Pokecheque wrote:
Chris18 wrote:
3-1 loss to the Avs. I watched a little. Isles hit a few posts. I keep thinking their luck will change, then I remember the 17 game point streak and think "oh. It already did."
Back into a WC spot, with Carolina, Columbus and the Leafs all right there as well. 4 days to pull off an "all in" move or pull the plug.
Friday- hosting the Wings, on John Tonelli night. #27 will be raised to the rafters, yet still worn by Anders Lee.
I watched the game. Avs were pretty much dominant in the 1st, then it turned into a slog more along the lines of what the Isles like to play, but they just couldn't capitalize. Isles did what they always do to teams and tried to box the opposing team out, and it was largely successful, but the Avs did a much better job than lately of getting guys in front of the net. Two of the three goals scored were off deflections. Varly did quite well all things considered.
Isles desperately need a dynamic puckmover on the back end. Leddy et al are simply not enough. You can see what a guy like that can do for a team when you see Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes do their thing, Isles need that guy. It was way too easy for the Avalanche to zero in on Barzal and shut him down.
I don't know. When they're playing well, Leddy, Toews and Pulock are all pretty dynamic. Dobson is good with the first pass. I don't know if there's an illness going through the team that they're not talking about, stress over the deadline, or just general "it's mid-season" bleh.... But they don't look anything like they did 2 months ago. The entire team looks slow. I think their main need is a real sniper for Barzal to get the puck to. Someone who moves around to get open and can quickly convert his passes to scoring chances. That sounds like it would be pretty easy to do; just shoot. But for some reason they struggle with it. The best shooter on the team is Nelson, but he's also a center, so they never play together. Maybe they need to bring in another C and move Nelson back to wing again. But I don't think Nelson and Barzal worked well together in the past.
Wings tonight. And I don't mean my dinner menu.