Giving Up Ground

PghOldhead,

I agree, for the first time in this years playoffs the Penguins defense looks like they did against the Senators last year when they lost in 5 games.  They are on their heels way too much, Rob Scuderi, Kris Letang, Hal Gill, Ryan Whitney and recently Darryl Sydor look to be playing that way.  Sergei Gonchar and Brooks Orpik seem to be the only ones that are attacking in their own zone.  Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are the only two Red Wings that I would show that much respect to. Tomas Holmstrom and Johan Franzen are beasts in front of the net but neither are that good at handling the puck they don't need to respected like the other two I mentioned.  The Pens need to attack the puck more often and stop the Red Wings second short pass.  The Red Wings strong point is two quick passes to carry it into the neutral zone and the Pens defense needs to cut off that second option by staying with the play, not backing up.

What I saw in games 1 & 2 was the D backing out of the offensive zone to early.  If you have no one at the point that cuts down on your options.  I did not notice to much in game 3.  I'm not saying it was Kris Letang.  I don't think it was,  but as a team defense it improved. 

As for the defense giving up to much ground in their end.  I feel the best way to stop that is have a forward flying back to pick up their forward if the D-man steps up and his hit gets side stepped.  If you don't have the forwards backchecking 100%  then if you step up for the hit and miss the puck & player then hes got a free path to the net.  Without  the backchecking I'ld say your best bet is to force him wide. 

On Johan Franzen goal the good moves I thought were on Marc-Andre Fleury after Rob Scuderi already took himself out of the play.