In OT we just seem to lack a consistent plan. When Aho and Turbo are out, we try to do the circle with the puck thing until we find a crease. That's fine for those guys, but NOBODY else on our team can pull off that crap. And also, it looks really bad when it doesn't work ... like against Detroit when Aho, Turbo and Slavin managed to blow almost a solid minute in the offensive zone without so much as a sniff of an opening ... or a shot. But again, those guys get a pass because that stuff works for them sometimes. Which is better than anybody else on our team, for whom nothing seems to work. Let's face it. If you put Aho and Turbo out there together, that's about 60% of the creativity in the whole roster on the ice at the same time. Sad, but true. Grinders SUCK at 3 on 3. Williams is creative but too slow for 3 on 3 at this level. Hamilton could be effective but the other guys are clearly still getting used to his quirks on the ice. Svechnikov ... who knows? He's too green and too prone to dumb turnovers, so we're not going to see him much in that situation until he settles down a bit. He's like a colt who isn't used to the saddle but loves to be ridden anyway. The want to is there, as well as the can do ... he just needs some sanding off of the rough edges, which is only a matter of time. If we could cobble together two setoff forwards to use in OT, that would get you through 90% of the ice time required. We've got one, and just need to settle on a another one ... with a 3rd for the leftover time.
And in the end, you only see so many OTs over the year, so in terms of situational play, I'd rather we work on getting better on power plays and penalty kills first.
