The coach's job is to make game adjustments as soon as you see your team is getting horribly outplayed. Gallant does zero adjustments until too late. Playing Rooney and Reaves in every game does not make sense when you have better options.
Nope, nope and nope. Maybe...MAAAYYYYYYBBBBBEEEEEEEEEE Hunt in place of Reaves if the prospect for a physical game 6 is low. However, I still think they are better off sticking with Reaves and making it physical game. The Canes don't play well when the games are particularly physical, the key for the Rangers is bringing that edgy play. Establishing a forceful physical presence is the driving factor for the Rangers to win.
You can't make excuses but not having Goodrow and Blais in the playoffs is a bad thing for this team. Honestly, they have done amazing well considering two guys they brought in with Stanley Cup expereince have barely played in the playoffs. If they can win game 6, anything can happen in a game 7. Maybe the Canes get tight. I'm excited to potentially see Othmann and Cuylle make this team soon. They are the types of players that project well to NHL playoff hockey.
I know you're a super fan, but admitting we lost fair and square because we didn't play well doesn't make you any less virtuous.
Kreider who's supposed to be the defacto captain and is their leading goal scorer has one shot on goal over three games in Carolina. That's unacceptable.
The bar we set for some of the dmen is interesting. Truthfully I think all of the dmen have been pretty good outside of Nemeth. Not perfect, make mistakes as all players do, but overall I think our dmen have been solid to good - maybe outside of a couple of up and down games in Pitt where the whole team collapsed. You need your best players to play that way in big spots. Panarin has been pretty invisible the whole playoffs outside of the game 7 winner, and Kreider has not shown up in Carolina. We need better from those two guys I believe. Hopefully we'll see it in game 6.