Kind of depressing in here.
Overall wasn't an awful game, I was quite ok with the outing aside from the second period where we fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the middle there. When we stuck to our gameplan and played the body we had a pretty solid road game, all things considered.
Chicago was clearly motivated to run their first game of the year much like the devil's were. There is a certain urgency you get from that position that you can't match when you're not in that position. Chicago was also line matching quite hard with home ice and clearly had a specific gameplan in mind for us.
Being our 4th straight road game after two weeks of travel as well, we had no time to game plan for them like they had for us; they have been at home since the 5th of October. Instead of a day of travel the Hawks had two days at home of practice since their last loss. That's a big advantage.
All that in context; this was a one goal game on the road where McDrai didn't register a point. We got pulled away from our gameplan, but all things considered it wasn't a terrible outing. A few bounces go sightly differently and this is a much different game. Indeed, as far as high danger scoring chances go we were nearly dead even. McDrai can't score every game, not even Gretz and Moose did; keeping in mind the circumstances and our best guys having an off night, it wasn't an awful outing.
The powerplay was good. PK was good. Smith was good. We had some physical pushback and had a chance to tie the game and force points we didn't deserve. Some real good signs.
Persson got bullied a little, hopefully he bounces back. Khaira has been rightfully ousted here a bit, need more from him.
I think Jurco has escaped criticism, but I think he hasn't shown anything for a few games. He's not winning pick battles, the play is dying on his stick. He's largely been a floater on that second line, and as the third wheel there you need him to be adding more. I'd like to see him ousted from that line, I think Nygard has shown last few games that he can do the board work and support the play a little better. I also think that line as a whole could use some more speed; if Nuge isn't carrying the puck in with numbers they don't have the size or the speed to retrieve pucks off the dump in. I think if Nygard can do that on that line life he's been on lower lines it'd be a big big deal. Get a second 5on5 scoring threat. Which would be huge; the bottom six has gotten a lot of heat in this thread but I think that's undeserved, if we had some zone time threat from Nuges line that's a different game. We're never going to win games because our bottom 6 outplays the other teams bottom 6... Chia pissed away too much talent for that. If they can tie up 30 minutes of ice with low event hockey they are doing their job as the team is built; and they've done that 6 times in a row. But some point you need some scoring threat from your second line, and they havn't done that at 5 on 5 more times than they have.
McDrai will be the best two players on the ice more times than not. They had an off game, which is acceptable considering they are tied for #1 in scoring. This was a game where we needed our second line to pick up some slack and they had nothing going. We need more from them.
I'm also excited to see how this group rebounds from their first real adversity this year.
Overall wasn't an awful game, I was quite ok with the outing aside from the second period where we fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the middle there. When we stuck to our gameplan and played the body we had a pretty solid road game, all things considered.
Chicago was clearly motivated to run their first game of the year much like the devil's were. There is a certain urgency you get from that position that you can't match when you're not in that position. Chicago was also line matching quite hard with home ice and clearly had a specific gameplan in mind for us.
Being our 4th straight road game after two weeks of travel as well, we had no time to game plan for them like they had for us; they have been at home since the 5th of October. Instead of a day of travel the Hawks had two days at home of practice since their last loss. That's a big advantage.
All that in context; this was a one goal game on the road where McDrai didn't register a point. We got pulled away from our gameplan, but all things considered it wasn't a terrible outing. A few bounces go sightly differently and this is a much different game. Indeed, as far as high danger scoring chances go we were nearly dead even. McDrai can't score every game, not even Gretz and Moose did; keeping in mind the circumstances and our best guys having an off night, it wasn't an awful outing.
The powerplay was good. PK was good. Smith was good. We had some physical pushback and had a chance to tie the game and force points we didn't deserve. Some real good signs.
Persson got bullied a little, hopefully he bounces back. Khaira has been rightfully ousted here a bit, need more from him.
I think Jurco has escaped criticism, but I think he hasn't shown anything for a few games. He's not winning pick battles, the play is dying on his stick. He's largely been a floater on that second line, and as the third wheel there you need him to be adding more. I'd like to see him ousted from that line, I think Nygard has shown last few games that he can do the board work and support the play a little better. I also think that line as a whole could use some more speed; if Nuge isn't carrying the puck in with numbers they don't have the size or the speed to retrieve pucks off the dump in. I think if Nygard can do that on that line life he's been on lower lines it'd be a big big deal. Get a second 5on5 scoring threat. Which would be huge; the bottom six has gotten a lot of heat in this thread but I think that's undeserved, if we had some zone time threat from Nuges line that's a different game. We're never going to win games because our bottom 6 outplays the other teams bottom 6... Chia pissed away too much talent for that. If they can tie up 30 minutes of ice with low event hockey they are doing their job as the team is built; and they've done that 6 times in a row. But some point you need some scoring threat from your second line, and they havn't done that at 5 on 5 more times than they have.
McDrai will be the best two players on the ice more times than not. They had an off game, which is acceptable considering they are tied for #1 in scoring. This was a game where we needed our second line to pick up some slack and they had nothing going. We need more from them.
I'm also excited to see how this group rebounds from their first real adversity this year.
