It is sad to see what has become of EJ’s puck skills. He used to have so much confidence carrying the puck, and look like he had world class skill. Obviously the injuries have broken down his ability to skate well, but now he looks so stiff while skating. Whenever he gets the puck, especially in the offensive zone, it’s like he has no idea what to do with the puck anymore. He is basically becoming Hejda 2.0.
Barrie with another poor game too. There was one point he tried to make a cross ice pass to Jost, and he flipped it like 10’ in the air, and almost hit Jost in the chest. By the time the puck came down, all Jost could do was ice it. Final minute bobbling the puck out of the zone. These have all become standard plays for him. Outside of passing the puck to MacKinnon and Rantanen on the power play, and the occasional one timer that gets through traffic, he hasn’t had a good year. At all.
This team isn’t going to go far when its two best defencemen (who will probably combine for 14 million in cap space in a year) aren’t that good outside of one or two skills.
Hopefully the hype on Makar is real because neither EJ or Barrie should be the best defenceman on the team.
