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Quinn Hughes | #43 | D


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15 hours ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Into the final minutes and Michigan leads 3-0. No points for Q, but he’s had 7 shot attempts, 3 SOG, and is +1 (the other two goals were scored on the PP).

 

Points are nice, but the way Michigan has defended in previous games, and the way they’ve struggled to get saves, I’d imagine Quinn will be happy with individual zeroes (G’s and A’s) if they come with a team zero (GA).

 

* * *

 

And they’ve done it. 3-0 shutout win. Wolverines dominant offensively, with 80 shot attempts and 40 SOG, but that goose egg on the goals against is a nice improvement for Q and his mates.

 

EDIT: I think they held St. Lawrence to only 16 shots on goal for the game.

How has Quinn's defensive game looked?

 

Despite all the offensive accolades and skills he has, I'm more intrigued how he will increase his intensity and reads in the defensive zone.  

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52 minutes ago, CRAZY_4_NAZZY said:

How has Quinn's defensive game looked?

 

Despite all the offensive accolades and skills he has, I'm more intrigued how he will increase his intensity and reads in the defensive zone.  

I've only been able to watch two full games and then some portions and highlights from the others. What I've seen has been generally encouraging. I think Hughes is getting better at containment. He's in the right positions, relative to his check and the net, and he's keeping good gaps. He's not overcommitting but staying patient and reading the play and anticipating the danger. For the most part, when he's defending, he's not making any major mistakes and seems to have good fundementals. He can get caught out of position when he's going on offence, but that's kind of a risk/reward that you live with in this type of player. And he does have the speed to recover most of the time. He's also deadly on the backcheck and routinely picks the pocket of attacking opponents to win back the puck.

 

I think Michigan's team D has been pretty questionable in a few of the games, however, and this has put Hughes, and some of the other Ds, in some really tough spots. Critical errors like forwards not coming back properly, wingers not getting into the right spots to support breakouts, or forwards being very passive on their checks and losing battles, or not even engaging in them, in the D zone. It's easy for Ds to look bad when they're getting hung out to dry by the Fs. You look at the Wolverines' goals against, up until last night's shutout, and it's been pretty concerning (25 GA in 5 GP). Their goalies have struggled to make saves (0.835 team Sv%) but the skaters have also allowed way too many quality chances. Hopefully last night was the start of Michigan playing better team D. 

Edited by SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME
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Game two of the weekend series against St. Lawrence goes tonight.

 

Broadcast is on BTN/BTN+ (Big Ten Network) and I don't expect there will be a free stream available anywhere.

 

Audio only is available here: https://mgoblue.com/watch/?Live=240

 

Puckdrop should be 7:30 Eastern (4:30pm in Vancouver).

 

Highlights from the last game are here: https://mgoblue.com/index.aspx?path=mhockey

 

If you watch the highlights, you'll be treated to a defensive error (just after the first goal) by Hughes that leads to a quality chance for the opponents. These kinds of warts are still present in his game at times, and I probably should have touched on that more in my previous post. There are some decision making issues, particularly when Hughes is transitioning from offence to defence, or defending one-on-one over a longer stretch of the ice surface. Hughes is pretty solid when he's fully in D mode and defending inside his zone. But he's not always 100% ready to defend when he's transitioning from offence to defence. Seems like it sometimes takes him a second to get into that Dman mindset, particularly when he's up ice and a fair distance from his own net. And he sometimes makes some questionable attempts with the stick instead of using body position and containment. Almost like he expects to win the puck back pretty easily with his stick, and makes a weak stick check instead of minding the danger and maintaining his positional advantage.

 

You can see in the clip how he read the play pretty well initially and he vacated the zone, took up a good position, and was ready for transition. But then he kind of makes a weird decision to halfheartedly attempt to stick check the attacking forward, then suddenly recognizes the speed the guy's coming with and bails out on the stick check and starts skating backwards, but by that time the puck carrier on him, Hughes is caught a bit flat footed, the guy blows past him, and Hughes is chasing. Leads to a good chance for the opponents and the Michigan goalie comes up big with the save. That's some bad decision making and execution by Hughes and something he needs to clean up.

