BadgersandBlues
Registered User
- Jun 6, 2011
- 1,782
- 1,180
Couple of scattered thoughts:
If Lehtera plays, I have a ton of confidence we win game 6. If he's out, I'm not sure we win game 6. The lines looked terrible last night outside of the SOB line. From the start of the game until we got down 3-1, no one else was producing 5v5. Once we started trailing Hitch broke them apart and we didn't see another quality scoring chance all game long. SOB was dominating play until they got broken up though. Steen had at least 3 golden chances that he didn't bury. It was the other lines that didn't look like they could do anything.
Stastny simply isn't working with Schwartz and Tarasenko. Jaskin looks lost unless he's with Stastny. Berglund too. That should make decision making pretty simple. If for some reason Lehtera can't play G6, I think we should roll SOB, Roaring 20's, Schwartz-Joker-Tarasenko, Porter-Ott-Reaves. Schwartz and Tarasenko can work together alone 5v5, and honestly, Joker is a veteran player that will do the little things right to try and help those two succeed. I have faith in them as a line.
I've not said much about Goc overall this season, but I think trading Lapierre was a mistake. Goc came in and played ~10 games where our 4th line looked awesome, but that also coincided with the time that Reaves went on his run of having his dad in the building and looking like the ghost of Cam Neely. Since then, our 4th line has been outplayed pretty handily. At this point, unless there is a MASSIVE run of injuries, I don't want to see Goc in the lineup again, and we should absolutely let him walk in the off-season. I like advanced stats, but from the eye test, our 4th line in the last 3 years have been MUCH more effective then the current year's iteration. This has hurt us, not as much on the scoreboard, but from a momentum standpoint. Remember when our play would dip, and then our 4th line would get on the ice and maybe they didn't score, generate a scoring chance, or even throw a shot on goal, but they would pound the hell out of the other team, get the crowd going, and remind the other lines how to play North/South and hard in the corners? Those things are just as invaluable over the course of a series, and don't show up in Corsi. I know, I know, if you're depending on your 4th line blah blah. But it's an advantage that helped make a difference in years past when we needed to get back on track, and it's a weapon that Hitch hasn't been able to employ as much this year. Lapierre was one of the few guys who really shined in last year's run, and Goc has been the antithesis of that.
I saw some hate towards Jaskin. I feel that it's unwarranted. Do you remember Tarasenko's first playoffs? Jaskin is a rookie. It's a long season, and he's never had to play at this high a level for this long before. We shouldn't have been counting on him in the playoffs anyway, we should have made a trade for a top 9 forward. I've banged this drum before, but JVR would have been worth it. Jaskin should have been depth this year, not a guy we were looking to provide 12 minutes a night in the playoffs.
Finally, I touched on this in a different thread, but I think G6 goes to Elliott. Allen has had a great run, but now let's protect him and allow him to go into the off-season feeling positive about what happened to him this post-season vs. having him potentially melt down and have to think about that for 5 months. Could he rebound in G6? Sure. However, when he was given the chance during the regular season to be the #1 guy, he had a couple of really nice games, then took a sharp downward turn. We've always had a strategy of, "When one guy falters, we bring in the other guy," when it comes to goaltending over the last couple of years, with pretty impressive results. So why deviate from that now?
I think we've shown that we're the better team overall WHEN WE PLAY OUR GAME. We dominated in G5 even with line combos all whacky. The game changed on Allen's soft 1st and 3rd goal, and the fact that Dubnyk made the three clutch saves he did on Steen. We cannot play from behind against this team. They lock it down defensively like we used to. Score first, don't give up the lead, and we win. If we allow the game to get away from us, and we have to start chasing, I don't think we end up the victors.
If Lehtera plays, I have a ton of confidence we win game 6. If he's out, I'm not sure we win game 6. The lines looked terrible last night outside of the SOB line. From the start of the game until we got down 3-1, no one else was producing 5v5. Once we started trailing Hitch broke them apart and we didn't see another quality scoring chance all game long. SOB was dominating play until they got broken up though. Steen had at least 3 golden chances that he didn't bury. It was the other lines that didn't look like they could do anything.
Stastny simply isn't working with Schwartz and Tarasenko. Jaskin looks lost unless he's with Stastny. Berglund too. That should make decision making pretty simple. If for some reason Lehtera can't play G6, I think we should roll SOB, Roaring 20's, Schwartz-Joker-Tarasenko, Porter-Ott-Reaves. Schwartz and Tarasenko can work together alone 5v5, and honestly, Joker is a veteran player that will do the little things right to try and help those two succeed. I have faith in them as a line.
I've not said much about Goc overall this season, but I think trading Lapierre was a mistake. Goc came in and played ~10 games where our 4th line looked awesome, but that also coincided with the time that Reaves went on his run of having his dad in the building and looking like the ghost of Cam Neely. Since then, our 4th line has been outplayed pretty handily. At this point, unless there is a MASSIVE run of injuries, I don't want to see Goc in the lineup again, and we should absolutely let him walk in the off-season. I like advanced stats, but from the eye test, our 4th line in the last 3 years have been MUCH more effective then the current year's iteration. This has hurt us, not as much on the scoreboard, but from a momentum standpoint. Remember when our play would dip, and then our 4th line would get on the ice and maybe they didn't score, generate a scoring chance, or even throw a shot on goal, but they would pound the hell out of the other team, get the crowd going, and remind the other lines how to play North/South and hard in the corners? Those things are just as invaluable over the course of a series, and don't show up in Corsi. I know, I know, if you're depending on your 4th line blah blah. But it's an advantage that helped make a difference in years past when we needed to get back on track, and it's a weapon that Hitch hasn't been able to employ as much this year. Lapierre was one of the few guys who really shined in last year's run, and Goc has been the antithesis of that.
I saw some hate towards Jaskin. I feel that it's unwarranted. Do you remember Tarasenko's first playoffs? Jaskin is a rookie. It's a long season, and he's never had to play at this high a level for this long before. We shouldn't have been counting on him in the playoffs anyway, we should have made a trade for a top 9 forward. I've banged this drum before, but JVR would have been worth it. Jaskin should have been depth this year, not a guy we were looking to provide 12 minutes a night in the playoffs.
Finally, I touched on this in a different thread, but I think G6 goes to Elliott. Allen has had a great run, but now let's protect him and allow him to go into the off-season feeling positive about what happened to him this post-season vs. having him potentially melt down and have to think about that for 5 months. Could he rebound in G6? Sure. However, when he was given the chance during the regular season to be the #1 guy, he had a couple of really nice games, then took a sharp downward turn. We've always had a strategy of, "When one guy falters, we bring in the other guy," when it comes to goaltending over the last couple of years, with pretty impressive results. So why deviate from that now?
I think we've shown that we're the better team overall WHEN WE PLAY OUR GAME. We dominated in G5 even with line combos all whacky. The game changed on Allen's soft 1st and 3rd goal, and the fact that Dubnyk made the three clutch saves he did on Steen. We cannot play from behind against this team. They lock it down defensively like we used to. Score first, don't give up the lead, and we win. If we allow the game to get away from us, and we have to start chasing, I don't think we end up the victors.
