Wow, finally someone who watched the same game I did. The kid was good last night. He won puck battles, threw hits and blocked shots.
Now, onto Suzuki who has been a complete disaster afaic.
When is the last time he threw a hit? Or won a puck battle? Or even had a good night in the face-off circle? He's one of the weakest players I've ever seen on the puck and he looks slower than Staal, Weber and Perry. The kid plays more scared than Nylander ffs.
I'm tired of that puck between his legs move that may have worked once in peewee. You need a bit of speed to pull that off and he doesn't have any. If he has a nagging injury and that's why he's been this bad ok, I can accept that. If he's healthy and playing like this, I hope it's the sophomore jinx our else "Houston we have a problem".
There are people on here who just watch for every mistake and fall he makes, but everyone makes mistakes. His aren't egregious at all.
He was actually one of our better players last night.
He played a 2 on 2 perfectly when he had to play D on the PP, and hung back as last man back when it was needed. He won board battles, cycled well, and steals pucks all the time without taking penalties.
He's generally good at managing the puck and making good decisions with it. He still has the odd mix up on switches as a center on D, but as a winger that's not an issue. Plus, that is really fixable.
He needs to improve his shooting skills quite a bit.
The Danault line was our best line. KK actually got some time at center with Danault at wing whenever there was a face-off on his strong side. He's become so dominant that he's now better than Danault.
I can actually see him become a ROR/Bergeron type center if he keeps improving like this over Suzuki.
I like how he's developing.
