Observations V

[Armourboy]

I got a question. Today they were talking about the the Hawks were specifically targeting Rinne's blocker side to make it harder for him to control the puck and the game. Is this been what is ailing him for the last month or so? Is this something teams figured out once he came back from the injury and has it been a cause of some of the frustration and bad play we have seen in his game? Could it explain his poor positioning as of late, as him trying to be in better position to catch the puck? And finally if this is the case, wtf has his goalie coach been freaking doing for the last month?

 

[Yukon Cornellis]

I got a question. Today they were talking about the the Hawks were specifically targeting Rinne's blocker side to make it harder for him to control the puck and the game. Is this been what is ailing him for the last month or so? Is this something teams figured out once he came back from the injury and has it been a cause of some of the frustration and bad play we have seen in his game? Could it explain his poor positioning as of late, as him trying to be in better position to catch the puck? And finally if this is the case, wtf has his goalie coach been freaking doing for the last month?

Yes, yes, probably, and that is a damned good question.

 

[Pred303]

this is nothing new. every team before every game in the pregame meetings goes over the opposing goalie and his save percentages for all 5 holes whether it be playoffs or game 10 of the regular season. everyone wants to take rinne's glove away every game. yesterday several shots hit rinne in the high chest. shots he normally crosses over and catches cross body when he's really sharp. far more noticable and bad were the two 5 hole goals (and the 5 hole bleeder that almost was a goal). then on the jones-wilson gaff getting beat on the weakside from an unsreened shot where he was too deep in net on a single man break in and no weak side worry and then played the angle wrong. a killer fall behind goal.

3 goals the rinne of games 1-57 doesn't give up. in fact, if rinne had played these three playoffs games at his early season level we would almost surely be leading this series 3-zip right now.

 

[Pred303]

in my mind, we need to win the next two games to win this series, not just tomorrow. a two game winning streak. come on boys, even Buffalo had several two game winning streaks.

 

[PredsV82]

in my mind, we need to win the next two games to win this series, not just tomorrow. a two game winning streak. come on boys, even Buffalo had several two game winning streaks.

its all on Pekka, but you watch, Pekka will play well tomorrow and we wont be able to throw one in the ocean and lose 1-0 or 2-1...

yeah, im on the downstroke of the rollercoaster today...

 

[Byrddog]

its all on Pekka, but you watch, Pekka will play well tomorrow and we wont be able to throw one in the ocean and lose 1-0 or 2-1...

yeah, im on the downstroke of the rollercoaster today...

Im on that same coaster ride Doc. If we had lost 5-4 with Pekka melting down I would be much more critical of him. But putting just 2 goals on the board against the Hawks in Chicago is just not gonna get it done. So theres plenty of players we can point a finger at today.

In one of the threads the teams leadership is finally being looked at seriously now. While it is important right now in the PO's. It will be more important next season, the team will be adding Fiala, Moses and likely Arvidson to the roster and Forsberg in his second year and Jones is in sore need of on and off ice guidance. Not at all ready to throw Lavi under the bus because next season he will have the forward talent he needs to succeed. But other than Fish you do not see much intensity from the guys wearing the letters. You know one doesa not have to be that cheerleader type leader you can be the silent type like Lidstrom was but these guys need to make a difference. Weber and Neal have not. There has not been one game this year where either has just took the team on there back and willed them to a win. Let there be no doubt Neal has that ability why he has not done it is beyond me. Weber can do it with his intensity but that has been MIA whit maybe 5 exceptions over the season. Lavi has to address this in the offseason, and Poile has to address the roster. Change is coming in the offseason for sure, the late season collapse has demanded that but which way do they go. Now there will be those who say you can't take the C off Weber he is the face of the franchise. Well so was Modano in Dallas. A team that does not change backslides. A coaching change was made that made little difference to this point, changing the GM does not fix the ill's of this team in short order so changing the players on the ice is the last option and that's where I see the organization going now. The celebrated defense and goaltending has not taken this team to the promised land. Remember when the new ownership and Poile said that the ultimate goal was a cup in Nashville.. Well they will need to redirect the direction and make up of this team. Doing nothing will continue the team being a bubble team. Poile was given the make playoffs or else over last summer and he did that. Many think this team is just a player or two away right now and that's just not right. We hear that every year well the two players Ribs and Neal failed to do it. The team is at a crossroad now promising young talent coming in next season but Weber and Rinne reaching the point where they will start to decline. I expect people here are gonna start playing with next years lines as soon as the team exits the PO's. Just keep in mind that with the new young guys comin in you burn a year of Rinne and Weber. So does Poile stay that course or move a roster player or two and a couple prospects to try and make a run next year? Does he burn it to the ground moving Rinne and Weber and use the pieces to rebuild? Does he sign safe f/a like he has in years past? A whole bunch of questons that will be answered soon.

