Mostly decent most of the games. But 3-6 times a game just catastrophic peewee level breakdowns.
Concur with
@MS that this season is weird and feels really unpredictable. We might be reminiscing about this weird start on the road in 15 games with a team that's 3 games over .500 and climbing, or the season could be over by November 15th.
4th line was really good and I think spoke to the difference between a coach and forum frequenters who 'always know better than the coach' (and this isn't a victory lap, Boudreau made some mistakes). Playing a team like Minnesota we needed some size and so the calls of scratching Joshua were incorrect and Hoglander was probably the right choice strategically (and apparently he was offered positive feedback about his play and told he will be back in there soon).
Our 4th line had some good cycling shifts aside from the goals and absolutely did their part, even aside from the goals.
People who lump Pettersson in with the struggling stars are, in my opinion, completely misunderstanding what they are seeing. It's not always about results, it's about process and process creates results. Pettersson looks incisive and instinctive again and had a lot of really good plays. Like what I'm seeing from Kuzmenko and Podkolzin a lot as well.
I saw someone saying 'hitting the crossbar and looking up at the sky' is completely useless and he should be dealt (re: Pettersson) and I can only guess that person never played. It's a faaaast game and precision is tough. Hitting the post means you're doing the right thing and getting unfortunate. It's not about 'not wanting it enough' or some bullshit like that (though I suspect that was said in frustration by the poster).
Pearson's taking some dumb penalties but he's not a selfish player, they come at inopportune times but he's trying to do the right thing. I sort of doubt you bench a guy like that, but I will totally concede that that just happened at an awful awful time. But let's also not forget that he created the first goal and his hard work down low created the pp with 5 minutes left that we very well could have won the game on.
Garland had a couple of good shifts but was largely ineffective.
Horvat is getting better but I'm still not liking how much his default feels like it's finesse oriented. He's making too many soft 'hope' plays, almost cheating for offense and I wonder if it's because he wants to put up numbers to justify his contract demands, etc. He's getting better, but he's got the body type of Nathan Mackinnon, he should be an absolute puck battle menace and at times in his career he has been, hasn't felt that way so far.
Boeser has been basically invisible. He's playing with a bad hand, I believe, but maybe it's time to rest him up if we're healthy and he looks like this. I think people are being waaaay premature saying we should dump him for nothing and I think that will be an obviously bad take soon, but I can't deny he looks bad out there. Total non-factor thus far.
Mikheyev is just finding his way and I'm kind of excited to see what it looks like when the team figures out how to utilize his speed. Lobs to the right spot and him skating under it almost like a wide-receiver. Saw that shorthanded with the Leafs last year, this year he gets to play with some more talent (Leafs top end is better obviously, but he wasn't getting those linemates), so I'm hopeful that guys like Petterson and Kuzmenko can give real finesse precision passes for him to skate onto.
I wonder how the "mIlLeR iS tHe rEaL cApTaIn cUz hE lOoKs mAd sUmtImEz' people are feeling about him right now.
He was slightly better tonight, but I'm genuinely appalled by him so far. The shift after the Wild tied it up on the pp in the 3rd Miller made an unconscionably stupid long cross ice pass from the center red line back from the right side to the LD and it was almost a disastrous giveaway.
I'm not some troglodyte who thinks you can never pass backwards, but situational awareness man. It was a high-risk, no reward play with a fragile team in a tie game in the third. Unforgiveable, and it was far from his only bad play.
Playing him with Boeser and Myers in OT was a game ender as well. Who is the speed and tenacity out there? Boeser needs to be sheltered in 3-on-3 (and shouldn't be playing in it right now) and last year's Miller would have been fine. He's been a trainwreck this year and got exposed over and over. Lazy swings at the puck, being out battled by guys he has 20 lbs on. I just don't get it.
Liking Burroughs a lot relative to expectations. Personally, I think he should always play above Poolman.
Schenn looks a little worse this season, but that's probably because his warts aren't being seamlessly covered by Hughes thus far.
Myers is still catching up to the game but in the 3rd period on 4 on 4 he made two incredibly stupid plays I can't get my head around. With time and space he lobbed the puck from our zone towards Wild players in the neutral zone with no Canucks within a time zone of the puck. The team has been talking about pushing forward, not being passive etc and this was pure passivity. I was reminded of old Kung-Fu movies where the old master takes on a student and decimates him and then does the 'come hither motion' and says "again!", except minus the skill, plan, poise and wisdom. Made no sense.
But I will offer the benefit of the doubt that I think it takes him a long time to catch up to the game mentally and he is coming off injury and abbreviated camp.
People saying Hughes is a forward on D (mostly main boards) are just trying to be the Washington Generals of dumb takes, easily getting dunked on. He's shown his potential for two entire seasons and had a bad shortened season and 5 tough games. He's also coming off of an illness and is 2nd in the league for ice time. He's labouring, doesn't trust his feet and is falling down a lot. Because he doesn't trust himself (and he's a brilliantly instinctive player) he's over thinking and making bad mistakes.
He looks bad out there, but there are explanations and they aren't "Hey that 22 year old superstar secretly sucks lmao".
OEL looked better tonight. I was discouraged by his first few games, thought he looked a bit timid and a bit slow. He was letting the play come to him and using his superlative defensive hockey sense quite a bit better tonight.
7.2 million is likely to age poorly at the end, and there are obviously already better ways to spend that money, but he's a useful player and looked better tonight.
Stillman is just okay. Hope he's okay and appreciated him standing up for his teammates.
Demko looked better for parts of the game, but the last goal was so uncharacteristically bad. Like in an entire season of over a thousand games how many times do you see a goalie misread a rebound so badly that he lunges out of the net and turns around? Just wild.
He has absolutely earned a massive benefit of the doubt and I imagine visiting with Clarke at home will yield big dividends but he has been a problem so far. I'm not worried at all overall, but you can't hide from how bad he has been at times.
A couple of bad line deployments by Boudreau (Boeser Miller Myers in OT, not enough of Podz/Petey line, too much Boeser and Miller).
I like Boudreau a lot and always have, but I'm not entirely convinced (though I hope he is) he's the right coach for this team right now. Will be curious to see what happens.
