Myers is atrocious but it's not just him.
Half our forward group are MIA. Mik, Kuz, Petey, Garland all need to be much better. Hronek with horrible coverage all night.
Demko has been very average the last few weeks. Not a good night for him. The juicy rebound in the dying seconds was a complete back breaker.
Also a Terrible effort the first two periods. A ten minute stretch of actual compete is not going to win you many games.
Yes they were a disjointed group and missing coverages all over the ice as well as some efforts by the players you outlined that are just not good enough.
The entire defense was off tonight and we never seemed to be able to get away from too much gambling up ice pressure that led to scoring chances and chasing. Ill add Blueger to the list of guys playing with a piano attached to his butt. Aside from a nice patient pass to help set up the Joshua goal he looked overmatched (even if im not expecting that much he's still getting 3C usage) Losing Hughes off the faceoff for the 3rd goal after a questionable icing call was brutal. Adds so little offensive push
Joshua Miller Hoglander Lafferty carried the luggage tonight. Boeser and Miller offensively have been good but Brock had a couple poor defensive reads early that helped contribute to the opening goal and a breakaway. At least he answered unlike Kuzmenko who is a mess. Glad they got him off the line it only works in one zone. Doubt the team is going to Bali next off season
Reality is Demko had a tough night which didnt help. Some fortunate bounces but rebound control was not good. Struggled to track some pucks quick enough that got stuffed. Should be able especially on home ice to upstage Vanecek who was poor but didn't
I didnt mind Zadorov that much sure he had a couple turnovers but NJ is a quick team with a lot of active skilled sticks and the gaps were not great tonight which made for tougher up ice passes this team is not built that way like NJ and them falling into that type of game made for lots of high risk reward play. Disagree with Hughes getting a call there but the hit behind NJs net was surprisingly not a penalty. He's certainly a player on the edge.
Myers on the other hand was simply unable to read anything quick enough to make good decisions and then his body followed flailing around chopping away and making life difficult for everyone on ice with him. Just awful stuff from top4 usage. He literally gave J.Hughes a perfect pass to set up the 2nd goal from Haula and at least 5 other scoring chances by my count. Pretty hard to win in this league with those kinds of constant breakdowns to say nothing of how bad that end of the period pass vs shot decision was and 2 other offensive opportunities that he botched. Full on train wreck mode
Hronek is getting over tasked. that first goal wasnt really his fault as Boeser didnt read the pinch. For the most part he supported possession. Juulsen is pretty much unplayable as he doesn't have the IQ to make up for his lack of foot speed. Still need help back there at RD. People are upset about usage but who do you play... Cole has slowed down and you cant keep trotting out the top pair as Hughes even looked off tonight despite the points and late surge.
Man the duo of Kuzmenko and Mikhayev have run cold and EP40 is not much better. Kuz is just awful through the neutral zone and in coverage and his unwillingness to shoot is incredibly frustrating. Cant have those wings of the umbrella just playing catch and slowing the play down. They managed to make it work for the most part but mostly thanks to Miller Hughes and Boeser not because of 40 and 96
Need rest and practise time to get re set on systems play. Team looked too much like last year under Boudreau for my liking but there is still positives