Assorted Thoughts on Last Night's Loss

Thought number one: bleugh! So, we lost 3-2 to the team closest to a playoff berth's doorstep. A bad night for us in the standings all around, as we sat in 7th place and gained 0 points, while the teams in 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th (each of which has at least one game-in-hand over us) each gained 2. Boo, additionally hiss.

Let's see. The game was at home, we lost in regulation by one goal, and we played almost the entire third period in the opponent's zone, getting chance after chance and not finding the back of the net. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like the game we lost Sunday afternoon in Tampa, huh?

A quick word on the officials. I think maybe Torts was out of line in blaming the officials for deciding the Tampa game, if only because I thought their incompetence also led to Prust's goal counting when it shouldn't have. But that doesn't mean the officiating wasn't awful, and last night's was even worse. From completely unjustifiable calls against the Rangers in the first two periods to blatant ignorance of no-brainer calls missed in the third, I'm not going to say that referees Brad Meier and Dean Morton did intentionally screw over the Rangers because of Torts's comments on Sunday...but there's certainly enough evidence there to corroborate anyone who would make such an implication.

Anyway.

The two forwards I've been complaining about recently are Artem Anisimov and Erik Christensen. Let's talk about it. For a while, I've been on this kick that all Anisimov is good for is a spinorama now and again. I'm disappointed in the way he fails to actually play physically, and I'm fairly convinced that much of his success this season is due to centering Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan. I'd probably rack up a handful of assists and have a badly below-average faceoff percentage pivoting those two also. I mean, for the three shifts I got in before my heart gave out. But, I honestly thought he looked pretty good last night. Better than usual, anyway. If the rest of the guys can teach him to hit people, and he can spend the summer bulking up, I'm willing to keep giving him a chance. Good show.

Christensen, on the other hand, really pisses me off. Whenever I finally start complaining about him out loud to other fans, he turns around and produces a bunch of points. He never actually improves his play, though, is the thing! He gets more ice time because he gets more points, and that's fine I guess? Maybe I just don't understand hockey, but I feel like Christensen just keeps being in the right place at the right time and sometimes not doing the incredibly stupid thing. I guess there's value in that, but it pisses me off that he keeps getting points, while other forwards put forth a much more solid effort and don't get rewards.

To name names, here are a couple: Vinny Prospal and Sean Avery. First of all, I need to come to Prospal's defense here. Yes, he made a dumb play that led directly to the Jochen Hecht's ultimately game-winning goal. But it was exactly the kind of dumb play I like! The puck is out at the point, on a Sabre's stick, and Vinny dives to make the steal. It's an error of a couple of inches, but if he grabs the puck, he's got a hundred-foot breakaway in front of him. He misses, and takes a second to get back, and by then it's too late, but I'm really not convinced I hate that. I sure don't know that I bench him for it, and I certainly don't use "but you're down 2-1 in the third" as an excuse to play differently. I like to see risks like that, and Prospal being 36 instead of 24 don't change that none.

And now it is time for my regular rant on Sean Avery's inexplicably depleted ice time. Sunday afternoon, in a game in which we were just that one elusive spark away from tying it, Avery was given a whopping 4:14 of ice time, including 36 seconds in the 2nd and 18 seconds in the 3rd. Last night, in a game in which we were just that one elusive spark away from tying it, Avery was given a much improved 9:10, all even strength, admittedly better distributed. More than Prust and Newbury, less than any other forward.

I know he's not putting up numbers these days, even when he is getting ice time. But I look at the way he protects the puck with 3 guys on him and the way he eventually gets it out to some Ranger's stick every time, and I'm inclined to not care that his shot is awful; I'd rather have him out there in a pinch than a lot of the other guys that Torts seems to go to first, and I just can't wrap my head around why. It doesn't seem like Torts actively dislikes Avery, more like he default "I don't know what to do now" answer is "stick Avery on the 4th line for a while," and Sean has done nothing to deserve that but play good hockey. I just wonder if a couple of these one-goal losses might not have gone differently if Avery had been given a real chance to be a difference-maker? It's meaningless postulating, I know, but what else are blogs for?

Defense! First of all, small sample sizes notwithstanding (we're 0-2-0 with him in the lineup), I like Bryan McCabe so far. He hasn't yet done anything worthy of scorn as a defenseman, and he's been a presence on the power play so far. Cautious approval. The down side, as Scotty Hockey points out (that's more or less what he does), is that the Rangers already seem to be trying to make McCabe the guy that does the shooting, the trap we sometimes fall into with Gabby. A couple of times last night, Zuccarello should have taken a shot and instead passed it to McCabe for a much worse chance, because McCabe is the guy that does the shooting. Anyway, that's not his fault. Maybe it'll wear off. And he does have a pretty good, quick shot from the point, something we could use.

Meanwhile, I'm going to do the unthinkable here: I'm going to criticize Michael Sauer a little. Not just for being out of position twice in a row to lead to the Sabres' second goal, but I think he's been looking a step behind for a little while now. I'm not saying we cut the kid, I'm not even really saying we should do anything different with his ice time. All I'm saying is he hasn't been the surprisingly solid player over the last few games that he was a couple of months ago. That's okay. Do with it what you will.

