After riding a three game win streak, they had two tough home games this weekend (NJ on Friday and Philly on Sunday). I was figuring that they would need to win at least one of those games. So what happened? An embarrassment on Friday in which they were beaten 5-0. WAY too many turnovers. It was shocking. I can normally sit through most games but I just had to turn it off and peek in periodically because it was so ridiculous. Halpern summed it up best after the game and just said basically that every aspect of the game sucked.
Then last night, an okay performance but for the second game in a row, we were blanked. Had good chances but not enough.
The thing is I just don't see much from this team. Even if we get to the playoffs, they have not shown enough resiliency or toughness or consistency to make me believe they would do much.
Frankly, we are dangerously close to falling into fourth place in the division as the streaking Lightning are only one point behind us. With the Panthers winning yesterday and opening a 5 point lead for the division, that seems impossible to catch given our play. The thing is we are still only one point out of the 8 seed but it really is hard to think of playoffs right now.
Two critical divisional games this week (Carolina on Tuesday and TB on Thursday). Will be interesting to see if we can muster wins against these teams. If we lose both, we will be getting close to packing in the season. Hopefully the Caps will make me eat my words.
8 comments:
Ovie getting benched in the second period says a lot about his leadership and where this team is. Then, after the game instead of taking responsibility Ovie tried to say that he wasn't benched. He claimed that Hunter just wanted better matchups.
Right - anyone who believes that is an idiot. If Ovie is supposed to be the best player then you automatically put him in to create a favorable matchup.
The benching must be for ongoing conduct and multiple mistakes the guy is making - but it is not the kind of thing that should happen to a Captain and leader of a team that is fighting for the playoffs.
Hunter said the same thing about the "benching."
Ovie did play much of the third period. It was the entire top line (MoJo and Brouwer) that didn't play much. So it's hard to say whether it was just Ovie or there was a benching.
We just need to be clear on the facts.
Come on dude - it is obviously a benching. If it wasn't a benching then what does that say about how bad Ovie and the top line are?
This is another example of how you just take what someone says as fact when it is obvious that it is not fact.
I don't disagree that it was a benching. I was just saying that if it was a benching, it wasn't just a benching of Ovie...it was a benching of the entire first line.
Second, Ovie got basically twice the amount of ice time in the third period so then he must have been playing doubly as good.
Maybe. Or maybe he called Hunter a fat f**k and Hunter decided to wear him out. That we really don't know.
It is looking more like Ovie needs a reset and the whole organization is going to have to look at where it stands and who the problem guys are.
There is just an overall vacuum in leadership - I think they have talent.
It is clear they are lacking in talent. MoJo did not step forward. Ward was a mistake. Knuble is too old. Semin is not consistent. Ovie needs to work harder and not rely solely on his talent. Backstrom is hurt. Laich is a blue collar worker that is solid. Halpern is older. Chimera is fast but not the most skilled.
There is talent but not so much that it should be a surprise that they are where they are. Yes, there are other problems but the talent isn't what we thought it was.
It should be good enough to make the playoffs - they are just underperforming.
Agree. It is a combination of issues with this team.
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