He was invisible in the first two periods too. In fact, he hasn’t done much of anything since the 1st period of the Finland game when he was quite good and playing up to his capability next to Yager.
I don’t disagree that it’s worth a shot trying Martone on the 2nd line, but he hasn’t really given his coach a reason to do so. Despite his large frame he’s been content to play on the perimeter for much of the tournament and hasn’t done much to work himself into the middle of the ice to create offense from there (though he’s far from the only forward I’ll criticize for this). Contrast that with Pinelli, who’s been operating effectively between the hash marks, finishing a nice play set up by Price in the Finland game and creating a nice scoring opportunity for himself yesterday. He also made a key shot block late in the Czechia pre-tournament game, and everyone knows coaches love that shit. The only knock I’ll make on Pinelli is the penalty call late in the Latvia game, but I think most would agree that was pretty weak and likely not called in the O.
And for the record, two things:
1. I didn’t have Pinelli on my team coming out of the selection camp in early December. I thought he should have been cut from camp in favour of Sennecke. You can go back into my posts from early December. I like to think I’m fairly unbiased when it comes to matters affecting our national team (though I am a 67s fan).
2. IMO, Cameron has made some highly questionable decisions, in terms of roster selection and now player deployment. I don’t feel the need to defend him. Again, I questioned Cameron’s decision making, capabilities to coach this particular team, and tactical tendencies a month ago - check my post history if you don’t believe me. Having Bonk quarterback the PP (and Howe playing on the PP) is inexcusable. Not dressing Rehkopf is dumb. I didn’t think the team was well prepared to play last night, including our special teams. How he’s configured the lines and D pairings and dolled out ice time shouldn’t really be the primary concerns at the moment imo. The players need to play better, they need to play more physical, they need to forecheck harder and force turnovers by the opposition D-men, they need to attack the middle of the ice, and they need to finish.
