THE GOOD:
Pekka Rinne’s performance, even though I started the game being irritated with him after having a slight heart attack less than a minute into the period, watching Buffalo attack the net right out of the gate.
Joel Ward and Jerred Smithson paired on the first line penalty kill unit.
Francis Bouillon’s game. He was the ONLY defensive player who seemed to be doing anything good out there.
THE BAD:
Kevin Klein’s game.
Oh, let’s add Ryan Suter’s game to the list too.
THE UGLY:
David Legwand. No further explanation needed.
Last night’s game reminded me of a quote from “Cool Hand Luke” that my high school economics teacher liked to use all the time. “What we've got here is a failure to communicate.” It could be so much more than that but something just isn't clicking. Our play last night was pretty much the exact same as our play on Thursday night. The only difference maker on Thursday night was that we (somehow) found a way to score. If you delve further into our scoring so far, you'll notice that the top line has produced all of our goals. Aside from the shootout winner courtesy of Mike Santorelli, the second line of perfectly capable scorers has done nothing. On a team where the usual scorers come from the top two lines, this is not okay. And I haven't forgotten about the third and fourth lines either. The third line on Thursday had some good jump and surprisingly, the fourth line demonstrated some of that same jump last night. I guess now it's just a waiting game to see if that spark will somehow translate into scoring. Yes, it's just three games in and yes, this was just the first loss. But the games we've won were not by any stretch, games we necessarily deserved to win.
So, let's try this again, shall we? For the first Military Monday of the season, the Nashville Predators will host the Edmonton Oilers at the Sommet. The puck drops at 7:00pm and hopefully we'll get to see a goal or two scored for the home team this time around.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
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Rachel,
ReplyDeleteDo you think Pekka's performance warrants him coming back on Monday over Ellis, who as you know has the 2 wins on the year?
I'm not saying that I disagree with them splitting time right now, but I do disagree that Ellis gets bumped from Monday.
Oh, what a sore spot this whole dance of the rotating goalie subject is.
ReplyDeleteRight now it seems as though Trotz is using past season's performance to influence his decision on future play. That's a pretty smart move, in my opinion.
HOWEVER, I believe based on his pre-season and two games so far in regular season, Ellis is the better goalie for the moment. Trotz also likes the "ride them while they're hot" method, so I'm not sure how long this tandem #1 netminder business is going to last.