I'm pretty happy that last night was the first game of the season that I completely missed. The result was spoiled for me at my men's league game and I certainly wasn't going to stay up super late watching a game I knew ended as an 8-1 loss. Unfortunately, I did decide to watch the 10 minute game recap. Lot's of uninspired play, but I did have a couple takeaways.
Neighbours is trying the 'low to high' pass from the wall into the slot too often. 2 of them led to odd man rushes against last night, with one of them ending in our net. He's young, he's working on his ability to utilize teammates, and I'm pretty confident he can clean it up. Hopefully last night is a learning experience for him.
The bottom pair was awful. Neither Jospeh or Kessel resembled an NHL D man last night. I don't think either has looked particularly good this year and they once again played very limited minutes (13:56 and 10:40). I don't think there is really a solution to the bottom pair other than waiting for Leddy to get healthy. But man is it ugly when they are on the ice.
Awful, awful play by Bolduc for their 8th goal, but hopefully it doesn't cost him a spot in the lineup next game. Prior to that, he was noticeable a few times on the highlight package and he actually led all forwards in ice time. Looking at the shift log, Bannister increased his usage once the game was fully out of hand. I don't know whether that was more about the vets or Bolduc, but I like seeing him get a boost in minutes when the results aren't relevant. His mistake was a big one, but I hope it doesn't lead to a benching.
The goalies weren't as bad as I was expecting from the score and the underlying metrics. They weren't good, but I wouldn't say Hofer was our biggest problem last night.
Ugly game and I expect some more of these while Thomas and Leddy are out. Maybe not 8-1 ugly, but Buch isn't good enough at center to consistently outplay other 1Cs, Schenn just isn't a top 6 center any more, and the AHL-caliber bottom pair is probably going to keep getting beat up when they are on the ice. I don't think we are going to be in many games when the goalies aren't at their best.