Forcing someone wide to the side is not carte blanche to take your foot off the gas and ease up on skating as you’re square with the league’s most dangerous forward. He played it perfectly and then he eased up.
Especially in 3 on 3 play, I’d rather see it played in a stride for stride situation and assume the upped risk of Tank cutting back or stopping/moving inside. At that point, he’d be going to where the traffic is, with a guy sealing his angle to the net (Eichel) by heading near post.
I’ll watch it again later this afternoon, but...a lot of our problems are a result of someone thinking “someone else will do it,” and right or wrong, it burned us again. Plenty of blame to go around with the OT goal.
BUT
If you don’t see a much better team since eRod and Wilson, you’re not watching closely enough. I understand we got pretty washed at ES, but with what we saw for a while during that infamous memorable stretch, we have to appreciate the fact that we are absolutely fighting more and battling harder— I’m trying to nicely say that we look like we are putting forth the effort it takes to win.
Eichel is skating hard. Backchecking and not pouting at all (I credit that to Brandon and the Pats tickets)... notably better
ERod is a gamer who can play to fit his linemates, which I adore. His feet do. Not. Stop. And that can be contagious.
Scandella continues to be a steadying presence.
Lehner has played better.
It has certainly been an improvement from that disasterpiece epoch that we are out of.
Spew:
- McCabe is playing terrible hockey right now
- Kane had a brutal game
- just because I remember it off hand and can reference it as it applies to the game in totality: 14 mins left in the third, puck swung to McCabe on the weak side as we regrouped at the top of our D zone. The seas parted and he * GASP * skated up through the open Ice to try and pace the rush and let us peek at semi-Preds transition hockey
Antipin was the only one doing it with any regularity in other games, and I need more of it. If teams want to back off at times because they think our forwards suck and they’re able to, let’s start to pick them apart more. Use THOSE opportunities to be a bit more methodical with our entries or our placements with dump ins, which we have issues with in all situations.
- we have to address two other, prominent and lingering problems: the losing of every foot race to a loose puck, and the inability to connect tape to tape on short, simple passes... the former has gotten a bit better as the effort has improved, but with that I now see that the lack of intelligence is also hindering our cause. Poor placement of stick if you arrive a step behind or at the same time... peeling the wrong way when you concede and try to read where they’re going with it... hoping we can work out of that as things look to settle in across the board. One step at a time, I guess
The passing irks me. If it’s not a short pass in someone’s feet, it’s a long pass with low success rate that needs eyes and wings and invisibility cloaks to arrive to its intended recipient. We have to improve our passing. And stop saucing every f***ing pass. Please! Use it when it’s called for. That’s it.
- the defenseman that lives deep down inside of me beneath my cloaks of neutrality and veils of coach trash wants to scream something about Lehner and his rebounds, and how if you’re a Sabre dman you’re thinking in the back of your mind that any shot on goal can be a potential disaster even if it’s stopped and simultaneously non threatening at release... breathe...
But I don’t want to fight with everyone. Several other things to focus on that are more problematic than your goalie who has saved like 95 of the last 100 shots he has faced.
(It’s still annoying to have such a little amount of confidence in what’s back there)
Sorry. I won’t. Certainly not the time