 

[David Singleton]

this is nothing new. every team before every game in the pregame meetings goes over the opposing goalie and his save percentages for all 5 holes whether it be playoffs or game 10 of the regular season. everyone wants to take rinne's glove away every game. yesterday several shots hit rinne in the high chest. shots he normally crosses over and catches cross body when he's really sharp. far more noticable and bad were the two 5 hole goals (and the 5 hole bleeder that almost was a goal). then on the jones-wilson gaff getting beat on the weakside from an unsreened shot where he was too deep in net on a single man break in and no weak side worry and then played the angle wrong. a killer fall behind goal.

3 goals the rinne of games 1-57 doesn't give up. in fact, if rinne had played these three playoffs games at his early season level we would almost surely be leading this series 3-zip right now.

Rinne is not playing other-worldly, there's no doubt. The worst of the bunch to me was Saad (!) beating him on the rush with no worries to the weakside (as you described well).

Much of Rinne's 5-hole problem is due to sustained net presence by the opposition resulting in at least two players blocking his vision (the opponent and the Pred covering him). With Rinne not being able to see, what does a 6'5" person do to see? He "stands up" a bit more to see over and/or around all that traffic. That makes him especially prone to shots along the ice. You could live with that in a vacuum, but combine that with his defensemen losing the rebound battles and not being able to clear out and you have the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th shot make their way in all too often.

Darling doesn't have that problem, even though he's 6'6" since the Predators don't bring sustained net presence. The Predators largely employ a "timing" based approach that has players "come through" and then move out. Forsberg's screen on Ekholm's goal yesterday is a good example.

At this point, the Predator's are who they are. They are a fast team that can forecheck very well and relies on a ton of shots (mostly unscreened, but often in quick succession or off rebounds) to score goals. If they put 3-4 on the board, and don't let off the gas when teams are forced to press to catch up, they can beat anyone. If they get consistently stuck grinding it in their defensive zone, they don't have the defensemen or centers to play that game. Yesterday was one of the latter, but the series is far from over.

 

[nomorekids]

I saw someone post something that said of 41 goalies with 1800+ minutes since Christmas, Pekka's save percentage ranks 32.

That's a pretty damning number.

To come back and answer BOTH of the first Chicago goals in less than 30 seconds was huge...but not as huge as Rinne allowing that godawful, unscreened third goal from Saad. The weird thing is that as he broke in, I thought, "this is trouble," then he shot from so far out and with such a clear line of vision for Rinne, I felt a split second of relief before the puck went in the net.

You could tell from Rinne's body language that he knew it was a terrible goal, and the team knew it too. The game was virtually over at that point.

As for "we had nothing in the third period," that's called "A team that didn't lose when leading after 2 all season and gave up the second least amount of goals in the league" executing. It's why answering back was so important, and why giving them that third goal was a backbreaker.

As others have stated, Josi\Jones were terrible. I know that we like to pretend that Josi is as good as Weber in different ways, and that he's better than Suter, but from the perspective of defending a zone entry, Josi and Jones are light years behind both Weber and Suter, and the Blackhawks exploited this, badly.

Food for thought, for the "let's trade Weber this summer" crowd. You just got a glimpse into that crystal ball.

