Some of my thoughts and takeaways from last night:
I would not consider the goalie interference in the first minute to be a dirty play. It was absolutely a penalty, but I don't think the intention was to plow through Binny. It looked to me like he was trying to cut between Binny and the net and committed to that path knowing that he would plow Binny if Binny attempted to cut of the path. Binny did the right thing and moved into his path and there was no time to stop. I view it similar to a defender in basketball taking a charge. Again, absolutely a penalty, but nothing I would call dirty.
Thomas was a disaster for about 40 minutes. I've never seen him so uneasy on his skates and he was fumbling the puck like crazy even when he had time and space. He seemed to find his game a bit in the 3rd, so I'm going to chalk it up to nerves.
The other side of that coin is that Maroon and Bozak might have been our best 2 forwards last night. Maroon was an absolute monster on the boards and Bozak probably should have had another goal. It is really promising that our 3rd line looked that good with Thomas being the worst out of the 3. That is a Cup-caliber 2nd line if Thomas plays like himself and Maroon/Bozak bring that effort consistently.
Binny played great. The arm/blocker save on Myers from the high slot in the 2nd was great. The glove save on the shorthanded 2-1/breakawy was a game saver and he read it perfectly. That's a very different game if we had gone down 2-0 on a shorty and he gave the shooter nothing. Unlike a lot of breakaway saves, Binny didn't get the benefit of the shooter not getting under the puck enough. A bar-down backhand probably would have beaten him, but there was good elevation on that. He had pretty much everything except an absolutely perfect shot covered. Huge save in the closing seconds and a good job sealing himself to the ice to prevent the rebound/hacks from dislodging the puck and dribbling through. I wouldn't say Binny stole this game, because I think the game was fairly even overall. But he was fantastic.
Laine reminds me of Kane from his first few years in the NHL. Kane is more consistent now, but he used to disappear for long stretches. He would look downright bad for almost an entire game, then have 2 good plays and suddenly he is the game's 1st star with a goal and assist. Laine didn't impress me much last night, but he beat Binny twice simply by having that amazing shot. One hit the post, the other was a goal. He has an ability to impact a game in flashes, which is something that concerns me. He is going to float around the perimeter, but he displayed last night that he can beat a goalie from there. Limiting his space around the edges of the slot needs to be a priority.
We struggled exiting our zone in the 1st period. Winnipeg does a really good job protecting the offensive blue line. Their D are very aggressive pinching and get away with it a ton because the forwards do a great job with back pressure of the puck carrier. We adjusted throughout the game and were beating it by the 3rd. The off side winger started doing a very good job getting to the middle and offering support to the puck carrier. We started having success beating their pinches when we were able to execute quick, short passes around the blue line. We will score some goals off the rush if we can beat that pinch as often as we did in the 2nd half of the game and this particular battle might determine the series.
Our PP zone entry is a raging tire fire. I didn't have too much issue with our PP setup and movement once we established possession in the zone. But that was the minority of our total PP time. This has been an issue all year and is baffling to me. The players away from the puck appear to think that just positioning themselves in the proper spot will open up space for the puck carrier and then we seem stunned when the puck carrier can't make a zone entry through 3-4 defenders plus a couple Blues clogging lanes at the blue line. You only create space for the puck carrier if you are positioned to receive a pass and remain in motion so that a defender has to actually follow you. I honestly don't understand how the zone entries are this bad. My ACHA D2 team had a better understanding of how to create space in the neutral zone when the puck is dropped to the D man. And that was a decade ago, before that play became the trend in zone entry strategy. The most frustrating thing about this is that we are so married to the trialing player carrying the puck across the blue that everyone is flat footed by the time that player has run out of options and has to chip it into the zone. So then we can't win the battle to the puck and it is an easy exit. We'd be better off playing a pure dump and chase at this point (which is not a strategy I'm in favor of). Unless this improves, we're going to need ROR to go about 75% at the faceoff dot on the PP in order to have anything close to a respectable PP%. IMO, this is the biggest issue in our overall game.
I didn't intend to end on a negative, because overall I was happy with our game last night. We are up 1-0 in what is supposed to be one of the hardest buildings to win a series opener. We overcame a 1st period deficit and won a game in which their goalie played very well. We successfully made a number of in-game adjustments to beat their defensive scheme that had been working very well and we generated scoring chances in a variety of ways. I woke up with a smile on my face.
