Gongshow of a game, for many reasons.
-Every now and again I am reminded and disgusted at how often the officials will call a game according to the state of the game instead of THE ****ING RULES IN THE RULEBOOK. All interference in the last 10-15 minutes of a game is allowed, goaltender included, so long as the score is close. "Let them play" = "make me puke". If they were serious about increasing scoring in this league, they wouldn't let score effects handle the refereeing for them.
-For the life of me I can't figure out how Miller is deemed to be able to make a save on the Lupul goal. There is one chance for him to stop that shot--get his paddle out-- and that is being completely taken away by whoever-the-**** was interfering. Of all the egregious challenges that have resulted in overturned goals, I would have thought this one to be the
biggest slam dunk of all. My jaw hit the floor when they ruled it "good"...
-Jannik Hansen should only play with the Sedins in one scenario: when they are playing poorly. If the Twins are playing well, get Hansen the **** off their line because he kills any momentum they get going. He can't cycle with them, he can't pass like them. He can retrieve pucks and make simple passes and simple shots, but that kind of simple game only really serves to refresh the Sedin's perspective.
-Hansen's goal tonight embodied everything he should be doing as a Sedin linemate: fight for the puck, make chaos, don't get too fancy with your chances. If he played every game with the Twins like that, he might have been a legitimate linemate for them; but this season and past seasons have shown that not only does he lack the hands and creativity to play against top defenders, he doesn't realize it when his confidence gets going. If he isn't thinking "chance up ice" while Spaling is breathing down his neck, I doubt the Canucks get scored on by Lupul there
-Unfortunately, him scoring probably means we'll get another game of him on the 1st PP and 1st line. Being offensively inept doesn't exactly reveal itself in the stats he's putting up -- rest assured, he won't get those same stats playing 20 minutes per night. With any luck, next game he'll play within his boundaries. The minute he starts thinking "I need to create", he's going to drag the Twins down again. But enough about Hansen.
-Bartkowski is lol. I get how management was wooed by him -- such skating! Great wheels! Can really work it out of trouble! But the reality has been harsh. He doesn't have poise. He doesn't have sense. He's always too far up in a play...bad pinches, bad joining of rushes, bad reads, bad passes, bad forecheck, and my least favorite trait of all, is his willingness to just throw the puck away. This is a signature of inept defenders -- they get the puck while under duress, and so they just throw it away. No thinking, no calmness, just panicked whipping of the puck to nowhere but the other team's sticks. His lack of poise rivals Sbisa or Bieksa. A puck on Hutton or Tanev's stick is out of trouble, or on a wide-open teammate's stick. When's the last time Bart reversed to a defender behind the net for an easy out?
-Yannick Weber is a passenger. He's a passenger on the JVR goal, a passenger on the Lupul goal, a passenger on the powerplay....things just happen all around him and he has no ability to impact them.
-The depth scoring on this team worries me. I was expecting some ice time for the kids, I was expecting some growing pains, and I wasn't expecting an older core to get any faster....but the young guns are getting buried, and all the money in the world can't buy Vrbata a goal right now. The bottom 9 of the lineup doesn't have to do much work in the scoring department -- just supplement the Twins' offense and we'll make the playoffs -- but "consistency" is not something we know these kids can bring for sure.
-I fear for any goalie that has to play in Toronto, for real. It is not healthy for any human's psyche to be put through that fishbowl, those trials of praise and condemnation. Reimer has seen the good and the bad, and is fortunately getting the good side again...but how long until Glenn Healy and Craig Simpson and Don Cherry start ripping on him for letting in softies like they love to do for Bernier? The heaps and droves of appraisal they lavished upon Reimer tonight...he had a damn fine game and has been having a good stretch...but this was a demonstrable extreme of a spectrum, like, "star goaltender" levels of delusion. The other extreme is equally ugly -- e.g. guys like Steve Simmons writing utterly fallacious slag-pieces...Why can't the CBC and Toronto media just have realistic expectations of the TML players? If the organization and its fans had any desire to see their team win they wouldn't let their players be subjected to such manic dramatization of events.
Whew, I feel better now. Onto the next game
did you consider the different levels of competition they are playing against?
