Haven’t gotten to read the whole thread yet but I will, just copying and pasting the notes I took when I finally watched the game at 3 am haha. Then gonna get some coffee and see how off I am
Real fun game between two teams who should be competing for the division. I love this team’s speed and aggressiveness now, they aren’t going to back down. And that’s a nice change.
So the guys we put in a position to succeed succeeded and the guy we put in a position to fail failed? Who knew!
Presesaon doesn’t matter and game 1 is just game 1, but the guys who took preseason seriously are flying, the guys who didn’t aren’t, and the guys coming off injuries/surgeries are by and large still getting going. Reminded me a little bit of the John Stevens offseason where everyone was saying preseason doesn’t matter then the vets who were sucking ass all preseason carried that over…hoping they’re still just shaking off the rust.
Those terrible 2nd periods are an ongoing pattern as is the bad bench management (too many men, bad line changes). Only 3 coaching staffs have more TMM calls over the last few years (not a problem last night, just a stat/symptom of the issue).
Quick does not look prepared to retire. Thank goodness. But reduce his workload or we will kill him. Imagine we see Cal vs. Seattle, hope he’s shaken off the LBI and the brain fog.
Kempe-Fiala seem to have some nice rush chemistry but Kopitar will never be able to join them, haha. That line got wrecked all night, father time is here for AK, picked up right where he left off last season, getting buried in his matchups. Fiala is better on the boards/in traffic than I thought, he’s like a speedier Iafallo there, but with high end vision. Watching him just casually muscle Pietrangelo was awesome and really highlighted his strength. I can see a little more why they thought he’d be a good complement too.
Nice line looked a little out of sync, Arvidsson also coming back from injury though. They had some real strong shifts in the 3rd, Logan Thompson low key came up big—everyone was looking at Quick and for obvious reason but LT was quietly strong all night too (but I’m biased, I’m a big fan and I think he’s their answer in net).
Byfield-Vilardi-Iafallo is the start of something beautiful, that first goal had me PUMPED, and that’s a huge confidence boost early in the year for them. Nice that it was a hard working goal finished with skill, they’ll need that to be successful. Byfield’s size and stick are allowing him to make up for him learning positioning vs. other great centers in the league. There were several times in the first when he was battling karlsson who was able to keep creating a small amount of space using his body but wasn’t able to get shots off due to QB’s stick.
4th line was relatively quiet but that’s good, they did some good checking and special teams work, I think Grundstrom put a dude into the bench
I knew something bad would happen w Durzi on the left side. Our veteran isn’t ready because he was injured so we’re going to put in our most defensively deficient kid on the left side instead is certainly some reasoning, especially vs. a veteran team. Most of the dmen looked a little rusty. Roy was just throwing the puck away a lot; everyone was looking at Durzi but often it was Roy’s mistakes putting them in bad spots. Anderson and Edler were physical but playing kind of sloppy in doing so.
I didn’t like Arvy’s body language there at all honestly, like yeah dude you did your job swooping around to provide an option for the breakout, that’s the bare minimum responsibility, congrats! no need to throw your hands up like Lundqvist because you didn’t immediately get the puck.
Eichel’s stupid face and body language are going to piss me off for a long time
that’s one cocky dude. Deservedly to a degree, imo, but still. Hate that he’s in our division but his health is good for the game. But I’ll never be able to unsee Marv from Home Alone.
It is becoming more and more apparent that at some point this season the D will be something like
Doughty/Anderson
“Soucy”/Clarke
Edler/Roy/Durzi/Spence
As the D needs a little more snarl, size, and balance. We have too many of the same/similar players with slight builds and slightly different O/D focus in Roy/Walker/Durzi/Spence
And Mark Stone is the man.
