Defensive interceptions and forced passes
https://www.xbox.com/play/media/UqwkfaLLvv I'll keep it short and semi-sweet. Play in question begins around the 20-second mark. 2-on-1 situation. Forced pass all the way from the boards to the far...
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Did he get an auto-sauce there? Ideally, your guy would have picked that off or at least bobbled the puck but a more efficient way to stop that play would have been for you to get inside the guy on the backdoor and stick lift him.
Probably hard to see without zooming in on the video, but that pass was on the ice. Zero sauce at all. If you slow it down, you can see the game even starts to give me the animation to intercept the puck, then just stops and lets the puck pass through me to get to the other player.
I recognize what you're saying about being a way to stop him, but committing that much to the pass results in basically a 1 on 1 with the goalie. Staying closer to the middle presents a deterrence which keeps the puck carrier short side while also staying in the passing lane to try to break up a pass. That's how defenders would play it in real life, and that's how we should be able to play it in this game. Instead, we get forced on-ice passes going through 94 defensive awareness/gold quick pick like it's nothing.
And to be clear, I'm not saying you should be able to cleanly pick off every single pass you're in decent position for. But, a 94 defensive awareness/gold quick pick build in that position should at least be able to make SOME kind of play on the puck.
Forced pass all the way from the boards to the far side of the net.
The pass was released at the face-off dot, not "all the way from the boards"
Staying closer to the middle presents a deterrence which keeps the puck carrier short side while also staying in the passing lane to try to break up a pass. That's how defenders would play it in real life, and that's how we should be able to play it in this game.
Sometimes, yes. But in this scenario, your D Partner who recognizes he was burned, begins to hustle towards the puck carrier which should've been an indication to you to switch coverage and cover the pass recipient. You chose to "stay in the passing lane" but this presents an opportunity for a well placed pass to go through you.
Although you insist the pass was "all the way from the boards", it wasn't. And this means that your player has less time to react.
Compounding the reaction time is the fact that while you were about to intercept the puck, you actually instruct your player to turn away from the puck and away from the net:
Lastly, and I'm about to get conspiratorial on you here, your teammate makes an errant poke check while the puck is in motion. It's my belief that if there's a user-error in any given sequence, it has an effect on that teams' ability to corral loose pucks, get a fortuitous outcome on a pickup or, in this case - intercept a bullet pass.
NeonSkyline21is correct in that you should've gotten body position on Yakupov and either nudged him using incidental contact and/or a well timed stick lift.
Ever since '19, passively being in the passing lane is not an ideal defensive philosophy.
Yeah, you're right. I take back what I said previously. Every pass should just go through. This game is actually perfect.
I mean... that's not what I'm saying at all, but okay.
