its preseason so can't get carried away in either direction with results but...
for all the talk about being the hardest working team in the league there's been little to no sign of it, particularly from guys who should be going all out to try and earn a spot. its one thing for mika and trouba to look like they're going through the motions out there...but tonight was a garbage effort from almost the entire lineup, starting with igor. i'd say gauthier, chytil, barron were the only guys who showed much of anything and even that was limited to spurts. nils at least looked a lot more comfortable out there but wasn't anything special.
this was a pretty crap lineup and no ones really used to the players theyre on the ice with so have to take it all with a grain of salt. but so far in every game the most disappointing and concerning issue has been zero signs of any discipline within a system or purpose with the puck. its the same gongshow we've watched the last few years where the d are slapping pucks around or making long passes to guys standing still on the wall or leading them into lines with no real estate and no outlet. few pucks retrieved down low and purposeless slapping them around when they are, shots from awful spots..which if done to get rebounds for traffic in front are good...we just get forced outside with no support and fire from the goal line for whatever reason. no regroups where we cross the line with support and outlets that show any purpose of setting up a decent opportunity....all in all we're just running around without any structure all over.
again, its hard to know what can be attributed to weird lineups, new systems, preseason sluggishness and what should be setting off alarm bells. personally think this was just a garbage effort all around and not worth getting too worked up over. but if we see the same when we ice what will likely be what we start the year with the last two preseason games i will be worried. losses and mistakes happen...but the one thing with turk i absolutely expect to see substantial change in is the way we get the puck moving up ice and have a purpose to it. if we're the same shtshow slapping the puck around and unable to generate offense that doesn't come from a 2 on 1 or breakaway we're in for a rough start and potentially a long year.
was necessary - my bad.
