The poke checking is so badddd
You shouldn't need 92 poking and gold stick em up to consistently poke the puck.
It's so bad and so slow. I get that you want offense but when offense can literally skate through you because you poke and the extension of the puck is so slow that you can't even pick the puck up because you have to finish your animation it's absolute lunacy.
Balance in this game needs some effort put in.
@KidShowtime1867 wrote:
@Limp_KidzKit wrote:Am I crazy here or did theoffensive player make a super good play that I'm not seeing?
watch the clip again. Tell us which player's skates stop moving while the puck moves forward. There's your answer.
Some of you want the poke check to be an instant possession button, while others are clamouring for more loose pucks. You can see in this clip that the puck is loose and is reacting to the sticks touching it. Do you all want this to be an instant possession by the defender?
Regardless of your real world experience level, a poke check (thrusting your top-hand forward in an attempt to use your stick to dislodge a puck) will result in some slowdown/reduction in acceleration/speed.
In that scenario, the puck was successfully poked. However, because the trajectory of the puck matched the trajectory of the puck carrier (who was still skating) and the subsequent bounces were fortuitous for the puck carrier, they retained possession.
This clip demonstrates where a shove is ideal. The player models are literally interacting with each other, and rather than play the body, the player chose to use a poke check. Wrong move. Paid the price. Nothing wrong in that clip.
I guess you need to teach Charlie McAvoy how to play defense? Lots of poke spamming there and no shoving until the puck is knocked loose!
No one is asking for an instant possession change. The puck should have been knocked loose and gone in the direction of the corner, to result in a loss of possession, 50/50 puck, or at the very least result in the offensive player being in a less advantageous position like this:
And this is all beside the fact that the "fortuitous" bounce is unbelievably unlikely, if not physically impossible. Also, you have no problem with poke checking losing tons of speed but not loss of speed pick the puck back up on an awkward backhand angle at full speed.
