Leafs shooting angles- but they've had success putting the puck on net from anywhere on the ice. I just dont know.....but Ill be watching friday night to see how it unfolds....