Observations XXI

[Pred303]

i admit, i don't know whether to be thrilled that we got a point after being down by 3, or to be disappointed by the lost point after dominating the game so completely the last 41 minutes of the game. so i'll choose both i think. thrilled and disppointed.

..have no idea why we are playing so well defensively at home and so poorly on the road. no idea.
..face it, we were exceptionally lucky in this game. 2 high stick goals against called back. a solid post. ekholm's save behind saros. and we get the deflected goal from josi to get us back in it.
..johansen had 3 assists. yet he had an awful game. 3 assists that didn't really create goals from the shooters. and that god-awful giveeaway for the game winner.
..our so called 'first line' generated one shot between them in over 16 minutes of ice time, even with over 11 minutes of pp time between the 3. fiala/johansen with zero.
..i have to face it, johansen will never be a 20 goal scorer for us. not because he doesn't have the ability to, but because he doesn't have the desire to a goal scorer needs. he has fallen so in love with assists that he only shoots when he has no other option.
..those early defensive breakdowns were so complete it is hard to even figure out whose responsibility it was to cover the scorer.
..johansen got three 'gift' points. fiala one, ellis one. which sort of hides they all 3 played poorly to many.
..maybe that first goal was tipped by irwin like wily said. i didn't see that. it damn sure looked ugly on rinne to me.
..coach muse has to be the worst in game interviewee of anyone in the history of the preds. admittedly saros was always a close second.
..7 straight road losses. this is 2001 level pred stuff.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

...
..i have to face it, johansen will never be a 20 goal scorer for us. not because he doesn't have the ability to, but because he doesn't have the desire to a goal scorer needs. he has fallen so in love with assists that he only shoots when he has no other option.
...

I keep wondering... how on EARTH did he score 33 for Columbus????? 82-33-30-63... that is not a stats line I can even imagine from the RyJo we know. I guess end of the day, the way he has played in the playoffs gives me a lot of room for forgiveness on him. I can't imagine he doesn't have a dozen people harping on him constantly to take the shot more. But why can't he change? It wouldn't take much. Can we get some video from 2013/14? Tape his eyelids open and force him to watch it?

 

[Pred303]

johansen is on pace for a 12 goal/58 assist full season pace. 70 points
josi is on pace for a 17 goal/46 assist full season pace. 63 points

then on the other side of our 'balanced' attack;

jarnkrok is on pace for a 26 point year.
bonino is on pace for a 31 point year.
salomaki is on pace for a 12 point year.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

johansen is on pace for a 12 goal/58 assist full season pace. 70 points
josi is on pace for a 17 goal/46 assist full season pace. 63 points

then on the other side of our 'balanced' attack;

jarnkrok is on pace for a 26 point year.
bonino is on pace for a 31 point year.
salomaki is on pace for a 12 point year.

12g/58a is... well, I get how the rest of the league kind of wonders at paying $8M to RyJo for that. We get away with it because he has had strong playoff showings, plus we don't have any cap pressure in general. So it works. I just feel like he could be something more, I guess, which is one of the things that get people looking askance at a player. He could be even better/more recognized if he was a 25g/58a player. Or if he wins something like Thornton/Getzlaf. Nobody questions Josi at a $4M cap hit, because he's a bargain at that, even if he underwhelms sometimes on his D-zone play. Once he becomes an $8M+ player, I wonder if he'll get more scrutiny. PK surely does. It all is what it is... not dissatisfied with any of them, just recognizing the contracts do get wrapped into the perceptions. We are probably the last team that needs to complain about anything, of course. Still... we get bored at times.

 

[drwpreds]

i admit, i don't know whether to be thrilled that we got a point after being down by 3, or to be disappointed by the lost point after dominating the game so completely the last 41 minutes of the game. so i'll choose both i think. thrilled and disappointed.

Ain't that the truth......... On the one hand, any time you are down 3-0 in the 2nd period on the road, it is almost a miracle to get even 1 point. So in that respect I guess we should be thrilled to get anything out of the game.

But the fact that we did come back and almost won the game almost ticks me off even more so than if we had just lost 6-0. Because if we even play an average first period instead of completely crapping the bed there is no doubt we walk out of there with an easy win.

I am pretty nervous about this game tonight. We have big problems if we lose back to back games to Ottawa and Chicago.

 

[Armourboy]

Yup and Chicago is going to be gunning for us so we gotta be ready to go.

 

[drwpreds]

Yup and Chicago is going to be gunning for us so we gotta be ready to go.

The thing that scares me about playing a team like the Hawks is they have pretty much been losing every single game. It is the old "odds" thing- even the worst teams win a game every now and then and they are way overdue:

1-10 last 11 games
2-12 last 14
4-21 last 25

Yikes.

If we lose tonight that will be EIGHT straight road losses. That is just mind boggling. Even terrible teams don't lose 8 road games in a row.

Before this losing streak we were 33-9-7 in our last 49 road games. Now 0-5-2.

Makes no sense

 

[sparkle twin]

The thing that scares me about playing a team like the Hawks is they have pretty much been losing every single game. It is the old "odds" thing- even the worst teams win a game every now and then and they are way overdue:

1-10 last 11 games
2-12 last 14
4-21 last 25

Yikes.

If we lose tonight that will be EIGHT straight road losses. That is just mind boggling. Even terrible teams don't lose 8 road games in a row.

Before this losing streak we were 33-9-7 in our last 49 road games. Now 0-5-2.

