brelic

I'm very surprised. I thought that with all the roster turnover, it would take about a quarter season to get going, but a lot of these guys found chemistry pretty quickly. The only thing that worries me is that we give up a lot of goals. Not so much a problem in October, but let's see if they can tighten up defensively as the season goes on.

Don't forget that pass to Talbot! That was a great play by Voracek and even better finish by Max.

Wow, Staal is -17???? Ouch! That's just brutal, especially on a team that is only 6-8-1. I wouldn't mind seeing Bob getting some work tonight. Here's Meltzer's take on the game tonight (http://www.hockeybuz...icanes/45/39695): Based on the lines below, I wouldn't mind seeing Voracek and Simmonds swapped: JVR/Briere/Voracek Read/Talbot/Simmonds Gives the 3rd line a little more sandpaper, and the 2nd line a little more skill. As much as it is nice to have a power forward on the 2nd line with smallish Briere, I think he and JVR kinda duplicate that role even though JVR doesn't quite play like one yet.

They neutered the role of the heavyweight when they instituted the instigator penalty. And other than that, staged fights are stupid. Shelley pretty much only gets into staged fights. I much prefer guys like Rinaldo and Carcillo (during his one good year here) who are agitators, have skill, are fast, and will fight to protect teammates in the heat of the moment.

Giroux will be fine. His line had an off night, but generated a few chances in the 3rd. I'm more worried about JVR/Briere/Simmonds who seem to show no chemistry at all. The good news is that Voracek seems to be finding his game And Couts had one of his best games last night.

Did anyone see the actual replay? They didn't show it on the broadcast I was watching...

The first goal was definitely soft. Should have had it, but whatever, those things happen. The second goal, well, as I was discussing with @canoli, I just wish Bryz had more 'urgency' to his game... as in, if he fights to see that puck and follow the play, maybe he stops it. He seems overly casual in the way he plays the puck, and in goal. I always felt Price was like that too, and I don't think many people would say it's a 'problem', so maybe I'm making too much of it. But it makes me nervous as hell! I gotta wonder if that lack of urgency might have something to do with his less than stellar playoffs.

Pretty much.. but I remember thinking the same thing in his very first game. I told myself it would take 10-15 games for him to 'fit in' to our system, so I cut him some slack, but it never really happened.

Haha, I don't watch soccer at all. I know NTP and FG are huge fans though. It's a great sport for kids (cheap, good exercise) and they can play it anywhere.

Sadly, we essentially traded our 2011 first rounder for a second rounder. Definitely a Homer blunder on that one. Not sure why he was so bad in Philly. He looked really lazy in his time here.

From Philly.com this morning: Breakaways. The Flyers scrapped their original plan to have Erik Gustafsson join them in Naples, Fla. Instead, the injured defenseman (wrist) has continued to rehabilitate in Philadelphia. GM Paul Holmgren said a decision will be made Saturday on whether Gustafsson will join the team for Sunday's game against Florida.

I guess that's why soccer isn't popular in the US

Why do people keep getting concerned with decreasing offense? Scoring doesn't necessarily make a game entertaining... sheesh, the three blowouts that we had this season were terrible terrible hockey.

Exactly. And at one point, you couldn't pass backwards.

For his sake, I hope he turns it around in LA because when he's focused, he's an awesome player. I don't think he was going to turn it around in Philly any more. I'm sure they gave him his chances, and he blew them. It all started when he decided to freeze out the media around the time Lupul was gonna play his first game back in Philly since being traded. Remember that? I think Tim Panaccio asked him about the partying rumours (which was a legitimate line of questioning because Homer was quoted in the media as saying it was a problem), and Richards didn't like it, so froze out the media. If there's no truth to any of it, why react like a petulant child? Why not man up, and admit your mistakes? Bottom line, he handled himself almost exactly unlike a captain and a leader should. BUT, for right now, I think we lose out on that trade. Luckily, we got a double bonus with the Carter trade. He's the injured one, and we have two good, young productive players on the roster. Kinda evens things out... for now. Long term, I think we come out on top.

LOL, when you put it that way, keep the sweet tushes

Sheesh, can you guys stop it with the hot avatars? I'm not supposed to be turned on when I'm talking to you dudes. Unless, of course, that's a self-portrait, in which case, carry on

Sure, maybe it was a message. Good for them, I guess. But I would have been more impressed with the message if it were "hey, look, we can still score 5 goals against your lame ass system" instead of "we don't like the way you stand around doing nothing, so we'll stand around doing nothing and still lose." In the grand scheme of things, it's really insignificant. I *might* have a different opinion in 3 years from now if we're talking about TB going for a three-peat.

I don't get what any of this has to do with honor. It's not a war, it's a freakin' game worth $2.5B dollars and they're each collecting multimillion dollar paychecks to skate around a frozen surface. And I'm not supporting the Bolts. It's a shitty ass way to play hockey, but it's their way, and I don't really care. They still blow defensively. I'll bring up the goaltender analogy again. When goaltenders started more and more to go into butterfly style and cover the ice so well, did the league say "hey, wait now, you can't play on the ice before the shot is even taken, how are we gonna score?" No. Players and coaches figured out how to beat butterfly goaltenders. It's a style. Just like the 1-3-1 is a system among many. Way too much is being made about an insignificant system on a mediocre defensive team.

I'm not defending the trap, I'm defending a team's right to do whatever the hell it wants within the rules. No one said it had to be pretty.

I have to agree with @B21 and @aziz that the key is finding a weakness in the 1-3-1 rather than crying to the league to change the rules. I remember several years ago when we faced a team in the playoffs that was using a variation of the trap (though I can't remember who... must be NJ, right??). Anyway, we got frustrated in the first two games, but our coach found a way to exploit it (pretty sure it was during Forsberg's tenure, so probably Stevens?) and our attack looked much different the rest of the way, and we effectively countered their trap.

But isn't it the person with the puck that can cause a delay of game by not moving? Not sure on the rules around that one. I'm interested to see if the league responds on what happened last night.

Hey, I agree with the fact that it's super boring to watch. But, some of the suggestions they were talking about last night were just ridiculous. One of the commentators said they should have a rule that prevents skaters from skating backwards in the neutral zone. I just don't see how TB is breaking any rules. It sucks, it's boring, but it's a system that forces opponents into turnovers. Surely, we can find a way around it.

I feel your frustration, but I think trying to 'legislate' the trap out of the game is the wrong approach. Every system has flaws, and it is up to the coaches of other teams to exploit those flaws. And as they pointed out on the VS broadcast, despite this magical trap, the Lightning is 23rd in goals against per game this year, and they were 22nd last year. Clearly, it can be exploited. Maybe Laviolette hasn't figured out how to counter it yet. We've always had problems against teams who play the trap, even pre-Lavi. Should they tell goalies they have to play stand up because butterfly style prevents too many goals? Absolutely not. Players learned how to create more traffic and redirections to score. Anyway, I'm not defending TB's boring style of hockey so much as hoping the league doesn't yet again try to interfere with the game. Let the players and coaches figure it out.

Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with the players we have. Guaranteed that if someone like Lemaire, Hitch, Murray/Stevens is in charge of this team, we all of a sudden learn how to be defensively responsible (at the expense of some offense). But when Laviolette *does* get fired, I'm sure his replacement will be Tocchet DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying Laviolette is anywhere near getting fired, just that if one thing is certain about coaches, it's that they will eventually get fired.