I don't think anyone is really worried about 1 bad period. I think people just are more worried about our team not showing up a most games for 1-2 periods at a time.
I do think Hitch has a huge weakness in some of his personal decisions. Right now mostly the Jackman Polak pairing. It's not a one period or game thing. It's a pairing he used in the playoffs against the Kings. That pairing is a huge liability in moving the puck out of the zone. It was a poor pairing in the playoffs. It's still a poor pairing.
I personally could careless about where we finish in the regular season. The Playoffs are really all that matter. Our team does show some alarming patterns with play this season against possible playoffs match ups.
Our team should win in the 1st round. We should have beaten the Sharks that year we were the top team in the league as well.
Our team does have some glaring flaws to it. I don't think it's unreasonable to discuss them.
The real test will be the playoffs. I think everyone here would like us to go rolling into the playoffs with some wins against possible playoff match ups. Of course this game is not a make or break us game. It still would be nice to see our team play better.
I don't think Hitchcock's line pairings are bad decisions. We've all but clinched our division, so what's the problem with experimenting? (Yeah, the Jax/Polak line isn't working.)
Also, we're missing Tarasenko and Steen, that's playing a huge role right now. I think we got lazy. Blame the players, not the coach, and don't judge playoff performance on such a small regular season sample size.