Missed the game. I saw some people complaining about JJ-O in regards to not supporting Malkin's line, but my question is did they at least play good defense? If there's a team they should match up well with it would be the BJs.
They were... maybe average at best. For a pair of big strong guys they didn't half struggle to get the puck off the boards at times and got hemmed in as a result. They had the worst possession stats fwiw. That said... I can't think of anything outrageously bad they did and the one goal conceded on their watch was a 3 on... oh. Oh yeah. That was the outrageously bad thing Johnson did. He keeps that puck in the zone, no goal. Although it was a hard situation for him to be fair, 50-50 puck at the blue line because Atkinson read the play.
I'd rather the third line have trouble scoring than two lines have trouble scoring. Sometimes two good lines and a bad line is better than a good line and two mediocre lines. Especially since the bad line is still playing teams to a draw.
I generally prefer to spread the talent but I think this is currently the right approach. Spreading it at this point is basically asking "Do you move Kessel to play with Brassard and give Malkin X" which isn't completely mad as Kessel and Malkin aren't super in sync right now... but it raises some issues about the X, as neither Rust or Sprong are particularly claiming that one right now.
Honestly I don’t think ZAR played that bad. Also Riikola needs to play over Ruh forever. If Sprong plays more assertive like he did today then he’ll get more minutes.
90% of the time? No, although he didn't play that well either imo. He was mostly in the right places, not doing anything special. But the few moments when he gave the puck away cheaply could have been really bad.
And I think that's what lies behind the anger here. Most kids that do that, they get the chain yanked hard. Not ZAR. ZAR's already trusted in a way that Simon isn't. People can't see why. I can't see why. In fairness he doesn't usually make this many turnovers, I don't think he's as bad as some say... but I still don't see it.
Utterly agreed on Riikola. I think this is him putting it together.