Post-Game Talk: Mallard

[gravey9]

Yep. They absolutely caved in the Anaheims by any measure. Shit happens. This is not the loss to be upset about. Though Halak has been pretty crummy, but they should have had way more than two goals. Not seeing the reason for panic in this one and certainly not gonna criticize the coach.
I do hope they put VK in next game. Though Carpenter, Vesey, Gauthier have been excellent. Maybe Blais needs to sit a bit. He has been ok but just a little break couldn’t hurt. He’s still getting his game together.

Listen I agree with the idea that the Rangers had the puck in the O zone the majority of the game but they are losing the netfront battles far too much. They need to claim the paint. Screens and rebounds. And on D they need to block shots. Until they do that, it’s just a lot of great looking stats and decent zone time. But teams just know they can keep us from winning the netfront battles or they know we are prone to lazy plays with the puck and we are just gonna keep paying for it despite applying decent pressure.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

Laf has a 2 point game and the kids were the team's best forwards the night before, so Gallant punishes Laf with only 13 mins of ice time...

How are these kids supposed to develop like this.

And the team loses to Gordon Bombay's district 5 pee wee team...

Fire clown Gallant already.

 

[CLW]

When Jacob Trouba leads your team in shots and shot attempts at 5v5 by a fairly substantial margin that is not a good thing.

That's really weird seeing that Trouba supposedly has a hand/wrist injury? Hmm. It's not as if his shots have been noteworthy either...

 

[Clark Kellogg]

I don't think they have played that many minutes to be concerned. Every team plays it's best players more minutes. There have been a lot of complaints actually about how many minutes the 3rd pairing and 4th line gets by Gallant.

Fatigue would explain how they’ve been shooting. Top four forwards all played deep into the playoffs (though Trocheck 2 less weeks) and players these days give themselves a couple of weeks off from their last game and get right into training in their offseason. All are on the wrong side of 29. On defense, Adam Fox is young but Gord Murphy has been running up his minutes as the team’s been struggling to stay above .500. Trouba’s been playing hurt and their’s an outside chance that Miller’s been staying back to protect his best bud hurting his own play in the meanwhile.
You could even make a case for Shesterkin not being fully mentally rested after his world wind season and newborn over the break. Igor has started 75% of his team’s first 20 games.
I could be reaching but it is just a theory.

 

[RangerBoy]

Panarin has become an $11,652,857 power play specialist.

 

[JHS]

Terrible end to the road trip morale wise. There's no doubt that 6 posts is bad luck but this team still can't finish. The star players, Mika in particular, looked terrible. Mika seriously can't handle a pass or make a play at all, whether he has time or not.

Gibson has been dog shit all season. The Ducks have the worst PK in the league and our PP could barely muster any clean looks or really set anything up aside from that one Mika chance that hit the outside of the post.

Lots of chances and posts but they still looked really disjointed and tons of chance in tight were flubbed or botched and guys hesitating and looking pass when they should shoot and vice versa.

You have to get Kravtsov back in but the 4th line was like the only consistent line the whole trip. Still, have to take one of them out. Knowing Gallant, he sticks with the same lines.

You 100% don’t need to get Kravsoft back in. The guys future here is already clear- he has none. Almost certainly will be part of the almost inevitable trade for Kane that’s coming pretty soon.

 

[JHS]

This is a fire alarm loss …
We have fallen back to the pack and we are getting worse …
Our best players are in their 30’s and our youth and razor thin depth give us balls ..
There’s nothing in Hartford - two of our top 12 belong in Hartford ; Blais & Carpenter- possibly even 4 - Gauthier & Jones .

Every move Drury makes is a bad one … he’s all alone too - no ex GM ‘s to sound off with no hockey Guy president no one …

He’s In over his head…

He mis read the league - he chose to stand Pat believing in whores like kravtsov.

His plan to squirrel up cap space - assets and cash to land Kane has backfired miserably.

Kane ? We need 2-3 more pieces to make the wild card let alone a cup run.

This is why hanging onto cap space last deadline was an asshole move .
It didn’t carry over.

He may very be faced with off loading a big salary here - Panarin etc.

The holes have become craters

The speed has evaporated.

The shine is off Gallant - he’s starting to look really beat up too behind the bench .

We’re in deep trouble and shit is around the corner .

Btw the guy we named captain is in serious decline .
His lack of right - left mobility is startling .

I agree with the Drury part but I will say the tone here is over the top negative.

This was the last game in a long road trip. Teams are bound to look ahead in games like this. The Rangers played like they did not respect the Ducks.

Now with respect to the roster- yeah it was obvious this roster was a significant downgrade from last year. When Vesey is in your top 6 that’s a desperate SOS moment. The guy was so bad in the eyes of every other team in the league that he did not even get a contract and had to prove he could do anything.

I’m very confident the Reeves trade signals the front office is about to shake up the trash heap of a roster we have shortly. Now whether any of the other NHL teams want our trash is an entirely different story.

 

[Shesterkybomb]

Fine you wanna mention the posts let's mention 4 horrible pp's against by far the worst pk in the league. There is no bad luck involved in that.

We let a key piece of our pp go from last year and are trying to force a square peg in a round hole to justify it. Trochek either needs to figure it out or get off pp1

 

[savebyrichter94]

We let a key piece of our pp go from last year and are trying to force a square peg in a round hole to justify it. Trochek either needs to figure it out or get off pp1

You could be right but I don’t really see Vinny as the problem, for me it’s the absolute refusal to take any shots besides Mika’s one timer 99% of the time combined with Panarin and to some degree Fox over passing and forcing passes

Kreider and to some extent Trochek being somewhat stationary is one thing, they’re playing net front and bumper but the other guys need to move and rotate more

Is there a rule that says we can’t have Mika and Bread moving around and alternating being in that one timer spot? Or how about a left handed one timer option on the other side instead of having players who all need to be on the same side of the ice to shoot off the pass?

