Bob is a big loss when he's not on the ice but during the streak we were not leaning on him many games to steal wins. There are many glaring things that have come into play over recent games.
During the streak the team was relentless on the puck. You would see two CBJ players attack the puck. One would check and take the man and the other would come up with the puck. I saw little of this in the Caps game, it was better in the first two periods of the NYR game and it was non existent in the previous two games.
The play in the neutral zone has been horrific. Teams have found a way to prevent the team from taking an easy path from the D zone to the attack zone. My theory is that the passing that was really good during the streak has now gone to terribly insufficient.
The quickness in transition from the D zone to the attack has slowed down tremendously. The players seem lately to be ok with dumping the puck out of the D zone instead of skating the puck out of danger and passing it forward to a rushing forward. This could be from better preparation from the opponent, the defenders afraid to make mistakes or from fatigue from playing this relentless playoff like style for a couple of months.
The PP has regressed quickly. Not unexpected from the early season success but they seem confused now and have not been able to adjust to what teams have been doing to shut it down.
If they get back to playing the way they were (don't know if possible) they will be successful but how much of that can be maintained with so many games, not as much rest and limited practice time from this point forward.
My bigger concern about Bob out of the lineup is not the lower level of goaltending, but the entire team seems to play differently, with less swagger. The fear factor or safe factor seemed to creep in - other than that happening when NYR scored the PP goal at the beginning of the 3rd period, the NYR game was outstanding. The lost their nerve (or as Torts puts it "lost our way").
NYR game bolded comment - same reaction as above...They were great for 2 periods, fell into "protect the G and lead" mode in 3rd period. That can be cured, relatively quickly.
Agree with poor neutral zone observation - and part of that seems related to the very-recent change to chipping pucks out of the D-zone much more than before. Allows opponent to press up even more.
PP comment - it's in a lull, they need to make a few adjustments to counter the adjustments opponents have made. Not that worried about PP, they have all the skill and mindset to move the puck. It may not come back at 27%+, but it will be effective.
Edmonton game on 1/3/17 was 9 days ago. They played stalwart game.
Washington game was the end of the Streak - too much pressure, Washington now hottest team in the league, was at Washington, etc...just not that much to worry about.
NYR game was a loss that because of how it happened was disheartening, but in the big picture was a well-played game until the turtling began. Good lesson game.
PHIL - all guts game. If PHIL had not scored with 16.5 seconds, we would have felt better about the overall game. It was great to get the 2 points. They did not play badly, they were on fumes, and they found a way.
CAROLINA - Poor goaltending, and Dalton Prout on a forward line made that game an absolute outlier. No trust in G after a while, and Torts indicated that others were feeling flu coming on as well. Throw it away. If Forsberg's game is that level for very long, he won't be the backup - at least not in Columbus!
The litmus test in my mind is the two-game set this weekend. Get 3 of 4 points and I'm happy, especially if the quality of play is better (and I expect it to be). In fact if they play great but lose to a hot goalie, I'm still happy.