Finally, a quick round of applause to Ryan Miller. Not that we couldn't have maybe won the game on our own anyway, but damn if that guy doesn't make it hard to come back from behind. He is good at hockey, from a goaltending perspective.

Onwards and ideally upwards, I guess? It's getting awful hard to look at all these one-goal losses where we worked really hard at the end as one-offs, as the bigger picture tells us we're 2-4-0 in our last 6, 4-8-0 in our last 12, and 7-12-1 dating back to January 13, when we played our most solid 2-way home game of the season and beat the Canucks 1-0. Since then, we have won only three games without the aid of the much-maligned shootout, though we have played 20.

You heard me: four shootout victories notwithstanding, we have won three hockey games decided by actual hockey out of our last 20. Gone are the very brief days when we were referred to as a "possible Eastern Conference contender." We've got the Wild Thursday night, the Senators the following night, and the Flyers again on Sunday afternoon. If we don't start consistently coming away from these games with 2 points, we're gonna find ourselves trying to scrape our way into eighth again come April. Anyone else feel like it's time to stop playing every game from behind?

Top Five Things I Like Today

5. When I woke up yesterday morning, my girlfriend said to me, "sorry about the shootout [from the previous night]." My reaction was, "meh, we played a good game, so did they, it ended in a tie. Then we played the weird skills competition game and they earned themselves a free Bettman Point. Teams do that all the time - we've got five Bettman Points so far on the season ourselves. Whatever. Why should a 7-round shootout affect how I feel about a hockey game?" She then revealed to me that her father, who attended the game, heroically Walked The Fuck Out after overtime, and did not stick around for the shootout. Awesome.

Those aren't the #5 Thing I Like Today, they're the lead-up. The Thing in question is that we have a coach who basically feels the same way, and is willing to say it. Asked about why we went first instead of our usual second, Torts explained that we'd be going back in the future: "[Lundqvist] talked to me, he feels more comfortable making the first save. It's kind of his show in that silly skills competition we do, so... I have to listen to him."

Silly skills competition, indeed.

4. I know it's a Penguin doing it, but still: this.



3. The title of this video on YouTube is not the point. I watched it without sound. The point is just two guys, chilling and watching a basketball game.



2. Torts again! Comes out and says "I agree that Staal shouldn't be suspended, he sucker-punched a guy but it wasn't a huge deal, it wasn't dirty, intent-to-injure-type stuff" (I paraphrase here, of course). Then calls the league to ask why no one penalized Orpik for shouldering Avery in the head - not saying it was dirty, just that it really should have been penalized. The obvious implication: "you would have called a penalty if this were anyone but Avery, and if the situation were reversed, it would have been a suspension." Here's Brooks's take.

1. The long-awaited return of Vinny Prospal to the lineup tonight. That is so fucking cool. I hope he's good again. Also, despite his return, Staal will keep the A, which is bonus-awesome. Clearly, Newbury sits. Looks like the first line will be Prospal-Stepan-Gaborik? That's a pretty good line. I'd bitch a little about that obviously meaning Avery will end up on the fourth with Drury, except as we learned 2 nights ago, they're more guidelines than they are lines, and everyone will skate with everyone else.

Bonus: Fuck you, fatty! Spend the second half of April fucking your sister-in-law or whatever, you won't be playing hockey!

Nothing to write home about

I have a whole block of free time at work right now, and there is somehow nothing to say. I haven't gotten back to my big scary spreadsheet, so my big number thing isn't ready yet, and there's nothing I want to say about last night's game. I can't even post another Kovalwatch yet, because my last post was about him! It's so hard to be me.

There's nothing I want to say about last night's game because I don't want to put forward more effort than the Rangers did. Talk about sleeping through half a game. If we're honest, we didn't see a ton more effort than that in the home-and-home against the Islanders, but we won anyway, because it was just the Islanders. It took Prust's shorthanded goal to wake the Rangers up, and we proceeded to play an okay second half of a game, just not good enough to actually score any more goals.

It's technically true that we lost the game in the last 2:30, within which Ottawa finally took the lead and then sealed it with an empty netter, but we truly lost it in the first 30:00, during which we played flat hockey. The Frankenline of Avery, Christensen, and Gaborik just can't produce, due to it not making any sense. Gaborik is a good goal-scorer who can shoot the puck fast and hard, Christensen can make clever stick moves now and then, and Avery can chip the puck in deep, maintain possession, and win one-on-one battles. Individually, those are each useful, but no one on this line seems to ever know what anyone else on it is doing.

Dubinsky and Callahan have definitely taken a step back basically since Gaborik returned. Some of this is possibly mental: the pressure is no longer on them to step up and lead (only, it is, because Gaborik isn't actually going to win games by himself). I also wonder if some of it is due to the center rotation: there was some chemistry with Anisimov (though I don't necessarily disagree with the switch to Stepan). However, I'm sad to say a good deal of it is likely regression to the mean. I love Brandon Dubinsky, but he was never going to stay on the pace of 10 goals in 13 games.

Anyway, it's only one loss right now, and we shouldn't be running to the hills or anything, but it's time we started to see some real top-line production. Drury and Prospal can't come back soon enough. On them, word is that Drury has been skating in full equipment, passing but not yet shooting. There's some hope that he could return in 7-10 days. Prospal is also skating, but not yet in equipment (of course, there is still no timetable for him). It would really be nice to have these guys back, huh?