Sorry if this sounds combative not picking a fight this team just always seems to make things harder on themselves than need be and it’s frustrating haha

 

[DialUp]

The ducks first regulation win. No one should be surprised.
It has been, and will continue to be one of those years. Who will be our olli jokinen on the shootout?

 

[HockeyBasedNYC]

I am pissed more than disgusted or disappointed.

To me, last night was a microcosm of the season. The teams identity right now is being on the wrong side of the law of averages.

They scored first. 8-0-1 going into the game, tied for first in the league. They lose.

Anaheim in game 20 hasn’t won a single game in regulation. They win in regulation.

Seems like every game a rookie goalie or player who hasn’t scored gets their first goal or win.

43 shots on goal, another 6-7 hit the post and only 2 go in? What were the high danger chances for an against? Had to be wildly lopsided.

Ducks with the worst pk in the NHL and they shut them out 0/4.

If Igor is in net they win. Halak is an issue. A big issue. He is looking like the 37 year old going on 38 he is. Bad choice bringing him in up to this point.

Halak needs to see an eye doctor, letting in goals that Vally would stop if he had the pads on.

Meanwhile on the other end Gibson is flailing around on the ice like a 4 year old who doesn’t want to eat his peas, making improbable stop after stop. The most untechnically sound 45 save win I’ve ever seen

 

[Chytilmania]

Does Schneider lead the team in 5v5 goals now?

How is it possible this team faces Dominic Hasek every night? I know they have periods where they don’t do shit but every goalie has a Herculean effort against them.

 

[AlaBlueShirt]

You could be right but I don’t really see Vinny as the problem, for me it’s the absolute refusal to take any shots besides Mika’s one timer 99% of the time combined with Panarin and to some degree Fox over passing and forcing passes

Kreider and to some extent Trochek being somewhat stationary is one thing, they’re playing net front and bumper but the other guys need to move and rotate more

Is there a rule that says we can’t have Mika and Bread moving around and alternating being in that one timer spot? Or how about a left handed one timer option on the other side instead of having players who all need to be on the same side of the ice to shoot off the pass?

Sorry if this sounds combative not picking a fight this team just always seems to make things harder on themselves than need be and it’s frustrating haha

Trocheck been one of the few positives in the top-6 this season. I like his game a lot.

About the powerplay. I wouldn’t mind Kane coming in. Could look something like this:
Kreider

Panarin Zibanejad Kane

Fox

Zib could easily rotate to far post and forcing the opposition to leave one of the two in the left side open.

 

[Leonardo87]

They played a solid game and just couldn’t finish. PP struggled, and yeah it struggled since it couldn’t score or have enough good looks against the league’s worst PK.

I wish everyone on HFboards on every fan thread would see what Gibson has to deal with night after night and maybe realize he isn’t the issue or is a bad goalie. Rangers had him under siege but fate already had been predetermined that the Ducks would get their first regulation win of the season, no matter what the Rangers threw at them.

Anyway, regroup, get rested, and get ready for Sat!

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

Halak stinks

Larry mentioned it last night but tragic they gave this guy a NMC to convince him to sign

 

[gump116]

Halak cost the Rangers this win. Hey Drury how about getting a better backup that can steal a game or call up Garand. Do something.

Really think a lot of this year and the narrative on his team can be put on Halak. He’s had a couple good games but mostly been pretty bad. It’s really hard to recover from your goalie letting in 2 bad goals, especially when the other goalie is playing well.

Not all his fault, but Rangers are 0-5-1 in games he’s started vs 10-2-3 in games he hasn’t. If they were just 3-3 in his games the overall record would look a lot better and there wouldn’t be nearly the same amount of concern and confusion around this team’s mediocre record compared to their improved on ice performance.

 

[LORDE]

It's just bad luck bro...

losing to a team that hasn't won in regulation and has the worst PK in the league.

embarrassing all around

Formula: play us and then do the thing

 

[TriFF51]

Should have won that game easily. Very frustrating to watch. The powerplay looks terrible however. Maybe it's how it's always been but there's absolutely no movement. They just all stay in their same spots pointlessly passing it around until it finally becomes a one timer for Mika.

 

[Hire Sather]

You don't expect it to burn you this much, but sometimes you make a mistake on who you pick as your backup.

Halak is a problem, and a big one. Hard to fix at the moment.

 

[romba]

I think Kakko’s joke of an ability to not Finish is contagious. The guy needs 15 open nets/breakaways/perfect deflections to get 1 measly goal. He’s the model xGF guy that our team has learned to perfectly emulate this season

 

[LORDE]

This team seems to do a great job at finding ways to lose

They can outshoot teams and lose

They can play defensively well and lose

They can have possession #s and lose

The only thing this team does really well is their inconsistency.

 

[mas0764]

Panarin has become an $11,652,857 power play specialist.

… who hasn’t scored on the power play in 11 games?

 

[DialUp]

Patiently waiting for our streak and everyone else to start losing. Any time now, thanks.

 

[mas0764]

Halak hasn’t been great but maybe try scoring more than 2 goals in a game your backup starts?

 

[romba]

You don't expect it to burn you this much, but sometimes you make a mistake on who you pick as your backup.

Halak is a problem, and a big one. Hard to fix at the moment.

I’m sure he’d be better with more playing time and it’s likely frustrating for him too, but unlike Georgiev who likely was told he was incumbent to Hank, Halak knows he was brought here to be the backup, and if it’s 2 weeks between starts he’s got to figure out a way to stay sharp