This team only plays motivated when they either have their backs against the wall or have something to prove. But that's not much of a plan in a game full of ebs and flows, teams know that keeping up that level of effort and aggression for a full game simply isn't going to happen. They know that the avs are more focused on making a statement off the puck drop than actually playing a full 60 minute game. They just have to weather it and they know that this team is going to lose focus and run out of steam as the game goes on which will open up plenty of opportunities against our unorganized team that relies on simply trying to overpower the opposition. Whose fault is this? Obviously the coaching, like other posters have said it's concerning how Bednar never takes any accountability for when things go wrong. It's like he thinks he's above it all and it's mainly other people's problem despite being the head coach of this team like they're the ones not matching his standards. People who lack the ability to self-reflect are hard to work with and not made for long term relationships.
Now some thoughts about the game itself.
- Another game where Zadorov is engaged, and he looked awesome. He was juking guys left and right handling the puck and completely shut down offense on his side including preventing an easy goal on a wide open net by preventing his guy from even moving a finger for a good 5 seconds. Don't really get why people would want to keep Girard over him, they complain about his inconsistency yet he has played well down the stretch in the last 2 regular seasons when we needed it most to squeeze into the playoffs where he also played awesome in every game. I was listening to the Dallas announcers and they were saying how glad they are that Girard is on the ice because whenever he's on Dallas seemed to be able to get something going on offense. Face it, Zadorov on top of his game is way better and more valuable than Girard. Plenty of small defensemen who can skate while also being easy to play against.
- Burakovsky played a simpler game, not sure if it's better for him that way. At least he's still contributing by consistently winning board battles and keeping possession for the team.
- Is Kadri even useful outside of those plays where he receives a counter attack pass and uses his decent shot to maybe score. He can't win board battles despite his aggresiveness he's not very strong. He has no playmaking ability and kills so many plays in the offensive zone and he can't play defense. He needs to be removed from the top two lines and put with like calvert where he can just go 1v1 against people. Putting Kam in his place would be an upgrade although I don't know how he'd hold up over longer stretches, but it's not like Kadri hasn't had long stretches of shit play either and at least you'd get some playing making ability and defense.
- Nichuskin was top notch, his stickhandling has gotten so much better over the course of the season and his shot looks more powerful. The acceleration he has when he make his "move" is out of this world, you're not supposed to be able to do that unless you're somebody like McDavid.
