I crap on him a lot, and rightfully so, but Mikkola played a really strong game tonight. He made a BEAUTIFUL, complete cross ice, neutral zone, saucer pass, RIGHT ON THE TAPE of a steaking winger on one breakout and with God as my witness I screamed out loud, "THAT'S HOW YOU PASS BIG GUY!" in my living room.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but for me the turning point of this game happened before the first Buch goal. On our first shift of the second period, there was a moment when Schenn was breaking into the offensive zone along the near boards. He crossed the blue line and had ROR behind him standing still on the wall. Since the Dallas game, I've noticed that in these types of situations, we almost 100% of the time drop the puck back to the guy standing still at the blue line - which has led to a lot of turnovers and broken plays, as that guy gets clamped down on by the backchecking winger and coughs up the puck. In this instance though, Schenn actually took a shot on net. Now it was a harmless shot that was deflected into the corner by the goalie, but I remember it so vividly b/c I thought to myself, holy shit, we actually shot the puck for once. That shot led directly to the offensive zone pressure from the end-of-shift ROR line to the beginning-of-shift Thomas line, which led directly to Buch's first goal. I guess my point is, this team has tried to get -way- too cute on offense recently, and that poor puck management has cost us wins. This was a textbook situation where just heading North and making the smart, simple play led to a much better outcome (and arguably sparked us for the rest of the way to the win). I love those little moments in a game that seem kinda random but actually make a big difference and for me, this was one of them. Kudos to Schenn for playing the game the right way and "dragging us into the fight," kinda thing.
