hockeykicker
Moderator
- Dec 3, 2014
- 35,234
- 12,866
#42 Nordstrom - #11 Staal (A) - #16 Lindholm
Our lines tonight
#65 Hainsey - #27 Faulk (A)
#74 Slavin - #22 Pesce
#5 Hanifin - #26 Tennyson
Alan May used the expression "one-trick pony" to describe Burt. I never thought of it this way, but it seems pretty evident now that he has gone 26 games without a goal because he does the same predictable thing all the time. Enter the zone, curl and drag and a long range wrist shot.
This is pretty similar to what Semin used to do, except that Semin had 1000 other ways to hurt to the other team offensively. Burt needs to keep it simple, move the puck quickly and trust your line mates to feed you the puck in scoring areas, just like he was doing last year with Kuzy.
Whats up with that guy Lindholm? Drafted him too. Statistically he's way worse than I expected.
That said, I think he's a healthy scratch again because Winnik, Vrana and Connelly have been outplaying him. I don't buy the 'reset' idea - he needs to grow his game, and like Galiev last year that won't happen while he's sitting.
A concern of mine last season was that Burt seemed to find it hard to score away from Kuzy - Bura-Backstrom-Oshie/Williams struggled to find traction offensively, and when Kuzy went cold Bura went cold. Chimera got his powerplay spot. Oh, and Bura might never have warmed had Mojo not vacated 2LW to move to center, given his long goalless (pointless?) streak until January. There are a lot of similarities to this season.
That said, I think he's a healthy scratch again because Winnik, Vrana and Connelly have been outplaying him. I don't buy the 'reset' idea - he needs to grow his game, and like Galiev last year that won't happen while he's sitting.
Hopefully we stick to the script and get a big system win tonight.
Guess vrana is going back down?