 

Not sure exactly what happened as he seems to make a good read initially, but then just a bad decision to make a weak attempt with the stick, get caught flatfooted, chase and try to stick check again with a fairly weak attempt, and then kind of watch helplessly as the guy takes it to the net. Obviously Hughes needs to make better choices on that sequence. I'd actually have rather seen him go super aggressive on that check, even if he gets beat, than just bail on it and put himself in no man's land. It would have been the wrong play obviously but at least he'd have looked more engaged. Clearly it would have been better for him to just maintain his positional advantage and gap control, as he starts that play in a decent enough spot, but instead he takes away his own positional advantage, and it makes things really easy for the attacking player. The second time he engages the puck carrier, it's again a case of him needing to either commit more fully to that engagement, and actually take the body along the boards there, or just keep position, maintain gap control, and take away the skater's path to the net. Hughes does neither, and he gets caught, and it's not a good look for him.

 

But I will say that these mistakes are fairly rare. I just figured I'd mention it because that clip offers a handy highlight of Hughes making an error, and it's of the variety that he does make at times. Part of the issue I think was that Hughes had a slower start to this game, for some reason, and didn't look all that engaged until later into the game. Not sure if it was just an off night, but he corrected it by the second period, and was solid defensively from there on out. Maybe that one bad play woke him up (or maybe his coach gave him a little "wake up" later on the bench or in the room). Either way, he got past the mistake and played well for the remainder of the game. And thankfully his goalie bailed him out on the play (which the Michigan 'tenders hadn't managed to do too often in some of the previous games).

Edited by SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME
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1 hour ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Game two of the weekend series against St. Lawrence goes tonight.

 

Broadcast is on BTN/BTN+ (Big Ten Network) and I don't expect there will be a free stream available anywhere.

 

Audio only is available here: https://mgoblue.com/watch/?Live=240

 

Puckdrop should be 7:30 Eastern (4:30pm in Vancouver).

 

Highlights from the last game are here: https://mgoblue.com/index.aspx?path=mhockey

 

If you watch the highlights, you'll be treated to a defensive error (just after the first goal) by Hughes that leads to a quality chance for the opponents. These kinds of warts are still present in his game at times, and I probably should have touched on that more in my previous post. There are some decision making issues, particularly when Hughes is transitioning from offence to defence, or defending one-on-one over a longer stretch of the ice surface. Hughes is pretty solid when he's fully in D mode and defending inside his zone. But he's not always 100% ready to defend when he's transitioning from offence to defence. Seems like it sometimes takes him a second to get into that Dman mindset, particularly when he's up ice and a fair distance from his own net. And he sometimes makes some questionable attempts with the stick instead of using body position and containment. Almost like he expects to win the puck back pretty easily with his stick, and makes a weak stick check instead of minding the danger and maintaining his positional advantage.

 

You can see in the clip how he read the play pretty well initially and he vacated the zone, took up a good position, and was ready for transition. But then he kind of makes a weird decision to halfheartedly attempt to stick check the attacking forward, then suddenly recognizes the speed the guy's coming with and bails out on the stick check and starts skating backwards, but by that time the puck carrier on him, Hughes is caught a bit flat footed, the guy blows past him, and Hughes is chasing. Leads to a good chance for the opponents and the Michigan goalie comes up big with the save. That's some bad decision making and execution by Hughes and something he needs to clean up.

 

Not sure exactly what happened as he seems to make a good read initially, but then just a bad decision to make a weak attempt with the stick, get caught flatfooted, chase and try to stick check again with a fairly weak attempt, and then kind of watch helplessly as the guy takes it to the net. Obviously Hughes needs to make better choices on that sequence. I'd actually have rather seen him go super aggressive on that check, even if he gets beat, than just bail on it and put himself in no man's land. It would have been the wrong play obviously but at least he'd have looked more engaged. Clearly it would have been better for him to just maintain his positional advantage and gap control, as he starts that play in a decent enough spot, but instead he takes away his own positional advantage, and it makes things really easy for the attacking player. The second time he engages the puck carrier, it's again a case of him needing to either commit more fully to that engagement, and actually take the body along the boards there, or just keep position, maintain gap control, and take away the skater's path to the net. Hughes does neither, and he gets caught, and it's not a good look for him.

