Game
This was worse than Nashville in my opinion. Nashville was us getting exposed by a really good team, it was ugly and embarrassing but it more highlighted the difference between us on a bad night and a good team on a good night. This? It was a performance that was defensively among the worst I've ever seen. Even Lecavalier looked amazing. Why? Because there were passing lanes everywhere, first of all. As soon as a Flyers puck got the puck with enough time to look up, he had lanes to go to the net, he had lanes to go back to defense and he had lanes to go to linemates. And when you give that kind of opportunities to players like Giroux and Voracek, you end up getting blown out. And that's just pinpointing one of the issues this team had tonight, because not only did we play extremely bad systematically, we failed on an individual level as well.
Great
-
Good
Rielly - Even in a horrible game, you usually have at least some that play well. Rielly was pretty much the only one to do so in this game, had some nice initiative offensively and did the best out of all our players defensively. That he can maintain his game as well as he has this year despite horrible performances by the team is very intriguing.
Average
Franson - Had a slightly better night defensively than Phaneuf and made some nice plays offensively, so he squeaks into the average category. Franson can do better than this though.
Polak - Roman did what he could. Got victimized like Holzer due to his limited skillset and our forwards disappearing show, but at least he got the basics down. He was in position, he worked well in front of the night and stayed physical.
JVR - Has answered the right way on getting taken off the first unit. He played with more hustle, came back more than before to help out defensively and looked more like the JVR we want. Still seems to default to making plays that didn't fit with a line looking to cycle until opportunities arise though, but with time away from the first line this will probably change.
Smith - Struggled on the draw like all our players, but centered the only line I felt comfortable with. The only line able to play against their top unit as well for some odd reason. Smith was decent tonight, and the line got rewarded for their play later on.
Booth - On a night when Booth is perhaps your best forward five on five, you know something is very wrong. Never quits on a play. I think he is tailoring his game into becoming a decent fourth liner instead of the scoring line guy he's been earlier, and it might buy him a few more years in the league.
Panik - Like his linemates, he had a decent night. Perhaps the one closest to a bad rating, but he makes up for some mistakes with some added skill. Had some beautiful skill moves to get the puck out of our zone, I like that as it shows that you can use skill for other things than creating offense.
Bad
Bernier - Seven goals against and not awful? Yeah, Bernier did not make the saves we needed but goals came from superb shots on quality scoring chances. If you are judging your goaltender based on his ability to make saves on that kind of shots on those kind of chances, you are setting yourself up for a disappointment. If Bernier was in the zone he'd stop maybe two-three of those and we'd end up losing anyway. You can never rely on your goaltenders to make impossible saves over and over in a game and expect to get anything but a L out of it.
Phaneuf - Perhaps his worst game of the season. Out of position, bad passing, bad decisions, screening the goaltender on two goals, seemed rattled. He's been our best D-man this year but tonight he was crap.
Bozak - Borderline awful. Not sure what Bozak was doing tonight, but he had one of our worst defensive performances while not doing much offensively except some sporadic attempts at counter attacking. Get him away from Kessel, force him to rely on a wider game because he's getting slowly shaped into a less skilled Kessel with faceoff-prowess.
Kessel - Phil created some chances and got some points, but otherwise he had one of his worst games from a defensive standpoint. Played scared, and it came back to haunt us over and over.
Lupul - We put our best possession player on the first line instead of its worst, and it didn't help. I'm not really surprised. I don't think any one guy can help that line, we need to have two strong possession and two-way players to hide the deficiencies of Kessel for it to be successful. Lupul had an awful night defensively, he's also pretty much borderline awful.
Santorelli - So it finally happened. The only player not to have a bad night for the Leafs this season finally had one. Santa was ineffective, had problems controlling the puck and with no cycle game to speak of, he disappeared out of the game.
Holland - Borderline average, Holland had some nice plays and some nice calm in the chaos, but he's just way ineffective for too much of the game. If there's something he needs to work on, it is intensity through the game and across all three zones.
Winnik - Had a nice performance on the PK as always, but other than that he was surprisingly ineffective even strength. I don't mean that he didn't create chances, because that's not really what Winnik does for you, but he didn't seem to win battles or give his linemates any space tonight.
Clarkson - Clarkson had a better performance than he's had lately, that monster shot was very nice to see. He also was one of few who managed to maintain some puck possession offensively. Stupid penalties and no passing game to speak of though, but it's at least a step back from being the worst player on the ice.
Awful
Holzer - Replaces Gardiner and answers with a performance that was like Gardiner on a bad night. First half of the game it seemed like the Flyers just went right through him. Constantly flat-footed, constantly out of position, constantly getting beaten. Add to that an inability to move the puck and you have a pretty bad night. Victimized by the overall team play.
Robidas - Man, Robidas was getting bulled over constantly in this game, and for once he looked rattled and started to throw the puck away. That's pretty much the first time I've ever seen a game get to him. He was a liability tonight, unfortunately.
Kadri - Had a bad night, a stupid night where he played much more like what we saw from him before this season. A bad version of old Kadri. Shuffled around a bit in the lines, I'm willing to forget this performance if he can get back to his game tomorrow.
