Kreider should be the perfect power forward. It's up to him what he wants to do with his career. So far this season it's mediocrity.
Kreider is the power forward but he cant do it all by himself. You need to hit as team. Kreider needs a wakeup call and soon. Put him with hayes/step/duclair Put hagelin with stepan and st louis.
Tampa is the best team in the NHL right now but in all 3 games they cruised through the slot without a care in the world, just need to watch out for the errant high stick poke check. Watching Staal flail at Connolly on the second TB goal and then incredibly drop down on a knee to provide an effective screen makes it more evident he's not even worth Klein money. Hunwick is a good stopgap in case of injury but he should be not an everyday player when there are far better options in Allen or McIlrath waiting in the minors. Your birthday gift is that this was the last regular season game against Tampa Mel.
Guess we lost last night...LOL. Another board meltdown. Hank sucks. The team sucks. McD isn't good. AV is clueless. You really cannot make this stuff up. We need to be 82-0 otherwise everyone sucks. YES that was a crappy loss. Stinks that TB owned us this season. If we see them in the ECF, and that's the most likely place we'd see them unless they win a division and we are a WC, we'd have our hands full because we don't match up great with them and Bishop really has our #. But with that all said it was one game last night. To me it is crystal clear what happened. We were playing great, took a 3-2 lead, had a great 5 on 3 PK to hold onto the 3-2 lead, the Garden was jumping, and then Moore and McD stupidly didn't just fire the puck down the ice for a stoppage and were too concerned with icing, and boom TB scored to tie it at 3 and deflated the whole building and team. That's it. From that moment on the team lost it. That goal was a crusher. As soon as TB scored I got angry at home because I knew what a goal like that meant. Now with that said, is it ridiculous that we were that fragile a goal like that after a huge PP took all the life from us...of course it is ridiculous...but that's what happened. TB is in our heads and that's all it took for us to fade. Shame of course, but we live on today. We have a tough stretch coming up starting at Detroit Saturday night. Then we host Pitt. And then travel to Western Canada to play Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary, before coming back East and ending the trip in Carolina. That is a tough stretch as Detroit, Pitt, Vancouver, and Calgary are all playoff teams. Let me see how we play in the next 6, 5 of which are on the road, then I will judge this team. If we get 4 or 5 points out of a possible 12 then I will start to be concerned. For now I chalk it up to TB owning us right now, and a deflating goal (that never should have happened) we allowed right after a huge PK and that crushed us.
Can we get some kind of a winning streak going? Hank does not suck but he needs to come up with at least 2 saves on those 5 goals and who knows, we would've gotten at least a point out of this game.
The good thing from these losses to TB is maybe it alerts(it takes a sledgehammer)management to what they still need to be an upper echelon SC team. We'll see if they make any moves before Xmas which is doubtful, or wait it out into Feb/March. I still think they could use a dman who can hit more than the bopsie twins but definately another forward who can get around the net and finish.
This team I do not think is capable of stringing 5 to 8 wins in a row. The most they have won in a row has been four..... and that is over a two year period. For some reason, they have difficulty.......and that is why they are an inconsistent team.
The big problem lately which is correctable is flat out dumb penalties which kill momentum they've had.
Instead of a trade AV could replace the diminutive Hunwick with a more physical Allen or McIlrath. Miller's replacement of Glass produced an immediate positive result for the 4th line, perhaps the answer to the lack of physicality by the defense lies no further than Hartford. Hunwick's speed is irrelevant when he's pinned to the boards by a larger opposing forechecker. Substitute Allen/McIlrath for Hunwick/J. Moore for a 5 game stretch and see if a comparable result to the 4th line's improvement could be obtained.
Amazing we have imbeciles in our fan base calling Lundqvist an idiot when he basically got this team into the playoffs almost every year of his career pretty much by himself. A good example of why a lot of players don't want to play in NY. One-fourth the teams forwards are rookies. It doesn't help when Kreider and Zucc have basically had their head up their ass all season. Or the fact AV has played Glass every game he was healthy and he has sucked. I would start shopping Zuccarello to see what offers he could bring. It's nice that he's a great guy and liked in the lockerroom. Howevever, the league has caught up to him. He's not close to being the 59 point player he was last year and I really have no interest in the team paying him 4 million over 4 years. If I could swap Zuccarello for McGinn and a pick right now, I would. Buchevich is taking a roster spot next season. Duclair and Hayes should be much better in year two.
Dump I'm high on Buch too but you can't just pencil him in for a spot on the big club, you never know how the young Russian guys will adjust to North America. Remember the last guy you had making the club in his first year? it took him 2 years to get called up, played about 25 career games and is now back in Mother Russia. Real big gamble to bank on him being on the roster.
I wouldn't mind seeing what they could get for zucc also off of last season. League has seemed to caught up to him in regular play and the goalies in shootouts not being fooled anymore either. Big risk signing him to a multi-year contract for what he will want. If can't get a good body for him a high pick in next years draft (first couple rounds)would be fine and then bringing up a kid like haggerty who can score and has some size would be a good person to take a look at. I can't wait for buch to get here either next year. I'm wondering with duclair sitting as much as he is if the rangers are looking to play him just under the 40 games which would delay his free agency year by one down the line.
