@Lacaar
You raised some good questions in other thread that I couldn't respond to as thread is closed.
Regarding your concerns about McDrai EV play in the series it should be noted that both are reasonably good 200ft players and make good efforts across ice. Sometimes you're going to get outscored.
Thing is, I don't fault them as much for any imperfection in their games. They were raised here on a team that most of the time was paper thin support. For years if they weren't scoring most of the goals nobody was. This probably developed certain habits. They also never had a Kopitar type center or ROR or whoever to teach them the right way to play. Add some questionable and inconsistent and ever changing coaching to the mix and there hasn't been ideal modeling. Even getting Danault here as I wanted years ago could have helped transfer some knowledge and he's a rare individual that would be a voice in the room even among greats like McDrai.
As far Drai specifically theres been a gradual drop off in his EV game since he was MVP. Probably explained by age, mileage, and the amount of physical abuse he takes in seasons. We saw this with Mess here too. By 90, 91 Mess had become a player that due to pain and aging and just having played so much hockey he became a picking his spots player. Mess made passes that would have current fans concerned and they often enough ended up in goals the other way. Mess would also cheat shifts. If there were no openings or against a strong line his offensive jump would be limited to only certain shifts and opportunities. I'm afraid we're seeing that in this series. But frankly if his linemates or D on the great passes he makes were cashing at all there would be less concern.
