Friggin A Mach. I went to the game and had my 2 cents to share and you left enough fire and brimstone for both of us and stole about all my thunder.
Kudos to you sir and a beautiful elbow drop while you are at it.
He's dead on guys but I agree to disagree about Cooper. The team's psyche is completely out in left field right now. I don't know who is in charge of getting these guys to planet earth but Coop singlehandedly pulled a win out of his ass. We should be on our knees kissing the man's shoes right now because he gambled on Bishop and won and resurrected Lazarus from the dead when he threw out his Dungeons and Dragons dice to figure out our line combinations.
The TKO line is dead guys. And it will continue to lay prone and vulnerable until Johnson gets his head out of outer space, Kucherov stops floating and Palat becomes more physical. They covered 80% of our mistakes because they were providing half the team's offense 5 on 5.
You think we are playing poorly? Watch how slowly they skate in REAL TIME. The "best line in hockey" was so because they were relentless on both ends of the ice. Now their idea of intensity consists of Johnson standing by the blue line (waiting to make a cross ice pass that gets turned over) Kucherov standing away from any of the action and skating in circles and Palat slowly shadowing the player with the puck hoping he loses it on his own without laying the body on him.
Until they figure their shit out, Coop did the right thing. The overall problem with the Lightning is a total unwillingness to do what made them successful last year. Prepare for the Michel Therrien/Kenny Hitchcock speech.
We REFUSE to dump it in, go along the boards, sustain pressure, start a cycle and score. Our zone entry is even worse. We just skate in circles inside the neutral zone until the winger dashes by. If they play is not there we circle the drain in the neutral zone until someone dumps the puck in and we change lines. The similarity to the "blue flush" (when we would literally swirl in circles in the neutral zone) of the Boucher era is uncanny.
The ONLY players who would chip in the puck and go after it were Brown, Killorn and Filppula last night. I remember vividly (I think in the 1st) when Filppula charged the right wing and dumped it, someobody went after it. We held it in a couple of times and the Sabres were running with their pants on fire. We actually trapped Buffalo in our zone that we finally shifted the momentum of the game in our favor. We IMMEDIATELY as a team started skating faster and better but give a couple of shifts by the TKO line and all momentum faded. It was around then that we actually got our 3 shots on goal.
My worst fear in the entire world is realized: the Lightning simply don't give a shit. They're not hungry out there and they take the ice expecting it to come easy. Worst of all, the TKO line is the biggest culprit. It's VERY CLOSE to being 2012 all over again given the amount of effort we are seeing but a few unsung heroes like Drouin, Callahan, Boyle and Brown refuse to let the team die. I don't think anything ever could be as bad as 2012 I could tell you by the Devils game (after we started 6-1 and went on a losing streak and this was our 3rd loss in a row) we were f***ed and picking top 3 because the team had outright quit trying.
Right now we are lost in the wilderness but there is still hope to get us out of it. It DOES NOT have to be 2012 right now. We're 4-2 in a very young season with a murderers row road trip coming up. This is a VERY good chance for us find our balance again and go back to being the Lightning of last year. The only thing I can guarantee is that we either will or will not be successful in that.
PS- Please no Boucher comparisons to Cooper. Boucher got what he deserved when the team finally had enough of his BS. Anyone who plays a 1-3-1 when down by 2 goals and regularly had the team playing softer than it did last night is not fit for this league. His firing was a blessing in disguise.
Cooper is a great coach. Anyone who can stand at a 4-2 record with the current toxic mentality of our players deserves a freaking medal.
