GAME 19

OLIMPIJA 2 - 5 KLAGENFURT

KAC PUT ON A POST-P1 STRANGLEHOLD

DRAGONS CAN'T FIND ANY FIRE TO FIGHT BACK

P2+P3:

https://imageresizer.com/meme-generator/edit/Homer-strangling-Bart

Goals

P1

KAC PPG - Our PK gets caught cheating over to the left side, so when a KAC pass finds its way across to the right circle, we are in trouble. Gregorc finds himself in no man's land, in between getting closer to block the shot and going further back to contest the net-front. The resulting shot gets parried in by the net-front man, under Kolin.

OLL PPG - Meyer from Brennan. Meyer walks up and slaps one in from the KAC right circle. Quince with a good screen on the goalie.

KAC - KAC find loads of space on the left side of our DZ, resulting in a 2 on 1 and a shot that grazes Kolin's left shoulder from the OLL left circle. Was this taking advantage of a line change? It was shocking how much space they acquired in our DZ so easily.

OLL PPG - Petan from Kirichenko and Sabla. It's a beautiful left circle slapshot that flies in over the goalie's left shoulder. The Austrian commentator on the highlights calls it a "real powerplay festival" thus far. I'm glad to see Petan score, as his noticeable impact in the very early season had waned somewhat recently.

P2

KAC PPG - They score a slapshot of their own. Kolin again goes low when they go high.

KAC PPG - A beautiful tip on a long-range shot, extremely difficult for Kolin to adjust to. Our PK were getting run ragged, again.

P3

KAC ENG - Empty-netter with 1:24 left.


Loss Dissection

Let's start with a quote from the Seattle Seahawks' Head Coach, Mike MacDonald, talking about their loss to the rival LA Rams:

“We’re going to be seeing a lot of these guys,” Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said. “We’re going to see them twice a year, possibly three. To me, it’s who evolves best from game to game? Who learns from it? Who grows the most is going to get the advantage every time we play. Every time we play it’s been an absolute knockdown, drag out fight.” Seahawks still believe in Sam Darnold — after another dud in a big game, should they? - The Athletic

I think this applies to our loss to KAC. Beating Bolzano convincingly made me think this team had turned another (positive) corner, but this knocks that idea back a bit. I am still learning the game, but currently, I don't feel like we have been evolving very much. In my limited view, Coach Cooper came in with a brilliant scheme to start the season. This scheme of committing super-heavy to offense has worked very well, for the most part. Other teams have started to exploit the weaknesses inherent in this scheme, though (tons of space in behind, for example). 

We have largely kept on doing what we were doing. This has resulted in some great wins (e.g. Bolzano last game) as well as some thumping losses (e.g. KAC this game). 

Committing to a vision is all well and good, but if that vision cannot adapt to what it sees in the proverbial mirror, we are going to keep having these topsy-turvy results because some teams are not good enough to punish us on the day and some teams are. I hope I'm completely wrong here, but it's vaguely reminiscent of banging our head against the wall, or headbutting repeatedly in a fight. We are doing damage to the opponent, but it's doing damage to us as well! Does this make any sense? Who knows! Read on, dear friend of the blog! (I was happy to see that Coach Cooper said post-game that we didn't have enough 5 on 5 offense, at least, as I fully agree with that.)

Next up, some pontificating on Kolin's greatest strength (lower-body agility in the butterfly stance) being his greatest weakness!

I'm no goalie expert, but from what I read about in The Athletic and elsewhere, the goalies at the top level have to keep evolving their game, otherwise their strengths become weaknesses as shooters work out how to take advantage of their preferences / tendencies. Luka Kolin is not an NHL goalie, but he and Miro Seppanen, our goalie coach, may want to incorporate more of that philosophy into their work (they know way more than me and are surely working on this already, but humour me on this).

At the moment, Kolin is extremely strong on the ground, in the butterfly position (legs on the floor). Almost nothing beats him along the ground. However, high level goalies are starting to stay higher for longer in order to keep out the high shots that have come as a response to goalies across the world becoming much more comfortable in the butterfly position. Not every league has people that can shoot high successfully, but it's clear that KAC were able to do that.

Now, I don't think they should have been awarded the penalties they received to give them an opportunity to shoot high, but that's a different matter! Kolin has massive potential to be a very successful goalie, but I think he should take some NHL advice (as I'm sure Seppanen is giving him) and try to stay higher in his stance for longer in order to help counter the high shots, which currently are taking advantage of his comfort and excellence in the lower butterfly stance. Jesse Granger of The Athletic writes some good stuff on this topic, as a former goalie himself. Here's a recent instance:

"Not only did Dostál not go into the RVH, he also never fully dropped into the butterfly, even after Blake released the shot. He widened his skates slightly but held onto his edges, which allowed him to react athletically and get a shoulder on the high shot."

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6795873/2025/11/12/nhl-goalies-dostal-vasilevskiy/

Kolin needs to start getting more on these high shots, letting go of his butterfly comfort blanket. I do not have concrete evidence right now, but it is my strong suspicion that part of Horak's greater and more consistent success in this league is his willingness to stay higher in his stance just that fraction longer than Kolin.

Elsewhere, P2 remains our nemesis. It's concerning how teams routinely seem to be working us out and exploiting us heavily in P2 after positive starts in P1. Coaches can harp on about 'playing the full 60 minutes', but if you are getting roundly outcoached in the mid-game adjustments department, it makes it hard on the players. Maybe I am missing something important here, but it seems like this is a real pattern for us over the past few games. The last 4 games, for instance, have gone 0-2, 2-1, 0-3 and 1-4 for us in the P2s. Bolzano was the 2-1 and we notched a comprehensive victory. The others were all losses. 

Coaches cannot be everything to everyone; it seems that Coach Cooper is much better at building up strategies between games instead of making tactical adjustments within games. Part of improving is identifying and working on your weaknesses, though, so I hope we will be the ones who start making the incisive changes rather than the ones who are repeatedly on the receiving end of them.

KAC's movement in the OZ, to be fair to them, was at times mesmerising. Look at the below, for example - how they didn't score in this is beyond me, as they have worked some magic to have two guys wide open in the low slot. Have they just read our defense like a book, exploiting a mix of man-on-man and zone D to perfection? It doesn't make our players or our coaches look fantastic, that's for sure. It's only one instance, but it does represent something of the chokehold that KAC put us in during P2+3.

Apart from the very soft refereeing decisions that gifted KAC 5 PPs in the game, a key turning point was on a shorthanded chance at the start of P2. What started off as a 2 on 1 turned into a 3 on 1, which we fumbled. It's greedy to demand that we score there, but it remains a key moment of which we failed to take advantage. That could have flipped our P2 script, but instead, we succumbed.

Talking of being shorthanded, where has our vaunted PK gone? We are down to 3rd in the league now after this 40% performance. KAC did well, but we need to fight back ASAP to regain our elite PK numbers if we want to return to winning ways.

In more positive news, Ćosić looked smooth once more, particularly evading forecheckers and facilitating zone exits with clear-eyed first passes.

Finally, a belated thank you to the two guys who said hello/thank you to me at the HCB game - you made me look cool in front of my friends 😆 tell me who you are next time please!!

P.S. I forgot to thank TJ (not Brennan) for his explanation of the KAC red dragon story. See below for the wisdom and thanks again!!