and I'm saying that I agree to a degree, losing him did downgrade our D a bit. But there's just no way the loss of Ian Cole is the primary reason why we are giving up an extra 3/4 of a goal a game and why our PK has become 20% less effective.
Then tell me what you primarily attribute it to. Because that's one hell of a coincidence.
I'm honestly not sure. What changed from Dec 31 to Jan 1? No clue, but the team flipped a switch. Then they fell back down after the deadline. And Murray being out surely didn't help. And he got hurt two days before the Cole trade. So same coincidence I guess.
Our entire team did. They scored over 4 goals a game over that stretch. It's a lot easier to play defense behind the forwards playing like that. Up until then the defense struggled, including Cole.
OK so you attribute it largely to goaltending. Yep, agree to disagree. As far as our offense goes, we've scored well enough of late to win such games, offense really isn't much of the issue. IMO it's primarily our defense, terrible gap, coughing up the puck etc. Earlier in the season Cole really didn't play much. When he and Oleksiak were paired they were tremendous and the defense as a whole looked better.
Offense being worse is an issue with defense. The more you play offense, the less you play defense. The entire team is playing worse. Just because we are still scoring enough to win games doesn't mean the decline in our offense isn't hurting our defense.
We have 6 D that are good enough? How many do you think we'll actually need throughout the playoff grind? My guess is it will be seven or eight? What about you?
I just don't agree with your premise at all. I think our problems are rather obvious, very very obvious actually. Not trying to ignore your perspective and opinion, just think it's faulty.
then please respond to what I say, not just to the parts that are easiest to argue against.
So you don't think that the drop-off in our offensive play would have a negative impact on our defense? You don't think the lack of our starting goalie has an impact on more goals against?
I don't think the primary issue is our goaltending. We're giving up ridiculously difficult scoring chances in spades. It's to a level where we'd need Patrick Roy in his prime to stem the tide. I'm not saying our goalies have been great, but our defense has been road kill of late. That Ranger game was where Letang got walked around how many times exactly? And yesterday, in OT what the hell was that? Eventually the dam will break.
You just really aren't capable of reading a full post, are you? I mean, it was literally a forward who lost his guy in ot but you still ignore that whole part of my answer.
No, but I think if Cole were here save OT, maybe Coles out there near the end of the game and bodies the man off the puck instead of being a glorified turnstile like Letang.
Holy shit this is just incredible at this point. At least you're cutting the ignored parts out of the quote though. That's an improvement.
The truth is your other points IMO are irrelevant. I see what you're saying but I think it's absurd. And you just ignored my post, so I guess we don't agree at all. Which of course we have said to each other repeatedly. Just go to bed I guess. lol
You think forwards maintaining more puck possession being linked to improving our goals against is absurd?
The hypocrisy here is so rich and so absurd it needs to be mentioned. Kris Letang is one of the most erratic, unreliable, brain dead defensemen this team has ever had the displeasure of employing! I mean my lord you're calling Cole unreliable? Do you realize how ridiculous you sound when you champion a guy like Letang? That's like a 500lb fat guy criticizing a 300lb fat guy. It's so preposterous. You don't have to like Cole, but he's far more reliable defensively then that two cent brained prima donna Letang. Holy cheese and crackers, like!
I don't think that's the main issue. Could it contribute to some degree? Sure, but it's not an overriding variable IMO. I think the main issue is piss poor gap and zone coverage along with too many turnovers.
