First things first - we don’t pull this out without Jake the Snake. Several show-stopper saves, with a few in the 3rd and one glorious glove save during that 6v5. I was a little worried in the first after he tried to score on himself and that knuckle puck got past him. But once again, our goalies slammed the door and we are 12-0 when leading after 2. Jake has been incredible this season and may warrant more starts. He is 8th in the league in GAA and save pct, and you take the Tampa game out he is over .940. That is ridiculous.
We also closed that game out because the boys were eating pucks. Nico, Dillon, Siegs, and Mercer put on a shot blocking clinic and they wound up with 28 (!!) blocks. THAT boys and girls is team buy-in.
Love seeing Tuna have a good game. He’s been an unfortunate victim of lineups, finding himself on the 4th line, but does it with professionalism. A timely, gritty, hard working goal after Timo got robbed by Lindgren.
Speaking of that goal, we are on game 5ish in a row of someone making an insane pass. I can’t express how difficult it is to throw a cross zone, between someone’s legs, on the tape pass.. Luke has a really activated in the O-zone the past 5-6 games and has been one of our best players. It seems like he has gotten comfortable in Keefe’s system and his progress defensively has been astonishing. He and Pesce rank 12th in the league in xGA/60, making them a top pairing in the league.
Speaking of top pairings, by that same metric, Kovacevic and Siegs are 2nd. In the league. And we got both of them for some used water bottles and a ripped shooter tutor. Unreal. Almost forgot to mention Kovacevic getting some fighting lessons from Big Mac and that paying off already. We lead the league in fighting majors? What is this? Cats and Dogs living together, total chaos.
Bratt continues his torrid pace and we may have misidentified the guy who is going to crack 100 pts first. Or, porque no los dos? His problem has historically been a mid season dry spell, so we will see if he can keep it up.
Dougie you gorgeous tall man. 2nd GWG in 2 games. One thing that could be filed under the “complaint” department was the lack of goals coming from the D. Well, it seems like Dougie might be moving past the torn tittle because he was unloading last night. Might have to add his shot props back into my gambling rotation. He had 7 on goal, and 15 attempts.
His shooting volume was also because of the PK looks the Caps were giving us. As I mentioned before, Dougie's shot has been largely de-emphasized in favor of down low 3 on 2 / 2 on 1 play. However, the Caps were actively taking those away, so the team said LOL ok we’ll let Dougie fire away, good luck. Another 2 for 5, against a top 5 PK team, now the 2nd best PP in the league. Are we PP merchants? I don’t give a shit, but it’s super fun having an unstoppable one.
Some final quick notes:
Loved seeing Nico getting frisky and guys coming in to defend him. He wasn’t taking shit from that twerp McMichael.
Foote was largely invisible and the first goal deflected off his glove. His metrics were god awful (10% xGA, 25% Corsi) so we still may have that hole we need to fill.
Palat continues to look better as does Mercer after slow starts. Both are showing some real tenacity and grit and Palat looked pretty dynamic a few times. Mercer is becoming our most reliable PKer and was a split second away from an ENG.
We’ve got some winnable games coming up - Nashville, St Louis (who we struggle against but they suck), and the Wings, then the Caps again. Somehow, we will be done with our games against them before we even play the Rangers. Also, another weird stretch of 7 games in 12 days. I’ve said it before - if I find you schedule guy, we are gonna have a little chat.
Also don’t look now, but the Rangers are showing some significant cracks and the fanbase is melting down. What a shame, hate to see it, thoughts and prayers.
Let’s get greedy and keep rolling. No mercy.
