This is the kind of game where it's apparent Sutterhockey no longer really works for this team.
I've seen 3-4 different ways of beating Sutterhockey this year and part of why we were so successful in the past--stubborn adherence to system, trying to slam a square peg into a round hole hard enough that you finally break a ****ing square in the wall--is part of what's undoing us lately. It's predictable, but we aren't executing; it's stale, there's no passion; and we've gotten away from the kind of personnel that made that system work. Love the guy, best coach in Kings' history, probably too late to fire him and maybe he deserves to ride off on his own into the sunset anyway, but I watched that whole first period completely red with anger as I watched Capitals strategically fly the zone, put a d-man where the puck was going to end up, and just play pond hockey all over the gaps. Part of it is their individual skill absolutely, but they're being led by a coach who knows exactly how to use those talented players to just expose every hole. Meanwhile, I could draw every play the Kings will use coming out of their end on one 8x11 paper, and we're no longer big enough to bully the other team, fast enough to beat them to the spots, or skilled enough to improvise in a way that will lose them. We've completely lost our identity to pick up more speed.
...I mean it's 1 to 1 but if we win this game it's a miracle.
