MacKinnon looking really good, he's picked it up. Gotta give credit when it's due, that skating with constant effort is phenomenal.
Lack of secondary scoring is hurting at the moment. The main offensive guys in Barkov, Huberdeau, Dadonov, Trocheck have their ppg:s up where we can't ask really for more, career bests on going already. Vrbata and Trocheck don't work and we really don't have a playmaker with ability other than Huberdeau-Barkov to put up with Vrbata to excel. He's a likeable guy and I'd want to see him succeed. The problem for me with Trocheck atm. is that he seems to not have the ability to lift the other players on his line up, he's the clear go to guy and doing things on himself. While his numbers are truly great the #2 line totals are off, now you can blame the wingers for that but there is responsibility for the center as well, good centers put their linemates to a position to succeed as well. Also was the chemistry between Brickley-McCann-Bjugstad a fluke to begin with to not try that again? This is what was expected however when things don't work and if it is like this then it's just trades or waiting for future to get that depth going on. You don't want to give too much value up on a trade and it can't be only a temporary solution either which is making it tough to pull off. Good things ahead in the prospect world however, even Mascherin is putting up good numbers as of late, if he'd work out it could be a fix from within to LW depth making trades this season that much harder to do.
Been thinking some time now that the first defensive pairing has actually been looking quite fine. Ekblad is finding ways to be in the right places more and more often and sticking up to his players better so that the skating mentioned early in the season has not showed up in such a negative ways to my eyes at all. And still room to improve, gonna be good. Defense has been all right the past few games, even vs Winnipeg imo where we let in a couple of flukes. Those who complain about all mistakes lack perspective, no such thing as a flawless player exists and young guys tend to learn from their mistakes.
I liked the confidence Reimer showed, he's been good enough lately regardless of a slip here or there.
Also regarding the game itself didn't McCann say that the team was actually being sick during the 2nd intermission and they just have to fight through it. I kinda missed that and just overheard something along the lines. They looked like they were gassed all the time from 30min onwards at least, like no energy left and Colorado is a tougher place to play to begin with in higher altitude in theory at least. Meh, not going to put too much in to it. Good thing there's many days of rest now before playing Vegas. Now that's going to be an interesting one.
