Couldn't find the game on ESPN+ last night, so instead of finding an alternate stream I decided to watch a documentary about dinosaurs and watch the full replay this morning.
Jesus f***ing Christ this defense is embarrassingly bad. I know we're young and injured on the back end, but I'm fairly confident my school's JV team knows better than to stand around puck watching. Vanecek sucks and I'm done defending him (and every other dog water goalie on this roster), but good lord. He didn't even get a chance to suck last night, nearly all of the goals last night were foretold by prophecy.
I'm ready for Bahl to get sent to the gulag, brainless talentless clown who is only good for turning pucks over, taking penalties, and losing coverage.
I'm also fed up with Mercer, I think it's fair to say he's stagnated. He has absolutely no awareness and vision with the puck, he gets tunnel vision and just puts his head down and goes. He's a dog chasing cars. Last year his numbers went up because the team was scoring more goals, so just about everyone's numbers went up. But his play hasn't improved since his rookie year. Even then his rookie numbers were largely inflated by playing with Bratt. He doesn't play center any more, his defense is bad. I'm not actively looking to shop him, but he's pretty clearly not a core piece and should be available for the right price (a top goalie under 26). I'm also hesitant about giving him a long term deal in the 6-7 AAV range which he's absolutely going to ask for, I'd rather try to bridge him to give us flexibility.
Since Novo bitched at Lindy about Holtz's 8 mins of ice time vs MTL, he's had three straight games of +13 mins. Thanks Novo
Great to see Nico, Timo, Bratt, and Toffoli all step up, even if it is against a terrible goalie and a poor defensive effort by VGK. If we can just tread water until Jack comes back then I'm confident we'll make the playoffs. Lazar is awesome too.