 

[Pred303]

yes we did, without weber playing at full strength we are simply a team full of offensive dmen and weak in our own zone. again i think part of our late season slide can be attributed to weber not being at full speed (even though rinne's poor paly was the biggest factor by far)

josi certainly had a bad game, espceially as you note on zone entries. i think much of that 'softness' was feeling uncomfortable and not confident with jones.

jones on that third goal made a horrible mistake, first making a badly off target pass, and then chasing after the puck deep into the zone, which was so surprising it didn't allow wilson to get all the way back out to cover the point and led to the turnover in turn. then capped by rinne's bad goal allowed. a three part disaster. again, jones is a great skater, with a decent shot, and a pretty good cover guy. his failings are always the same things. poor or slow decision making with the puck. or lackadasical passes when his first option is taken away. all the same thing. bad decision making.

then bartley and franson on the backbreaking fourth goal when they couldn't clear the puck time after time (add in gaustad, beck and bourque's failures as well).

then we saw ellis lack of speed cost us possession at least 2 times in our own zone.

defensively, we are overrated because of the 'names' we ice on d. we really have a bunch of offensive gifted, defensively average corps of d-men

too much zone time. too many rebounds. too many fails to clear. too easy zone entries. a clear recipe for defensive failure.

but i agree. that third goal was the game changer. it killed us. i just cann't get over how poorly rinne is playing every other game now for two months.

 

[Dave is a killer]

I saw someone post something that said of 41 goalies with 1800+ minutes since Christmas, Pekka's save percentage ranks 32.

That's a pretty damning number.

To come back and answer BOTH of the first Chicago goals in less than 30 seconds was huge...but not as huge as Rinne allowing that godawful, unscreened third goal from Saad. The weird thing is that as he broke in, I thought, "this is trouble," then he shot from so far out and with such a clear line of vision for Rinne, I felt a split second of relief before the puck went in the net.

You could tell from Rinne's body language that he knew it was a terrible goal, and the team knew it too. The game was virtually over at that point.

As for "we had nothing in the third period," that's called "A team that didn't lose when leading after 2 all season and gave up the second least amount of goals in the league" executing. It's why answering back was so important, and why giving them that third goal was a backbreaker.

As others have stated, Josi\Jones were terrible. I know that we like to pretend that Josi is as good as Weber in different ways, and that he's better than Suter, but from the perspective of defending a zone entry, Josi and Jones are light years behind both Weber and Suter, and the Blackhawks exploited this, badly.

Food for thought, for the "let's trade Weber this summer" crowd. You just got a glimpse into that crystal ball.

Your 7 million dollar/year all star goalie ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Montross]

I saw someone post something that said of 41 goalies with 1800+ minutes since Christmas, Pekka's save percentage ranks 32.

That's a pretty damning number.

To come back and answer BOTH of the first Chicago goals in less than 30 seconds was huge...but not as huge as Rinne allowing that godawful, unscreened third goal from Saad. The weird thing is that as he broke in, I thought, "this is trouble," then he shot from so far out and with such a clear line of vision for Rinne, I felt a split second of relief before the puck went in the net.

You could tell from Rinne's body language that he knew it was a terrible goal, and the team knew it too. The game was virtually over at that point.

As for "we had nothing in the third period," that's called "A team that didn't lose when leading after 2 all season and gave up the second least amount of goals in the league" executing. It's why answering back was so important, and why giving them that third goal was a backbreaker.

As others have stated, Josi\Jones were terrible. I know that we like to pretend that Josi is as good as Weber in different ways, and that he's better than Suter, but from the perspective of defending a zone entry, Josi and Jones are light years behind both Weber and Suter, and the Blackhawks exploited this, badly.

Food for thought, for the "let's trade Weber this summer" crowd. You just got a glimpse into that crystal ball.

On OtF someone posted when when Weber went down that him being out 'wasn't a huge loss'.
Sometimes you just have to wonder what people are thinking.

 

[drwpreds]

Im on that same coaster ride Doc. If we had lost 5-4 with Pekka melting down I would be much more critical of him. But putting just 2 goals on the board against the Hawks in Chicago is just not gonna get it done. .

I don't disagree with much of what you are saying here, but to play devil's advocate, without the 2 bad goals allowed, that is a 2-2 game and at worst we would have had a 50/50 shot at winning the game.

The bottom line is we have scored 11 goals in 3 games- if you had told me going in we would have that amount after 3 games I would have gladly taken it- that should be enough to be up in the series- you aren't going to put up 4-5 goals every game in the playoffs.

At this point I would settle for average goaltending, but I don't even think we are getting that right now......

