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The 1-3-1 Debate


Fanpuck33

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This has been bothering me a lot over the last week after what happened in the TB vs. Philly game. If you didn't see it, TB stayed back in the neutral zone waiting for Philly to advance the puck, but instead Philly just held onto the puck and literally stood still for 30 seconds with the puck until the ref blew the whistle.

I have been SHOCKED by the response from many commentators who are blaming Tampa Bay for this happening. Seriously? Philadelphia has the puck on offense. It is their job to move the puck down the ice and try to score a goal. It is Tampa's job to stop them. How on earth can you blame the defense for the offense's unwillingness to do their job? It's akin to a football team taking a knee and punting because the other team has a good defense. Or a basketball team refusing to shoot because the other team has good rebounding.

I heard one person go as far to say that Tampa's players have no pride if they're not willing to force the other team to move the puck. How about the pride of the Flyers player who is just standing there WITH THE PUCK!? Philadelphia is absolutely to blame for this incident. It's not the defense's job to move the puck that they don't have.

I'm also seeing a lot of comments about how boring their system is and how they have such great offensive talent that is being wasted. Again, seriously? They were 7th in the league in scoring last season. It's hardly preventing them from producing a lot of exciting offense.

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Tampa has the right to play defence any way they choose.

Philly has the right to attack that defence in any way that they think will be effective, if they want to wait for an opportunity, so be it.

Noone is to blame here IMO.

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Philly was just waiting to try and get Tampa to do something, I think it was fine both ways. Tampa was fine with waiting, Philly just looked bad in front of their home crowd and lost.

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Philly was just waiting to try and get Tampa to do something, I think it was fine both ways. Tampa was fine with waiting, Philly just looked bad in front of their home crowd and lost.

It was in Tampa... part of the reason Philly did it was to embarass Tampa infront of their own crowd.

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Usually, the dman assess the situation from behind his net and wait for teammates to change and get open. It was just funny that it was up in the faceoff circle and that in fact, he wasn't waiting for a teammate to get open, but for an opponent to get compromized. That to me is illuminating because I didn't thought the play could be constructed that much on the opponent's action. It was definetely a way to get in the head of the Bolts and get them out of their gameplan. But in the end, I don't agree they made them look bad in front of their fans. On the contrary, they acknowledged respect and the effectiveness of their 1-3-1. If they really want to break that 1-3-1, just try and give the puck over to the lone opponent up front... (although maybe not if the guy is named st.louis or stamkos lol)

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I'm looking forward to seeing how coaching adapts to this kind of defence. (And my belief is that, until the league rules against it, you can play any defence you want, no matter how paint-dryingly dull.) I also think that, while some of the fans may have been irritated with the display, there would be at least an equal number who might think that they'd stymied the Flyers. Particularly considering the Bolts won the game.

In fact, this is the kind of chess-match hockey that's really interesting for the 'students' of the game. How do you crack a heavy 1-3-1 trap? I see a lot of potential for a talented line with good puck-moving defenders to find ways to get 2v1's. They have to be set plays, but the opportunity is there. I mean, that 1-3-1 was exceedingly static. (Kinda looked like a Montreal power play, if you ask me.)

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This has been bothering me a lot over the last week after what happened in the TB vs. Philly game. If you didn't see it, TB stayed back in the neutral zone waiting for Philly to advance the puck, but instead Philly just held onto the puck and literally stood still for 30 seconds with the puck until the ref blew the whistle.

I have been SHOCKED by the response from many commentators who are blaming Tampa Bay for this happening. Seriously? Philadelphia has the puck on offense. It is their job to move the puck down the ice and try to score a goal. It is Tampa's job to stop them. How on earth can you blame the defense for the offense's unwillingness to do their job? It's akin to a football team taking a knee and punting because the other team has a good defense. Or a basketball team refusing to shoot because the other team has good rebounding.

I heard one person go as far to say that Tampa's players have no pride if they're not willing to force the other team to move the puck. How about the pride of the Flyers player who is just standing there WITH THE PUCK!? Philadelphia is absolutely to blame for this incident. It's not the defense's job to move the puck that they don't have.

I'm also seeing a lot of comments about how boring their system is and how they have such great offensive talent that is being wasted. Again, seriously? They were 7th in the league in scoring last season. It's hardly preventing them from producing a lot of exciting offense.

Agreed. You can't blame a team for their defense being too good for you. It is the team with the puck's responsibility to make something happen.

Fans blame the Lightning because they want to see high scoring games and because they don't find the 1-3-1 manly.

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Philly is making an interesting statement there. Good on them. However, there's no question that it was Philly's responsibility to do something, not Tampa's responsibility to politely abandon their defensive strategy.

I think the solution to this sort of behavious is relatively simple. The ref would be within their rights to call a delay of game penalty on the Flyers. Of course, that does nothing about the 1-3-1.

The haunting thing with this clip is that you can see hockey turning into the caricature that a lot of non-fans have in their minds about soccer - a lot of dithering around glorified as 'tactics' and no action.

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Washington did essentially the same thing in the playoffs, but the D kept passing it to each other

Though if you look at it from a business perspective, especially in the weaker US markets, the 1-3-1 system would obviously be discouraging the product, like the Devils in the mid 90's

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