Rejoint: août 2020
Messages: 9,527
Mentions "j'aime": 8,968
I think Skill would absolutely blow Grit out of the water consistently. Like if they played a bo7, Skill would sweep 2 out of 3 series, and win the 3rd in 5 because Lehner or Rask played the game of their lives and everyone was clicking. Not only does Skill have 4 guys that were probably top 5 in the Norris race this year, but they have 14 forwards you just don't stop offensively. Like a good game against any one of Skill's lines would be only allowing them to score twice lol, that team should NEVER score less than 6 goals per game period. Skill's forwards are too fast, Grit's defense is too slow, and when Grit tries to counterattack they run into ridiculously good 2-way defenders. I think grit has its place in that playing a physical, hard forechecking style can be effective if you have high skill to back it up (like the way Boston or St. Louis play), but a pure grit team won't win more than a round (e.g. Columbus). An interesting concept for sure, but right now the ideal team is a mixture of both, and honestly bar a few anomalies where there's an overwhelming amount of skill, like this team, I think that'll probably remain true. The refs put the whistles away in the playoffs, which favours physical, "dirty" players far more than speedy skilled players, so while skill is obviously necessary in today's game, you've gotta have some big forecheckers to rough the other side up a bit too. The salary cap favours this build as well, as skill is more rare so it costs a premium, then you fill out the roster with cheap grit to get your mixture. Until a team can put together a lethal squad like the one here where half the team is somehow on ELCs, a pure skill team is unlikely to make noise.