After last night's win Spits now 9-6-1-1 in their last 17 games with 9 of them on the road,7-3-1 in the last 11,hard to believe how many complain when they lose,critic the coach,etc and say dick for the most part when they win.
There has been improvements in most areas ie goals for,goals against,individual play with the exception of Boka and Starikov, there were more then a few others,but most have right the ship.
More points from the D has helped,in fact Spits now have 3Dmen in double points Corcoran has more goals this year(5),then all of last (3),Staois has the same number of points (12) then last except he played in 30 more last year, Ladd has 10 points in 24 games,only 5 in 30 last year no goals,2 goals so far,8 points in his last 16 games played,and Louka Henault who scored his 1st goal of his OHL career last night has 6 points on the season,had 2 points last year in 42 games.
Everybody talks about lack of scoring, fact is that they have averaged, 3.82 in goals for,and allowed 2.0 per in the last 11 games,and in the last 17 games,are averaging 3.53 goals for and 2.42 in goals against.
The 1st 8 games of the season Windsor was averaging 2.63 goals per game enroute to a 3-5 record,and now only 6 losses in regulation in the last 17 games.Every area improved imo overall coaching must be bad next.
Spits have only lost 1 game this season by more then 2 goals excluding empty netters,and that was October 27 at Barrie in a 6-1 loss.
Spits are 2nd best overall in goals against in the league excluding empty netters,London is #1 and 16th tied with Peterborough for goals overall.
PK is #2 in the league and the PP is #15.
Last year after being in the top 4 in both PK and PP prior to Luchuk and the gang being dealt they finished 5th in PK and 16th in PP.
Ironically they are 15th in PP with the same 18.1 per cent as they finished last year after a great start before the deals.
Overall satisfied with things have gone overall for 1st 25 games,especially considering a number of players underachieving the 1st 10 games or so.
Happy with all the kids looking forward to last 2/3 thirds of the schedule
Some forget this is the 2nd youngest team in the league,there will be growing pains along the way.
A lot of the critiquing of the coaches has occurred win or lose so that's been pretty consistent.
There has been some improvement from some, others not so much. The biggest complaint about the players has been a lack of consistency. One or two players playing inconcsistent for a stretch is one thing but the whole team has been inconsistent all year so while there has been improvement when looking at the long term stats the game to game inconsistencies remains an issue.
Their goals for/against may look better but many times the goals for have come in bunches, again this is the inconsistency issue.
Excluding empty net goals may help their numbers look better but when this team has allowed at least one empty net goal every time they've pulled their goaltender except once and they are likely at the top or close to it in terms of empty net goals coaching has to reconsider the idea of pulling their goalie when down by a goal. Curious, how many goals have they scored this year when they've pulled their goalie? One, two? If there is a large differential between those two numbers and the team has allowed the most, or close to the most goals against when their net is empty then this tells me the team is not very good when pulling their goalie. Their PP numbers show they aren't that great with the man advantage so pulling the goalie isn't likely going to end up with a different result. Leave the goalie in and let the team go all out for the when knowing they have someone to back them up.
PP is now 15th compared to 16th last year at the end of the season so that shows very little if any real improvement on the PP. Does this fall on the players or the systems? My guess is it comes down to a bit of both.
Yes they are the second youngest team in the league and the kids so far look to be bringing a bright future to the team. The kids aren't the problem. The vets and everyone from last year should be another year older and another year improved but the kids are leading the way while many vets have shown some regression. The youth is not the problem here, it's the vets who have peaked or regressed. A lot of people always point to "next" year when they have a young team. The vets who will lead the way combined with the improved youth. This year, we aren't seeing that happening. Yet the vets have been given minutes in situations that their game is not suited for, the lack of production, consistency and ability to drive the play is obvious but the decisions to keep putting them out there are still being made.
Who's making those decisions?
I would guess it's not the players but the coaches which means a lot of the issues coming from inconsistent play, lack of veteran contributions etc is coming from coaching decisions. I've said it along with others and not just after a loss, it's been pretty consistent on here that the coaching needs to improve. If you don't have the players then you need to reconsider who you are putting on the ice in various situations instead of playing players based on years of service. Then it's up to Rychel to get those players for the coaching staff to have a wider range of options.
A lot of posters who have raised issues on here haven't done so based on a win or loss but on how things have played out regardless of if the team has won or loss. Last night could have easily gone the other way. Flint out played them most of the first and offensively they were pretty even in the second and third with the difference being Vella having a rough night for Flint. Had he played as well as he had the night before I doubt Windsor wins last night. They won and I'm complaining, again after a win about the poor decisions and lack of consistency over a win that came down to an opposing goalie having a bad night moreso then the talent and systems getting the victory.
Are you going to say they played a great game? Better than Friday? Slightly but a great or even good game, no.
Everyone needs to be a lot better than they were the last two nights if they want to bring London's current streak to an end.
Are they capable of doing it? Yes. Will it happen? That depends on a lot of things that have not been consistent this year from decisions made behind the bench to the players responding and talking advantage of their opportunities.
Plain and simple, this team can be better, much better on a consistent basis and that starts with the decisions made behind the bench to the level of effort the players give on the ice.
No one wants to see this team perform poorly and no one is happy when that happens. While some of the recent improvements are steps ion the right direction the inability to maintain that improved level of play makes any improvements questionable. Were they lucky to run off a few good games or is that what this team is really capable of in which case why can't they do it consistently.