 

But I will say that these mistakes are fairly rare. I just figured I'd mention it because that clip offers a handy highlight of Hughes making an error, and it's of the variety that he does make at times. Part of the issue I think was that Hughes had a slower start to this game, for some reason, and didn't look all that engaged until later into the game. Not sure if it was just an off night, but he corrected it by the second period, and was solid defensively from there on out. Maybe that one bad play woke him up (or maybe his coach gave him a little "wake up" later on the bench or in the room). Either way, he got past the mistake and played well for the remainder of the game. And thankfully his goalie bailed him out on the play (which the Michigan 'tenders hadn't managed to do too often in some of the previous games).

I still say playing this year in Utica would have been the best decision for his development

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30 minutes ago, stawns said:

I still say playing this year in Utica would have been the best decision for his development

Probably. But it don't know if Utica was ever really in the cards. Seems like Hughes was deciding between NHL or college.

 

I'm still hopeful that this year in Michigan will prove beneficial. Certainly it will allow for more practice time and training, with Hughes playing mostly weekends, and having all week to practice and work out, versus trying to fit in training days while dealing with the nightmare of Canucks travel and scheduling.

 

Of course the AHL plays a largely collegiate style schedule, and Utica provides a similar training opportunity to what Hughes has now, while also giving him a taste of professional hockey.

 

Remains to be seen what Hughes gets out of this year. But he's in a good spot. Michigan is an excellent program and their coaching staff is first rate. They just haven't quite looked it yet, but it's pretty early. I trust Mel Pearson to work out the kinks and get his team where it needs to be. 

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1 minute ago, Vanuckles said:

Anybody know if there's any way I can get footage of one player's shifts in a game (I'll settle for NCAA, Junior or NHL...)?

 

@SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME & @-Vintage Canuck- I think you two are my best bet?

Depends on the player. I’d try YouTube. There are several users who put together shift-by-shift videos on notable players. Or just google the player name and “shift by shift” and check the video results.

 

Not sure I’m answering the question correctly?

 

If you’re just trying to access the raw footage, some of the official paid broadcasters (like OHL Live) keep the games archived and you can go back and watch them and edit together your own shift by shift package. I think the other junior leagues that use Neulion also keep games archives (as well as some of the official NCAA streaming services, if I’m not mistaken).

 

What player are you looking for?

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6 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Depends on the player. I’d try YouTube. There are several users who put together shift-by-shift videos on notable players. Or just google the player name and “shift by shift” and check the video results.

 

Not sure I’m answering the question correctly?

 

If you’re just trying to access the raw footage, some of the official paid broadcasters (like OHL Live) keep the games archived and you can go back and watch them and edit together your own shift by shift package. I think the other junior leagues that use Neulion also keep games archives (as well as some of the official NCAA streaming services, if I’m not mistaken).

 

What player are you looking for?

I'm actually pretty interested in Patrice Bergeron and Aleksander Barkov pre-NHL shifts but it's pretty bleak on Youtube. I was just generally interested if you knew whether or not there's a website (preferably free) that archives shift by shift game footage for significant players. Thanks anyways.

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3 minutes ago, Vanuckles said:

I'm actually pretty interested in Patrice Bergeron and Aleksander Barkov pre-NHL shifts but it's pretty bleak on Youtube. I was just generally interested if you knew whether or not there's a website (preferably free) that archives shift by shift game footage for significant players. Thanks anyways.

Got it. I don’t think there’s anything like that. If there was, I’d imagine it’d be pretty popular among hardcore fans. Maybe one day somebody will put a website like that together. Would be a great feature on a stats website. I can imagine being able to look at up player’s game-by-game stats and then clicking a feature to watch their shift-by-shift video from that game. It’d be a lot of work to put together, but if anyone ever did, I’d definitely be a user of their service.

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2 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Got it. I don’t think there’s anything like that. If there was, I’d imagine it’d be pretty popular among hardcore fans. Maybe one day somebody will put a website like that together. Would be a great feature on a stats website. I can imagine being able to look at up player’s game-by-game stats and then clicking a feature to watch their shift-by-shift video from that game. It’d be a lot of work to put together, but if anyone ever did, I’d definitely be a user of their service.

That's actually a pretty good idea for a website. It would definitely take some kind of agreement with the various leagues to do that, and I'd imagine that's pretty pricey. I'm sure each league has proprietary shift by shift videos but they wouldn't release that to the public. It would be a pretty neat concept.

 

As for the hardcore fans comment... maybe I just need to get a life instead :lol:

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