Coop yesterday: "it's one play that can make it, and they made the play. We have to make sure in the next game we make the play."
Don't wanna be pessimistic but maybe this is where you miss a guy like Ondrej Palat or Alex Killorn or others who step up in these big moments.
Had a hat trick in his first game(or one of his early games), was played on the 3rd or 4th line a lot, and had dominated in the AHL. I get why he left, but he has been probabaly the biggest(or maybe 2nd biggest) blunder to lose for nothing.
I would go with last year's Conn Smythe winner Marchessault who NYR let go, and then Columbus traded to us for nothing, and then signed with Florida, who didn't protect him in the expansion draft. Technically Killorn and Palat returned no assets.
Marchessault wasn’t great here either or Jt Miller, Joseph .
When players leave and are a lot better everywhere else you have to look at the coaching..
Marchessault didn't do anything special offensively but he did play his role on the lower lines better than Verhaeghe did. I think difference was JAM never got his chance in the top 6 while Verhaeghe was given a few and didn't do anything with them.
But JAM and CV were both rookies. So not necessarily anything we did wrong. Naturally they were going to get better, we just couldn't wait for them to fully develop over the course of a few years while we were in win-now mode. If anything we deserve the credit for making them legit players in the AHL/ early NHL careers, when other teams thought less of them.
JT Miller was no rookie, but he was equally a head scratcher for NY as he was for us. And Joseph has gotten more ice time, better linemates in Ottawa and didn't really do anything with it. Not everyone's cut out to be a scorer in this league, and he's better doing other things.