The thing that really irks me is that Carlyle keeps on saying that this team is doing well, just not getting the bounces... "I don't agree with the refs calls" or "We did some good forechecking, turned over some pucks" or "We're just not winning the battles"... never hints that maybe they need to play differently. It's quite obvious that this team isn't doing well with your system RC, change it up in the D-zone or try some new things on our break-out so we can get some more O-time... just try something new!
He's not afraid to take out/give less minutes to Rielly, Gardiner, Kadri, even Kessel... but for some reason he's afraid to do it for Franson or change our first pairing so we can rely on our 2nd pairing more... He finally did it for some of tonights game and our defense looked better and our team looked better, just didn't capitalize and had a few gaffs.
I think our team finally looked ready to get out of their slump last night, showed some positives, and just need to shore up some mental gaffs.... and learn to build on momentum even when there is a period break in between (really strong end of 2nd, not a very strong (but okay) start of 3rd).