halfsharkalligatorhalfman

Greetings,

SJ, like NJ (before Tallinder got hurt) has great NHL dman Depth. With the emergence of Matt Irwin, they now have 8 NHL quality Dmen

Boyle - Irwin
Vlasic - Stuart
Demers - Braun
Murray (debatable but bear with me) - Burns

SJ, also like NJ has a dearth of scoring forwards. The overwhelming majority of their offense comes from their top 4 forwards and the first unit PP. Desperate for offense, the team experimented with moving Brent Burns to forward (Play the point on the 2nd PP unit). I thought this was a pretty stupid idea before the game but given the drastic situation the offense was in, an experiment was certainly in order.

It was only one game but the early returns are very promising. Burns was a dominant force freed of his defensive responsibilities. His skating and puck posession in particular in the offensive zone was spectacular. The Sharks outshot St. Louis 41-21 (but lost 4-2) and generated some incredible chances. It was possibly the best the team has looked all year.

Perhaps a similar experiment is in order in NJ? Moving Zidlicky to forward, and keeping him on the first unit PP could significantly improve the offense. There's a good chance in 2 games I'll be telling you how stupid this Burns experiment is but right now I'm pretty excited by it.

It's sort of that classic theory in basketball coaching to just get your best players out there no matter what "position" they are. Sharks have 7 players who should get ice time to help win games. Forcing only 6 to play because of positional concerns is potentially counter productive.

http://www.nj.com/de...as_a_futur.html

"I don’t think there is any doubt he’s a Hall of Fame player," coach Pete DeBoer said. "It’s a great luxury to have him on the ice and in the dressing room. He thinks like a coach and he has a world-class player’s skills. When you’re building a hockey player, you can’t ask for much more than that."

I'm ok with him getting in.

EDIT: Title got cut off...mods help me....