 

[Byrddog]

I don't disagree with much of what you are saying here, but to play devil's advocate, without the 2 bad goals allowed, that is a 2-2 game and at worst we would have had a 50/50 shot at winning the game.

The bottom line is we have scored 11 goals in 3 games- if you had told me going in we would have that amount after 3 games I would have gladly taken it- that should be enough to be up in the series- you aren't going to put up 4-5 goals every game in the playoffs.

At this point I would settle for average goaltending, but I don't even think we are getting that right now......

While theres no disagreement that Pekka is off and needs to play better playoff teams are going to get there goals. While Chicago is not firing on all cylinders they are still a dangerous scoring team that can be said about most of the western conference teams still alive. As 303 pointed out basically all that was on the ice yesterday were the offensive defensemen. The play that people are pointing to Wilson on is correct he did not get back to cover for the D that had pinched. Not sure Weber is missed as much as the lack of the stay at home defensemen that I think we sorely need. The catch 22 the O not good enough to carry the scoring so the D scoring is needed. Its like a dog chasing its tail. The offensive D men often result in more scoring chances from other team and when the tender is not all world the team crashes. The tender then has a confidence problem the coaches do nothing to change and right the ship. This D corp can score more than any other team D in the league they proved that this year with what 12 more goals than any other teams D. They have shortcomings in our end. I understand many prefer the scoring dmen. And a team does need a couple but the team needs the Kleins and the AV's and even a Bartly. This team is out of kilter. If all the blame is placed on Pekka fine but its much harder to find another elite goalie than it is to adjust the roster to help an aging starter. Pekka has been bad real bad but Hutton would be a disaster against the Hawks, Blues, Ducks, Wild, heck even the Jets. This is why I said the Preds will need to score more than 3 each game in the PO's to have a chance there not gonna hold teams to less than 3 right now unless said team just melts down like the Hawks did the other night.

 

[drwpreds]

Just a follow up on offense- small sample size I know- but right now out of all 16 playoff teams, the Preds lead the league with a 3.66 goals per game average.

Also, there have been 4 games in the playoffs so far where a team won with only 2 goals scored. In the playoffs you have to have some of those type of wins.

Offense is not why we are down in the series.........

 

[Pred303]

two months ago, giving rinne three goals all but guaranteed you a victory. and if you could put up two you had about a 75% chance of winning because almost no way would rinne allow 3

 

[Byrddog]

two months ago, giving rinne three goals all but guaranteed you a victory. and if you could put up two you had about a 75% chance of winning because almost no way would rinne allow 3

The positive thing to me is that Rinne can be coached out of this. By whom in the organization I have no idea however. In the last 10 games the team has held the opponent to less than 3 one time, Game two. And that's the melt down game the Hawks had. That game in my mind was just like the game the Leafs had when we blew them out, those games do not happen often. Unlike Chicago we can't bench Rinne we have no other option. If he can't rebound the year is over I admit. It will also make for a long summer of doubts. Something I guess we may never shed. It would be great to have one offseason where we don't just cringe at the thought of opening day and if the team can be competitive.

Funny thing many here that argued so vehemently last year that the team with Pekka would have made the playoffs are some of those now who are backing up the bus after the guy has already been ran over a few times. And im ridiculed for not liking Smith who is far from an elite player.


Another question why did Versteeg not get an ass whoopin yesterday for the spear in game 2. We the game was out of and sees to have been a missed opportunity. Maybe Lavi is that much like Trotz he just made a list and put his name on it.

 

[ILikeItILoveIt]

I would not be surprised to find that after the season ends they tell us Pekka has been playing thru a nagging injury. Just like Weber (which I expect the same report on), these two have not been themselves for 6 weeks. Both are good enough to play good enough to warrant being out there versus the alternative, but if Pekka isn't hurt in some way that's affecting his mobility (especially side-to-side movement), then we have bigger problems.

I was watching Matt Harvey pitch for the Mets yesterday. Struck out 7 in 6 innings, got the win, but gave up 4 runs. He just seemed ordinary when you expect greatness. Find out today he was sick as a dog but demanded to pitch anyway. You just never know what's really going on, especially in hockey with it's state-secret approach to injuries.

