I guess a lot of fans in Montreal now miss Mark Streit after his departure via free agency to Long Island.Montreal had last year’s number one power play in the NHL, but they are now sitting 26th with a poor 14.6% success rate, while the Islanders power play has improved slightly from 29th to 25th overall. Streit has 12 points (he would be the Habs' 5th scorer) in 18 games, with only six of them coming with the man advantage.
Many thought Streit would struggle as a full-time defenseman, but he’s only minus-2 on a very ordinary islanders team. Streit has logged the ninth most ice time in the NHL with an average of 25:53 each game, including over six minutes on the power play.
Meanwhile, Ryan O'Byrne and Patrice Brisebois, who play with Roman Hamrlik, Streit's former partner on defense, have a combined 1 goal and 4 assists in 27 games this season...
Streit was the shooter on a very effective 1st unit last season along with Markov, Kovalev, Plekanec and A. Kostitsyn. This season, newly-acquired Alex Tanguay is also manning the point with Andrei Markov.
The latter was asked to be the shooter without great success, Markov being more of a passer than a shooter, as shown by his 1 goal and 13 assists in 17 games this season. As a result, the Habs have became very predictable on the power play, and the defensive team is putting much more pressure on Koivu (0 goal on the PP) and Kovalev (1 goal on the PP).
Guy Carbonneau has yet to adjust his strategy and the problem is more and more evident recently as the Canadiens have lost 4 of their last 5 games.
Will Carbonneau change his strategy or will Bob Gainey pull the trigger and acquire a power play specialist with a hard shot (Philippe Boucher anyone)?
1 comment:
First off, I think you need to watch more habs games before you make comments like this one. All that Streit had was a slapshot. He was effective using it on the PP. Defensively he is a liability and not worth the money he is making. The habs PP is trying to be too fancy. Markov needs to go back on the left side so he can feed Kovalev on the opposite. Tanguay is much like Markov, a play maker. The habs are trying to make Markov a shooter and he clearly isn't. Boucher may have been a good option but he already has been traded by Dallas to Pittsburgh. Enough of how we are missing a player like Streit. I much rather have Souray then Streit. Streit was horrible on D and I doubt much has changed.
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