34 of 36 saves from the guy. What do you guys want????
59 minutes last game or 40-50 minutes here and there of good hockey a night get you missing the playoffs. If you're good with that, great.
You can choose to celebrate small victories and minor improvements or acknowledge that a major mental gaffe like that is part of the problem. It's indicative of his overall poor mental state this season. I'm not talking about one goal. Every goalie is going to get scored on ... probably at least twice a night.
It's the same problem with the rest of the team. Knock yourself out getting excited over minor moral victories, but neither the team or Kari have shown they are close to getting back on track. One night it's Kari ... the next it's the team.
So no ... he doesn't get a gold star only because he allowed two goals. A positive move towards recovery would have been a 60 minute game without a major mental breakdown. It's no different than saying in February ... there's no more moral victories for outplaying teams and losing. It's not positive momentum.
I want to see them make the playoffs more than anything. They theoretically could fall to almost a Top 5 pick, but that's borderline as delusional as holding out hope for the playoffs.
I don't think it's funny nor do I celebrate their failure, and a realistic look at this team proves that they aren't getting anything done right now. There's still time at this point ... but only a week or two in reality to really make a run. The second they do that you can start passing around atta boys otherwise they're just going to miss the playoffs unless something drastic changes in the team and Kari.
Razor nailed it in the post-game. There's no moral victory even beating a great team like the Rangers. None of this matters without a stretch where they win 8 or 9 of 10. Plays like the Kari clear attempt are what will hold them back from that.
So no I'm not being negative or dumping on Kari. I'm being realistic. Small improvements aren't good enough right now unless you don't care if they make the playoffs or not. Getting one of those Top 12 prospects could prove to be a huge moral, long term victory. I love prospects as the next guy, and the guy they draft will be a nice pacifier potentially for missing the playoffs, but at the end of the day even though I wouldn't bet on them making Final 8 right now, that'd be my ultimate desire to see happen.