We've been dealt some bad cards lately (Fish, Webs). While you can break down our overall play and find fault, slightly better than average goaltending and we're up 3-0. We're getting worse than average goaltending.

But its worse than that. This team feeds off of Pekka's play. When he gives up stoppable goals, you can see shoulders slump. We lose our mojo. The sub 30 second response to the 2 goals yesterday was stellar. When Pekka continued to play poorly and let in the 3rd, there was no juice left to respond.

Everyone's analysis is the same: Pekka needs to be elite. We are getting out goalied by Scott Darling. That can't happen if we have any chance, but it is.

That said, we're one win away from evening the series and regaining home ice advantage. On balance, we've outplayed them more than the reverse. We now have to prove we can do it without Weber. Seth needs to play smarter or they need to change the matchups so he's not playing against Toews. We can do this, but Pekka has to slam the door shut.

 

[bdub24]

The pure flexibility, fast reaction and capability to do that off the back of his shoulder save yesterday leads me to believe his health is not the issue, unfortunately.

 

[Pred303]

yeak ilikeit, i'm almost at the point to where i actually hope pekka has some type of hidden nagging injury, but like bdub i'm afraid it's just a confidence issue that has in turn led to technical flaws in his game.

 

[LCPreds]

Not a fan of these 8:30 CST start times. Definitely not conducive to work on Friday, especially if we have a 2OT repeat. Really wish they could absorb some overlap on the game times there.

 

[Armourboy]

I'm not sold either that its an injury, but it sure as heck would make me feel better about all of this. Even if he isn't injured there is no doubt that it started with the injury earlier. Part of me is really starting to wonder if he didn't come back to quickly. We as fans were rushing him, I'm sure he was rushing himself, and after seeing Ellis' first attempt at coming back, I'm not entirely sure the team wasn't either.

I think it led him to pick up some bad habits, probably due to some discomfort, to cover for the injury. When things went south he may have felt better but he still had the bad habits and now a confidence problem.

These are the time Mitch Korn really showed his value and I'm not entirely sure its not where Trotz didn't show his value as well. There is something that tells me in the past when he would struggle that Trotz would make the game plan much more defensive. We may have had to have won 1-0 or 2-1 but it got his confidence back and gave him time to work through some issues.

Lavi doesn't seem to be willing to do that, or rather maybe he thinks this team doesn't have the ability to win that way. Either way this style of play certainly doesn't lend itself to giving a goalie his confidence back because you are essentially leaving him out to dry so many times a game.

 

[glenngineer]

I said this before the playoffs started but in all the years we've been in the playoffs, we've never had a goalie go on a hot streak. Vokoun never did. Mason didn't. Rinne hasn't. No one. We chase other team's starters and their backups play great or their starter comes back and plays out of this world. Unfortunately, we have never had the hot goalie. Not sure if it's just the goalies we've had, bad luck, injuries, the team makeup, whatever it is, it just hasn't happened for us. Sometimes you don't have to have the world beater goalie, you just have to have someone that is going to be good on a consistent basis, not the highs and lows we are seeing with Rinne right now. If guys like Fleury, Niemi and Crawford can win Cups, there may be some credence to the train of thought of getting a solid goalie but not needing an elite goalie. Unless the name is Roy, Brodeur or Hasek, I don't see the need for a gazillion dollar goalie at this point. Love Rinne but he may not be the guy for us when all is said and done.

After reading this thread and seeing some of the thoughts, I really wonder if we're not in for a major re-tool this summer. Move some valuable assets, gain some younger more valuable assets in return.

 

[101st_fan]

Pekka played well after his return from the injury across several spurts inclutding about 3 2/3 games during the west coast trip ... four goals allowed over the span of 11 periods ... then the wheels fell off in the 3rd at Anaheim and into a three goal allowed night against the Wild. Buffalo, Tampa, Montreal ... all held to two or fewer. I can't think of an injury where he can play well for three to four games at a time then have things go to hell.

 

[braindead]

Your 7 million dollar/year all star goalie ladies and gentlemen.

This team would not be in the playoffs without the start that $7M/year goalie had this year....

 

[Yukon Cornellis]

This team would not be in the playoffs without the start that $7M/year goalie had this year....

And they most likely won't stay in the playoffs with the end of the year he's having.