Tomorrow, we storm the league office and demand the shootout be abolished once and for all. I don't think there is a single fan who likes it now, the novelty has worn off.
Full disclosure - I am cheating a bit since I missed the first two periods and only watched an abbreviated recap and some highlights. How dare my friend have an event on Devils gameday, rude, right, and a Tuesday? Honestly, it doesn't look like I missed all that much, The first 40 minutes were largely low-event, defense first (and somewhat disjointed) - neither team really getting inside the dots and neither team giving up much in terms of HD chances. Both teams were limited to less than 1.5 xGF, and the Devils had a slight advantage. Even though we had the better record coming in, stylistically this game definitely played into the Cats favor, especially with them coming off a back to back. It was the second straight game that felt playoff-y: tight checking, conservative, structured hockey. I think it's now safe to say that roadtrip was a blip on the radar and not representative of our boys.
I did catch the full 3rd - which opened up a bit starting about 5 minutes into the period as things felt like they were going to come down to one broken play or opportunity. One of the more inexplicable cast-offs over the past few years, Boquist, got the Cats on the board off a nice seeing-eye feed from Verhaeghe that got through Dillon - and Boqy beat Palat to the net. PK hammered Dougie for getting baited outside the dots, but that was a slick pass and finish. With our lack of depth scoring, it would've been interesting to see how Boquist would be doing with us, but no use crying over spilled milk. OK, I'm going to whine a little bit - you're telling me this guy isn't more effective than Tatar? I get that he isn't a "4th liner" by prototype, but is Tatar?
Ok, moving on - I really thought that would be it, add another shutout to our growing list and today would be all about shopping for scoring again. But our handsome hero, our captain, our Swiss king showed his newly acquired power forward chops, with some elite puck protection, curled behind the net - and with a net front drive by Bastian drawing some defensive coverage, he was able to get a good bounce and we are tied. Nico had a particularly strong game playing 11 of his 18 minutes matched up against Barkov (no small feat), and coming out with a 53.7% CF and 56.9% xGF (NST) overall and doubling up scoring chances and HD chances while on-ice.
I loved the scrum after Chucky's questionable hit on Nico. Was it interference? maybe a little high? Jonas and Nico going after him was a nice touch. Is Siegenthaler sneakily scary? I kinda now think he is, it's always the quiet ones you need to worry about, especially with that B-movie assassin goatee. Not entirely sure we should've gotten the PP there, but it doesn't matter because our PP sucks donkey dick these days. I have nothing on that right now except fix it you assholes, that would've been a pretty good spot to get one. Whatever, I'll take it after the run of referring we've gotten recently. If you don't follow the Uncle Puckers on social media you definitely missed one of the best pics of the night. Look at that artistic shading - this is a framer.
OT was somewhat low event as well, and it really seemed to me that the Panthers played to get to the shootout. A few times they fully retreated after chances like the French during WW2, gave the Devils no rush opportunities and very little in zone to work with. They were well disciplined, switching off well on high drop passes and yielding a few ho-hum shot chances. The best chance in OT was from the Cats, but only becasue of a major yikes from Jack - buddy what the fuck - but we escaped with a post. I don't watch enough Panthers OT games to know if this is what they do generally, or if this was a specific design against the Devils, but it seems like they practice 3 on 3. Weird, who does that.
Slick move by Cotter, Jack and Bratt stink at breakaways and Markstrom didn't move on Barkov and Lundell's attempts, aaaaaaand fuck the shootout.
Overall this was a defensive battle, and it was good to see the boys get back to their pre-holiday roots. We still have scoring issues, and our depth was exposed with Noesen being out, I love a good long-time-AHLer-geting-a-chance story, but man Dowling ain't it on the 3rd line, I was lulled into the story and was not thinking critically about his game. The novelty has worn off. MacDermid, Lazar, and Bastian continue to be offensive black holes, and while the 4th line generally is supposed to be low event, a goal here or there isn't much to ask. Cotter, Dowling and Mercer had brutal numbers against (CF 17%, xGF 39%). It's starting to really strain our top guys as the season wears on as the 4th line continues to hover around 6-7 minutes of ice time (Bastian: 7:51, Lazar: 8:16, McD: 6:36). I do think Fitz is accruing as much cap space as possible - why he hasn't called anyone up. With the 3rd line getting caved in and 4th line getting minor minutes, I do need him to pull the trigger on something, there are several teams out of it now and no need to wait until the deadline.
I want to caveat this next bit, that I fucking love Timo - has has been playing like an absolute beast all season and his overall play has been what we sigend up for. By any given metric he is at or near the top of the league and team (CF 58%, xGF 62%, Fenwick 65%). But mannnnnn, he had the game on his stick at the end of the 3rd, and really really needs to bury that. His production is taking a hit because of his lack of PP1 time, so I don't expect him to approach his 40-goal, 70 pt peak, but his current paces need to grow. You can see in his xGF and actual GF differential, he is near the bottom of the league and 2nd worst on the team (-4.3), and I truly hope... NO...demand that we see some positive regression. He has had several goals called back, has hit the crossbar and post numerous times, but with our scoring issues he really needs to find the back of the net. Lay off the Raya buddy, and get a shooter tutor.
That does it for the series against Florida, finishing 2-0-1, which I would take any day of the week heading into the season. We are now done with the bulk of the top teams in the east, so theoretically things should get easier and the schedule spreads out and weaker opponents line up. Theoretically.
We've got another tough Atlantic opponent coming up on Toronto who has our number. Time to exorcise another boogeyperson and/or getting that chicken tender arm warmed up.
I almost forgot, since I don't even think about you and your poverty franchise much these days, but you're still a smug loser Steve.
