game has gotten better, phamtom call on braasard, what else is new in moantreal? didnt think brassard got a lot on that last shor b4 break
don't know what the real problem is right now, only thing i can think of is AV! .. rangers should have blown this team away 2nite
One thing that Im not agreeig with AV on is ice time. Tonight Dom Moore and Lee Stempniak both played 15 minutes. You know who else played 15 minutes...Kreider and Nash. How those 4 guys get the same burn is beyond me. Not sure if it's a strategic decision to keep the big guns fresh for later, but it's something to keep an eye on as we get deeper into the season.
I am sure that is it Prod. I know we all act like it is do or die, life or death, but it is the 8th game of an 82 game season. AV I am sure wants to keep things balanced and under control early, and I agree actually. I do think as we move on the better guys should inch up near 18 mpg or so, but for now I am good with some balance. Montreal is a very good team, no doubt better than the team we beat in the ECF, and not just because Price is back, they are better overall. We are not better overall at the moment. We can be once Boyle and Stepan come back, and assuming some of the younger guys get better, but at this moment we are not. We all love Kreider, but he only has 2 goals thus far. He needs to do more. MSL doesn't shoot enough. The guy has 13 shots in 8 games. I know he is a playmaker also, but come on now he must shoot more. 11 straight 25 or more goal seasons if you pro-rate the lockout season, yet he doesn't shoot. Last night he came off the boards on one play and was all alone never even a thought to shoot. Those guys each have 6 points thus far, so not playing poorly, but could do more I think. Hags 2 goals thus far...need more. MZA 1 assist thus far and is a -5...need more. Brass can do more. McD can certainly do more. 2 points in 8 games only a + 1...needs to do more. Glass is as useless as we all thought...-5 already. When Step gets back he should be out I think. Staal has made some boneheaded plays. If Sather gives him 5/6 years at 5.5/6 mill per he should be fired on the spot. That would be a terrible deal IMO. On the flip side Nash has been great. Stemp has been solid. I guess I miss it on Duke, because I have seen a kid that makes something happen almost everytime on the ice. Last night he may have been our best player. 4 assists in 6 games and a + 5 says it all IMO. Play him AV. Klein has been solid, best +/- on D. Moore, Girardi, and Hunwick have been okay as well. Last night was a tough game to win. Montreal is playing really well right now, 1 loss all season, and was home on a Saturday night looking for some payback (even though you cannot get payback for an ECF loss in game 8 they were still pushed by that). So I expected an L. I just didn't like the low % play by McD on the 1st goal or the terrible pinch and then cover no one play by Staal on the 3rd goal, but what can you do. It is clear we have not played near our best hockey. It is clear some players have gotten off to slow starts. Missing our # 1 C and a top 4 dman as well doesn't help. Yet here we are at .500 and sitting in an okay spot through 8 games, so to me we will get better. Figure 3 or 4 more without Stepan. 4 or 5 more with Boyle. Then we'll be ready to really roll.
based on the fact that it was an extremely emotional nite for the hab players , the 1st. 5 minutes of the game the rangers should have scored 3, price turned puck over a few times, 1 time in particular with net wide open, and of course we did not take advantage.... we played a horrible game for most of the nite, at least from my vantage point... and what is that? they are the better team? based on what? i don't know what the puck AV is doin with this team, but it has no identity! 1 nite malone is in the next few he's not... we had no physical presense in last nites game... he has messed up the little bit of chemistry the team had with his mixin, matchin and scratchin. its too early? that's nonsense? stop the crap, rangers play 3 games in 10 or so days, you play to win every game cause you don't know whats around the corner..
you call a player useless after a handful of games, and they have not played consistently, then you go on to crack on posters who are concerned after only a handful of games
Last year the regular lines weren't set until December. Im sure AV didnt want that to happen again, but when your number 1 C goes down and none of the young Cs look ready that's what happens. When Stepan gets back in a couple of weeks I expect the shuffling to stop. I still dont know how to feel about Malone. On the one hand this team got way smaller when Pouliot and Boyle left. Malone helps there. But while Boyle could kill penalties, play tough minutes in the d zone and take big faceoffs, Malone really can't do any of that. He might help on the PP but that's really not what you have 4th line guys in the line up for. You need 4th liners to contribute in other areas of the game. Malone is kind of stuck in between and that's why he isnt seeing regular time. Glass helps with some of that, but hes absolutely inept in the offensive zone. Boyle was twice the offensive player Glass is, and thats way more of a knock on Glass than it is a compliment to Boyle. I'd even rather have punching bag Dorsett right now over Glass. Chuck makes a good point about MSL but it's not just him, it's that whole damn line. Zucc-Brass-MSL were a disaster the second they were put together. MSL's 13 shots are still 1 more than Zucc and only 2 less than Brassard. They stink. They just play hot potato with the puck until somebody takes it from them. Way too small and too fancy to ever contribute in tough games. Thank god AV broke them up last night. I like Kreider with Nash but we need to balance size and scoring. AV will figure it out, he's given us no reason not to trust him yet. He just brought us to the finals in his first damn year here. But if we still have these lineup problems in say January, it might be a different story.
To me I don't like any 2 of Hags, MZA, MSL on the same line. Spread them out. Too small. The Brass/MZA line needs size on the wing like Pouliot. I actually wouldn't mind Malone or Kreider with them. MSL and Kreider maybe. Nash and Hags maybe. Some size and some smaller speed. And I would find a spot for Duke also. Way early, so we'll see how it plays out over the marathon NHL season.
I don't like putting any of them together either. Recipe for disaster in the playoffs. To me the only way to go is Nash-Stepan-MSL, Kreider-Brassard-Zucc. Problem is you're moving Nash to the left again but not sure how else it would work. I don't want to put Hags with Nash if I don't have to. Nash is a left shot so it hopefully shouldn't be too much of a difference. We can play with line combos all day so who knows.
i will not argue the logic in your posts. i will say this tho... a few month's ago, basically, this same team was in the cup finals, clearly sather did nothing to adress what is truly wrong with the team, "team toughness"! i just cannot undestand Y we did not pick up during off season what was obviously needed to win it all, 1 or 2 players away from gettin back there and we r posting give it time to get it together. that's quagmire!
Pasta to that I'd say Tanner Glass is a prime example of why you can't focus just on that. He's as tough as they come, hits everything that moves and had a pretty good scrap the other night. Got the crowd going and everything. But he's just so bad offensively that it overshadows everything else he brings to the table. Really surprised AV pushed for him because he doesn't seem to fit this system at all. We might as well have called Ryan Hollweg if Glass is what we were looking for, im sure he could do the same job for way less than 1.4m
