10/17 GDT: Detroit Red Wings @ Montreal Canadiens, 7:00 EST

[kipwinger 8,524]

Over the last 3 years around 22% of all goals scored have been on the PP. 30% may look "terrible", and would be if it stayed that way for the whole year, but given it's so early in the year it's meaningless. It's one goal. If your stats can so easily be skewed by just one or two goals, you need to take them with a grain of salt. Shot attempts are a much better indicator at this point since they are much more frequent events. Even that, given how little time we've spent on special teams, isn't very good.

I said in the other thread; pretty much everything has been bad this year. That includes the defense. Maybe not as inept statistically as the offense, but just as bad as special teams, and much worse than the goaltending.

Furthermore, I think most people would include the PK in the broader "defense" category. Certainly possible to be good on one but poor on the other, but they're not exactly separate.

Further-furthermore, there's "defense" in the sense of our ability to prevent goals, which is a product of both our defensemen and forwards (most people I think exclude the goalie from team defense). But I think when it was initially brought up, "defense" was meant in the sense of our group of defensemen, and includes both the defensive and offensive contributions.

Bottom line is we can't hold on to the puck. When we lose it, we have trouble getting it back. We have the same problem at every strength. It means we generate few shots, allow a lot, and take more penalties.

I know. I was only ever talking about the five games we played. As I said in both threads, I'm not projecting how the defense will play all season. I'm just saying that haven't been bad through 5 games. Which makes people lose their minds apparently. In the five games we've played, our defense has been the least of our worries.

I said our defense looked fine the first give games, and the entire forum acted as if I'd given them a free pass for the remainder of the season.