Yesterday = Exhibit A

[SpikeDDS]

So we lose another game badly as far as the score goes. Not as badly regarding how we played as a whole. Jimmy Howard just plain had a dreadful game. It happens.

 

And let’s face it: Rarely does a team whose goalie has a dreadful game win that game. That is pretty much true across the board no matter what team you are talking about with very few exceptions.

 

But even with that, the game is yet another example of the state of our team. We have enough talent where if EVERYONE plays to their potential or close to their best, we can win just about any hockey game, excepting maybe TB and the like.

 

But our trouble is that if any part of our team does NOT play well, we just don’t have enough offense to make up for mistakes, and if we try too hard to make up for it offensively and overcommit, we end up looking just silly. Bad.

 

Reminds me of Herb Brooks’ old saying, “You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.” That’s us.

 

The bottom line is that every player who logs any kind of significant ice time has to be giving close to 100% effort on just about every shift if we expect to win games. That kind of expectation is unreasonable. Few teams can do that night in and night out. Most either falter or fall back on a surplus of talent that they can rely on to win the games where they don’t play their best. We do not have that kind of talent or team.

 

I hate to say it, but it is time to sit Kronner and let a kid get some ice time on the blue line. He was the reason for the breakaway goal yesterday, and he has been costing us almost a goal a game. Again, we don’t have the offensive talent to make up for a free giveaway per night.

[yave1964]

@SpikeDDS

 

At least we showed some heart against the Panthers in the next game, of course we still came out on the losing end. I agree with Kronner, an all time favorite of mine but time waits on no man, he is pretty well done. Jensen is not an NHLer, Witkowski really isn't either but he is at least entertaining, given the choice of watching the sadness of Kronwall literally on his last leg, the frustration of watching Jensen slide out of position at least once or twice a game (watch him, apparently nobody ever taught him how to stop when skating backwards, he routinely fails to set and either bumps his own goalie or slides out of the play giving the opposing shooter a good shot) I would probably go with the entertainer. If we are gonna lose, we may as well have fun doing so. 

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

Amen to your last. A lot more emotion in that game than I anticipated. At least it provides some entertaininment. It’s not Probert vs Domi, but it’s better than Montreal game 2.

 

What isn’t?