He needs to man up and quit feeling sorry for himself. I'm sick of seeing him on the bench with his head down or looking like a lost puppy dog. His mental approach is too fragile, I mean get pissed at yourself, for missing a wide open net and losing battles in the offensive zone.
His mental makeup right now is so weak he should be sat for a couple of games, and showed film of himself from a year ago on the way he played,someone who had a sneaky nice release and jump in his play.
I agree that he needs to fight through it, but I don’t read a lot into the hanging his head. As fans, we don’t like to see it, but I guarantee he’s angry at himself and not feeling sorry for himself.
That said, I don’t think he’s losing a lot of battles in the O zone. Every player is going to lose a few, but more often that not, he is tying up the player and delaying the transition out of the zone.
As far as the scoring, plain and simple, he’s snakebit. He’s gripping the stick too tight and needs to relax and just play. That pass from Krejci WAS rolling (if you don’t believe me watch the replay) and not easy to handle. He tried to cup the puck to settle it and it snuck under the blade. If things were going well for him, he settles that and buries it.
The problem is that he’s not getting a lot of chances, so the misses look so much worse. Last night Pasta misses a wide open net on a similar rolling puck (on the PP before the goal) and a couple of other chances. It’s not a big deal because he gets another 7/8 chances, hits the net on 5 and scores twice. It stands out with Heinen because he’s not burying the few chances he is getting.
I wish they could send him to PRO to get his mojo back, but they can’t. I don’t know that I would sit him because IMO even when he’s not scoring, he’s a better option than Acciari.
This is the point we have reached? He's a better option than Acciari so we keep him in the lineup?
