What a weird game.
Solid, controlled first period. Exactly the sort of play Tocchet wants and should have been ahead based on the chances.
Then an absolute travesty of a 2nd period. Just atrocious from our top players. Miller full Bozo. Pettersson disengaged. Hughes even making horrible turnovers. Demko poor. Probably the worst period of the entire season.
Should have lost the game at that point but then go 3-3 on PPs in the 3rd period and the star players redeem themselves. I'm guessing Tocchet peeled the paint off the walls in the 2nd intermission.
Despite the points for Boeser/Miller/Pettersson/Hughes on the PP/3-on-3, the best players by far in this game were Garland-Blueger-Joshua. That line was absolutely fantastic all night, even when the rest of the team was disintegrating in the 2nd period. Continually provided energy to start tipping the game back the right way and it's a shame they weren't rewarded with a goal on the many chances they created.
Juulsen had probably the best offensive game I've ever seen from him at this level.
Don't know what to make of that whole Myers/Cole penalty thing. On one hand, the Myers elbow was the worst offense and they got that right. But I'm not at all comfortable with just throwing out the rulebook to make calls against us. Feels very Boston 2011-ish. It's not how it's supposed to work. But on the 3rd hand ... we might actually be lucky that wasn't 2 for Cole and 5 for Myers because both committed infractions on that play. One of the weirdest sequences I can ever remember.