It's only hard to get my head around you thinking that a coach would look at the PP as more important than making sure his team " finishes their checks". A coach is responsible for all aspects of the game and they are all important. Most importantly , being on a "tight leash" as you've said is only for fighting not finishing a check, so there's no correlation between the 2 and that's where I think you're confused . Finishing checks is a very important part of the game and when the Devils skate and finish checks, there are very few teams if any that can play with them. In my mind they didn't do that on Sunday especially their defence. Having said that, some forwards need to finish them as well. When push comes to shove, no pun intended, any coach would like to see his team play under control and fight if you need to . I would be very surprised if any coach at this level would tell his team not to engage but the game dictates that. Gratuitous fighting is useless but there times when you need to take matters into your hands and we've seen some scraps this year just not as many as some of the old school fans would like to see.
Interesting point you made about “I would be very surprised if any coach at this level would tell his team not to engage” as i think that’s the crux of some of the discussion on here. I think people, including me just want to understand why it’s not happening. I’m not frustrated or annoyed by it at all as I’ll take the number one spot every day of the week but was just after an explanation, a point of view etc as to why it’s the way it is.
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