Anyone who thinks Grubauer was bad tonight didn't watch the game or just saw what they wanted to see. Ridiculous to blame him for the loss tonight.
Avs weren't horrid tonight, but they weren't good either. Sloppy as all hell, weak on pucks, falling down, whiffing on shots/passes, bobbling pucks all night. Just not good. And despite getting the GTG I thought Wilson was atrocious. I'm glad Bednar finally shook things up and put Ghetto on the 2nd line and Wilson on the 3rd where he belongs.
I thought Jost and Kerfoot were possibly the best players for the Avs, but you're not gonna win very often when they are that's the case.
Bourque is so frickin' useless, and don't anyone ever tell me again he's a good penalty killer. He's not. He's willing to block shots, but the Avs are proving that a good PK does way more than that. They're collapsing way too much and going out of their way to block shots, sometimes even turning their back on the play or pulling themselves out of position entirely to do so. There was one instance where Soda in an earlier game would've had an easy clear but was turned completely sideways trying to block the shot and the opposition promptly got it back and scored a goal. At least Kamenev and Dries know to put sticks in the lane and force turnovers. The PK has been transcendently awful for a while now and they need to seriously address what's wrong, notably who they're using on it.
Kind of a frustrating night...I actually don't think the Capitals played nearly as well as the Avs made them look, but that's the way it goes sometimes, it's not like Washington is suddenly a bad team after winning it all last season. Rest and regroup for the road trip.
