jmh70 wrote:Let me break it down for those who still think Gonchar is worth $25m:
1) Makes bad decisions consistently. For some reason he thinks he has the skill to carry the puck all the way to the offensive faceoff dots. ~7 out of 10 times he is stripped of the puck and the PP suffers. Even Whitney, a rookie, knows when to get rid of the puck. Sergei's decisions to pinch in are also often wrong.
2) Poor shooting. What happened to the Gonchar that consistently rifled pucks into the roof of the net from the point? Clearly this Gonchar is not the same as the Pens' #55 who misses the net so often.
3) Slow as hell. He tries to carry the puck up ice and constantly gets caught because he's barely moving. Being slow is bad enough, but not realizing it is worse.
4) Most importantly, his production does not make up for his suicidal defending. Gonchar has a grand total of 8 goals and 47 points. I would approximate that, through bad penalties or atrocious defensive decisions, Gonchar has been responsible for at least 30 goals against. In sum, Gonchar is exponentially more of a liability at all times than he is a scoring threat only on the PP.
So the concept of having a bad year just totally eludes you doesn't it?
Gonchar has been (previous years) very good and taking the puck up the ice across both blue lines and setting up the play. He has not done that this year because there are often two opposing players coming at him before he gets to his own blue line. That's okay if you can pass the puck... well no other Penguins are ever open to pass it to so he dumps the puck. As the Pens seem incabable of getting a loose puck it ends up being a turnover. Can you explain how that it Gonchar's fault?
As far as the shooting goes... everyone knows Mario doesn't like Dmen shooting... so odd that while Mario was on the team... Gonchar didn't shoot... But not that Mario is gone... Gonchar is shooting... Hummmmm... wonder if there is a connection...???