Makes no sense

Well then the "odds" should say we are due for a road win!

 

[LCPreds]

Top shelf observation right here: The Preds aren't as good without Forsberg, Arvy, and Subban.

 

[Pred303]

well that went worse than I feared but not much different than I have come to expect. and before anyone 'brags' about the effort late and how ward was 'unbeatable', let me just say if Rinne had not been fabulous we would have lost this game to maybe the worst team in the league 5-1. when we don't get goals from our defensemen we are almost totally offensively inept. watching this game it would be mighty hard to say we weren't the 30th ranked team and they weren't the cup contenders, which honestly turns my stomach. taking off the top talent, we ice almost entirely complementary type players up front. several of whom wouldn't even start on the hawks (say our entire 4th line). if you weren't worried before about having 10 of our next 13 games on the road well you should be now.

 

[Roman Yoshi]

On the road we can't get the matchups we need due to the home team getting last change.

We can get by with our current talent level at Bridgestone where we control the matchups but not on the road.

I don't know why our defense allows guys to skate between the circles. Mind boggling.

I know any hockey team can win any night (Kings beat the Jets last night too) but I find myself getting increasingly agitated we haven't fixed the PP and we haven't upgraded our roster despite over a month without some of our best skaters.

On a positive note: at least Fiala scored and Rinne continues to show he's the top goalie in the NHL. That game could've been a lot worse with Saros in net.

 

[LCPreds]

I've kind of given up on hoping the PP gets fixed, at least for the moment. Hard to fix something this bad when you're missing 3 of the key cogs.

 

[Pred303]

we are now 9-8-2 in our last 19 games.

 

[hockey diva]

We stink. Johansen needs to shoot more. He hasn’t got his wingmen so he bloody well put the puck on net himself!

 

[Pred303]

it's certainly no fun right now. almost dread every game.

 

[predfan24]

I see the reason for the majority of our struggles right now as a combination between schedule and injuries. This next statement is not directed towards anyone here or any Nashville Predators discussion forum in general. I always laugh as people sit at their keyboards criticizing the team when they are playing their third game in five nights in the middle of a road trip with injuries to star players and expect the team not to miss a beat. I'll break down the numbers a little bit.

Since November 10ths game against the Dallas Stars the Preds have:

- Played 20 games in 39 nights
- After Saturday's tilt against Boston will be 22 games in 43 nights
- This includes a 4 game west coast road trip, a 2 game trip to western Canada, and the current 4 game road trip through eastern Canada/U.S.
- Arvy has been out since that Nov. 10 game
- Turris was out from Nov.25 - Dec.13
- Forsberg hasn't played since Nov.29
- Subban played seven minutes on Nov. 13 and hasn't played since


Since Nov.10 we have gone 10-8-2 so far. I think considering the circumstances that isn't bad. It could be better. I'm also thankful it isn't worse because it could easily be worse. I think it's become obvious we can't tolerate long term injuries to our top forwards because we don't have the scoring depth to replace them but I think we knew that before this current stretch.

Assuming Arvy and Subban are back after the 4 days break for Christmas this is when I will bet their play will improve.

 

[King Weber]

Interesting.

 

[Legionnaire11]

The first line center is one of or THE most important player on a hockey team? Would have never guessed without the advanced stats!

 

[King Weber]

The first line center is one of or THE most important player on a hockey team? Would have never guessed without the advanced stats!

you don't need advanced stats to know it, but this just further proves how valuable he really is to the team. Reason I posted the tweets is that there are people (not necessarily here) that seem to think that he is the problem for whatever reason when he isn't.

 

[Gh24]

He has said that why shoot more when you have two 30 goal scorers on your wings. Well he doesn't have them now, but he's still not shooting, at least not enough for what I've seen. It's frustrating. I'm a pass-first guy, so I know it's not that easy, but he's a freaking pro athlete with trainers and coaches and other competitive teammates probably telling him to shoot more.

I think he's our best forward, but right now (or for past few weeks already tbh...sigh) he needs to be our best goal scorer.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

The sooner we realize we have an $8M/year Mike Ribeiro with better goal-scoring ability and less character issues, the less frustrated we will all be (well, outside of the notion of paying a Mike Ribeiro $8M per year). That peg has grown up to be a square (despite earlier flashes), he's not gonna fit in that round hole.

 

[TitansVolsPreds615]

The sooner we realize we have an $8M/year Mike Ribeiro with better goal-scoring ability and less character issues, the less frustrated we will all be (well, outside of the notion of paying a Mike Ribeiro $8M per year). That peg has grown up to be a square (despite earlier flashes), he's not gonna fit in that round hole.

Can't be serious...Johansen is approximately 1000% the player Ribeiro was. The only similarity is that they are pass first players.

 

[GoldOnGold]

Ribeiro was one of the most sheltered players in the whole league during his time with us. Joey actually draws d-zone starts ans PK time.

 

[predfan24]

Joey's big problem is laziness and taking the pass first mentality too far. He seems really slow but every once in awhile he will show off a burst of speed that shows he is capable of more. Reminds of Colin Wilson in that aspect.

To me Joey is like Jason Arnott. Obviously, they have different playstyles but they are both skilled, large, and at times lazy centermen. Both need "line drivers" to do the dirty work and open up space for them for them to be at their most effective.

 

[101st_fan]

we are now 9-8-2 in our last 19 games.

So just over 50% of possible points. The only pewter colored lining here.