Agree with much of this. I stopped watching early-on as well, when it was clear where this was headed.
There have been problems with the way the lines have been constituted for quite a while now, but with the team fighting for first place, very few people seemed to care what the underlying numbers were saying. The response to the last couple of games should not be "forget it and move on"-- quite the opposite.
Apart from the need to adjust the forward lines, Josh looks like he is carrying the defensive weight of the world on his shoulders. He is. Pionk needs to sit for a game or two and I'd be quite happy to see Ville there in his place. There is no way the team could be more defensively vulnerable with that move.
The best time to have made these moves was a month ago, but the next best time is right now.
The team needs to play better D hockey in order to take some of the weight off JoMo's shoulders - Ville certainly won't.
Our D looks serviceable when they get the support they need from the forwards - when they don't . . . .
The only changes this team needs to make is to get back to the game they were playing in the first half - which was primarily a D first game.
We will never score ourselves out of trouble when we decide to omit the D - I don't care how the lines are assembles or who we bring in.
It's not that hard to figure out - what type of game were we playing when we were winning consistently? What did our game look like when we were giving up less than 3 goals a game? It didn't matter who we played or where - that consistent defensive approach was a simple game style that teams hated playing against.
There was a risk that was discussed about what could happen when you add players and potentially shift the mind set - and it's not the guys that you add that create the problem - it's the existing players who might now assume that they can beat you on offense. IMO, nothing changed - we still need to be a D first team - especially with our blueline.
