Pirate Deadpool
Registered User
I think you're being unfair. Karlsson is the guy who's disappeared, but I really think he's playing hurt. Marchy & Smith have been creating a LOT of quality chances. I mean I've never seen a team THIS snakebit. 10-11 posts in the last two games alone. I've been a Ranger fan for 40 years & even they haven't had bad luck like this that I can recall. Maybe the 2014 Finals could compare.
I really think we played much better tonight than Game 3. Hockey is weird sometimes. You can outplay your opponent & still lose badly on the scoreboard. They had some crazy good luck & unfortunate bounces that wound up in the back of our net. The refs also did us no favors. Clearly not the reason we lost, but they were awful tonight.
I still give us a small chance to come back. One win at a time. One thing I know for sure, this team won't lay down on Thursday.
Smith is my favorite player so I watch him closer at times and while he has had a couple of goals in the series, he's also blown his fair share of easy looking chances too. I've heard that the ice has been choppy on the radio (we've only heard about the bad vegas ice) and I wonder if that's the reason for guys not putting rebounds and other chances up close. Either they are nervous or the puck is hopping. There's been a few times I thought Smith should have scored but it looked like he either mishandled the puck or hopped on him. Still, the caps are playing on the same ice and we're missing grade A chances and they are hitting most of their top chances.
I still feel that the caps are sagging back or collapsing and we aren't adjusting to that. We should have more chances just above the slot area and need to look to tip and crash to get easy rebounds. We're also passing up good chances from the circle. Sure it will take a good snipe from those areas, but as the caps have shown, a lucky bounce off the goalie or another player is all it takes. Looking for the perfect pass is driving me nuts. I can't believe we keep doing this. I have a guy at work that has criticized Turk for not making adjustments during the game before the playoff started and now it's looking like he's right to some degree.
We really need the guys to get a lead and not look back. Confidence is at all time low and it's showing. Fleury has to be frustrated too. He's not been as good, but he's been hung out to dry by the team defense that allows a lot of open looks.