How do you let an AHL-talent team score six on you? By making it very, very easy for them. The main thing that separates NHL from other professional leagues is that the players can execute just as well with less time, less space, against better players. It does not matter if the guys you play will spend most of their careers in the AHL, if you let them walk in and take their time to snipe it, they will. Unless they're Nylander, of course.
There's not a system issue here. We just consistently don't tie up sticks, stick with our guys, take care of the puck in dangerous areas, provide back pressure. There's about ten games left, if they can't figure this out then Boston will eat us up.
Tavares Line - Decent, but overall quiet. Tavares was not good. Marner had a few flashes. Hyman didn't Hyman.
Matthews Line - Bad defensively, good offensively. Had a ton of chances. Matthews was bombarding the net, and if Nylander didn't see goaltenders in his nightmares then this game might have looked different. Johnsson was OK. A few nifty plays, but he plays a complementary role on that line right now.
Kadri Line - Kadri was bad. Marleau was awful. Brown was abysmal. They looked like three rookies in over their heads.
Gauthier Line - Was good, while intact.
Rielly Pairing - Blurgh. On both of them. Rielly gets a plus from scoring out of pure spite though. But this pairing was bad.
Muzzin Pairing - Muzzin was OK. Zaitsev was worse, but not as bad as last night.
Marincin Pairing - Holl was good, but then he stopped being good and was awful instead. Marincin... I have no idea.
Sparks - We hung him out to dry. Again. He looked bad still. If I'd venture a guess, I'd say that Sparks is the kind of goaltender who needs to be in a flow to feel good about himself. He looked rattled tonight, way too aggressive at one point and then not nearly enough the next.
Babcock - Another game that I don't really know how to pin on Babcock. It's not the job that is the problem here, it's that the players aren't doing it. His in-game corrections were the right one. Moore up for the abysmal Brown. More ice time to the right lines. Shorten the bench and try to get a scoring threat on at all times.