in hockey, sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. can't obsess over this one too much, kuznetzov basically beat us by himself honestly.
..hutton really had no chance on 3 of their goals. the one from winnick at the end of the second though was the real dagger tonight. other than one shot he actually played as well as you can play while giving up four goals.
..we simply couldn't generate any offense. we couldn't keep the puck out of our end, we couldn't generate any puck possession, and we could get shots thru.
..johansen was flat out terrible. easily his worst game. turnovers, penalties. WSH speed gave him fits all night.
..Wilson looks totally lost. a guy with zero confidence right now. if anyone gets healthy we need to sit him a few games to see if he can get his head together.
..Smith and Granberg with an awful play to give them the lead. Smith wasn't very good all night.
..It's not so much that we played horribly, I think WSH just is that good.
..Our first line needs two things. a guy with speed that can carry the puck into the zone, and a guy who can go to the front of the net. We have a playmaker and passer (Johansen)2 shots a game, a great sniper (Neal) 3 shots a game.. but then another passer in Jarnkrok (1 shot per game). We really need both some speed and someone to go bang in Neal rebounds.
..Arvidsson played very hard as he always does. Now we need consistent production out of him if he's going to be a true contributor.
..Our fourth line could get the puck in but couldn't generate any shots. (1 shot total in 11 minutes)
..our defensemen broke down on goals 1,3,4. blown coverages everywhere.
..hell of a shot by Forsberg on the pp. really got my hopes up for a few minutes that we might steal this one.
this was a true team loss. every forward on the team was a -1 except salomaki (0), and johansen (-2). Among the d-men only ellis and Jackman didn't blown coverage and the other 4 were all -2's. You just have to write it off as a bad night against the best team in the league on the road and come out ready to play Monday. You better, since it's probably the second best team in the league. For those that want to think positive STL still has two games to play against WSH.