F
For full disclosure, I'm one of the off-ice officials that was working the game Thursday night. We had it right by sending Johnston out. The refs were the ones that sent him back to the box. As far as speaking up, this would probably be the reaction from a lot of the refs:
Terrance went for $1,125, Spence $1,050, Kulakov $1,025 and Lalonde $1,000.
The whole team showed some hustle today- a pleasant surprise.
They have run both of these and more often than not it is the one on the right. The thing with this is that it is easily defended with an aggressive box defense, especially when the passing efficiency is severely lacking as much as it is. This team struggles greatly with an aggressive defense regardless if it is a PP or not. When the PK has been more passive they tend to have more success on the PP. The other thing that kills them on the PP is not being able to get in the offensive zone on the break in. Opposing teams just clog the neutral zone so they are forced to either dump it in where the D just ices it or they do the highly predictable back pass and it gets broken up. Their passing sucks and their forecheck sucks so its just a rinse and repeat process.
This! One of the hallmarks of the Knoblauch teams was vertical passes until zone entry, and they were generally crisp and on target. Soft long passes just yield takeaways, and a dump and chase game only works if you actually chase the puck. When an Erie player is closer to the puck but the opposing player gets to it first Every. Darned. Time. you know you've got a hustle problem. Positionally the Otters look good on defense, but they just don't seem to have a clue on offense. That speaks to the team needing a head coach who can integrate both offensive and defensive strategies. I'm OK with the defensive aspects of their transition game but the passing, both cross-ice and back passes, needs a lot of work. Control the puck and you control the workload on your goalie, develop an effective positional game in the O zone, and good things will happen.
Not 100% sure, but he went to the locker room late in the 3rd period after checking a Steelhead player and never returned. It looked like he was favoring his right arm.
I’d like to poke at my season prediction. Artichuk a huge surprise and a hot stick as of late. My other predictions, I don’t want to talk about them.
It’s too bad because they’d have a few extra wins if they could close games.Points 1 and 3...not happening...we are in an awful spot.
Alfano needs to start scoring
Cohen needs to start producing like mad...
Terrance has become pretty solid for sure, though I would probably have changed the surprise to Bressette at this point. Also, probably put Bressette or Terrance as most improved to this point as well.
Honestly, this team just can't close games and has absolutely no consistency in the net. We haven't even received that "bump" from the coaching change either, but I'm pretty sure BJ didn't start off super hot when he took over for Hartsburg.
This team is lost, no sense of direction, and I'm not sure it gets corrected with DB, Vince, and Wes.
I am still trying to figure out how we kept this a one goal game. 5-5 skating looked like Sarnia was on the PP. When we were on the PP it looked like it was even strength. On our 4 minute PP in the 3rd, I think Sarnia had more shots on goal shorthanded than we did including their goal. Can anyone on the team win a faceoff when we need it? Did Messier ever return after his instigating fight? I hope he was benched for that.
Not just a coach, but a GM as well...hopefully he sees that as well. DB crippled the next person who comes in here by being a "buyer" in a lost season.
