Anyone that watched the game knows how bad our goaltending was. I was swearing the entire game every time they got a shot on net. Poor angles on shots, poor net awareness on the farside and not giving his team the needed saves. Mac did that all game long for them and that to me was the difference. We could have easily won this game 7 or 8 to 2.
At the same time, our forwards made their share of mistakes. Missed assignments, taking the wrong man, passing it to locations (set clearing plays) and nobody there. All of these things leading to turnovers and when your goaltender is fighting the puck like Stolarz was, that equals goals.
I get a kick out of the announcers praising that goal by Rattie. That was a good play by him to get position for a backhand shot but it was Tierney that knocked his own goalie over to give him the empty cage to put the puck in. It should have been a very easy save since, in Stolarz's defence he was following across the crease perfectly on the play until Tierney took him out.
On a positive sign, London needs adversity to battle back and they got it. What I saw as a 4-3 game with us winning turned out a 6-3 loss. Oh well.
As for Players of the game, I choose 4.
1st star - Mac - great goaltending or they lose
2nd - Bo Horvat - just a beast and if we would have won would have been 1st star
3rd - Max Domi - dominant
4th -Pouliott - by far the best d-man out there, without him they lose big time
I also don't see the biggie about Seth Jones. He is their 4th best d-man. 1st overall???????
Let's battle back boys.
See for me this was like a regular season game for Stolarz. Made some good saves. Gave up an 'A' side goal (note: this is what they call a short side goal in the pro's cuz when you let too many of those in you are going down to the AHL). He always is in the middle of the net which is bad, leaves the short side open too much.
Rattie's goal was brutal. Why are you not staying on your feet or going across in a half butterfly to stop this?!? Instead he felt threatened by a shot as he is cutting across and dropped early to which he had to do an attempted split save to desperately try to get a slow moving puck. Weak. This is not the type of goaltending you need in the big show.
Mac wasn't much better! He made some good saves, but several pucks just hit him (awful shooting by the Knights). Throw in some posts and you have yourself the winning goalie.
So, the Knights played the trap and still let in 6 goals. (one empty net). Please give it up. I think the Knights should run and gun it and see what happens. No trap is going to stop Halifax, why not let your best players try and be best at what they do!
Some of the best games Patterson has played is with 40+ shots. Let em have it. Let Domi and everyone else run wild, stretch passes etc. try for an 6-4 score and hope we end up with 6.
Officiating has been very good. Not much to say there.
Seth Jones would not be my first pick overall, wouldn't be my second either.