GDT: Phoenix Desert Dogs at Carolina Ice Hogs | Sunday, Oct. 13, 1 PM

[Identity404]

Khudobin gave up more goals than Ward did. The difference is the timing of the Hurricanes goals. So clearly, Ward needs to score more.

Khudobin only gave up 2.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

Khudobin gave up more goals than Ward did. The difference is the timing of the Hurricanes goals. So clearly, Ward needs to score more.

2 is not more than 3

 

[ugrimugri*]

- isn't it about time that Gerbe is moved up to the 1st line

 

[tarheelhockey]

Since we're all pretty cranky right now, just a general reminder to refrain from making it personal.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

.908sv% for Ward vs .906sv% for Ellis

Unfortunately the Ward revisionists have painted last season as a "this is what happens when mcamwardo is injured!" lesson, totally forgetting that Peters ended up starting a 1/3rd of the season while posting a .891sv% and Skinner's post-concussion horrible play, Faulk's injury, Pitkanen's injury, etc.

Just compare Ward's sv% from the start of last season to Ellis and Khudobin. Says all you need to know. But somehow Ward is still god's gift to goaltending while his back-ups possibly starting over him is a huge joke because Conn Smythe 2006.

See what I mean, lynk?

Difference here is that you can never tell with this guy if he's serious or not...

 

[tomdundo]

So...I was out and missed the game. I regret reading this thread.

 

[WinterHawk]

The team was 47% on faceoffs. Nash was 73%. May have to keep him around if for no other reason.

 

[My Special Purpose]

You said it yourself:



But no, the team in front playing like **** has nothing to do with the goals given up. Clearly, Ward's supposed to play defense as well, to prevent the 3rd and 4th goals.

And I'm embarrassing myself? Ward literally steals a point against LA, then comes in cold against a team that's outplaying the Canes (your words), and he's suddenly to blame for all that's wrong?

Man, it's a good thing some of you aren't making decisions. We'd be going through 30 goaltenders a year.

Part of my comment that we were getting outplayed is that their goalie was better than ours. I don't separate a goalie's play from the overall team play, like some others. The Canes -- CAM INCLUDED -- were getting outplayed. I never pinned anything on the defense, specifically. That's for folks who insist on finding every little fault so they can spin the story the way they need it to fit their narrative.

The Canes could have prevented the 3rd, 4th and 5th goals in many ways. One of which was Cam Ward making a save.

 

[Lynk]

See what I mean, lynk?

Difference here is that you can never tell with this guy if he's serious or not...

Starting to figure it out, yes.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

going to eat a one-pound bag of jelly beans to cure my sadness from this game

it's okay because i need to gain weight anyway

#diabetes

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

More pressing concerns than Ward.

--Phoenix's forwards are NOT more talented than ours. They look that way because they have Keith Yandle, OEL and Derek Morris playing in their top 4. All excellent puck-moving defensemen. Our best only puck-moving defenseman is a 20 year old Ryan Murphy.

--Our PP sucks. Both getting into the zone and then generating pressure. Again, Phoenix looked better because of the PMD's they have. They made zone entry look easy.

--Our fundamentals are ****. Passes that connect half the time. Constantly losing where the puck is. Losing board battles. Fancy plays that fail because the d-men can't take the zone effectively. Too many turnovers under pressure.

--Our ice is crap.

Specifically, our top 6 isn't producing much. We got two excellent goals from Skinner's line and nothing from either of the Staal's save for a lucky goal from Eric.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Ward's partly to blame for this loss, I'm not denying that. But a cold goaltender would be pretty far down the list of reason why, IMO.

That top line would be #1, easily. It needed to be broken up a while ago. We've got Semin turning over the puck when he's not taking penalties, Staal being Staal (which is all that needs to be said...sadly), and Tlusty channeling his inner LaRose and killing any offense they do manage to generate.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

i wish the entire bag would be the blue raspberry ones. the rest are kind of disappointing.

 

[Frank Booth239*]

Did you watch the first two periods when we got literally every single call, including a questionable delay-of-game that gave us a 5-on-3 for almost a full two minutes and a few that could just as easily been called dives? We're getting outplayed. This result has nothing to do with the refs. Are they consistent? No. Are they costing us this game? No freakin' way.

When did I say the refs cost us the game? Our lousy PP and Cam did that.

I have an issue with refs calling penalties on guys who get knocked off their skates. I have an issue with refs thinking that they need to even things up by calling ******** on one team merely because the other team has played with a total lack of discipline. They need to do their jobs.

 

[Ole Gil]

Ruutu looked good!

Bellemore has been bad for a few games now.

These embellishment calls seem arbitrary.

 

[cptjeff]

that's kind of telling in and of itself.

There are lots of people who keep talking about conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, 9/11, and whatever else. A few people, or even a lot of people, saying something a lot doesn't make it any more true. Mass delusion is still delusion.

We can have an argument about Cam's performance, and there are reasonable arguments on each side. Personally, I think he has been under-performing, or at least inconsistent, over the long term, though nowhere to the extent that others are making out. He's still a reasonable quality NHL starter in my mind, and elite when he's on his game. But the fact that an argument exists does not, in itself, mean anything.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

The only issue I have was calling embellishment on Ruutu when he was hooked in the process of trying to shoot the puck. He fanned on it, and was overbalanced, which is why he feel. We got 9 PP's, so complaining about the refs on that one issue seems a little silly.

Speaking of Ruutu, holy crap is he slow as molasses. He wasn't effective at all.

 

[normalpsychology]

.908sv% for Ward vs .906sv% for Ellis

Unfortunately the Ward revisionists have painted last season as a "this is what happens when mcamwardo is injured!" lesson, totally forgetting that Peters ended up starting a 1/3rd of the season while posting a .891sv% and Skinner's post-concussion horrible play, Faulk's injury, Pitkanen's injury, etc.

Just compare Ward's sv% from the start of last season to Ellis and Khudobin. Says all you need to know. But somehow Ward is still god's gift to goaltending while his back-ups possibly starting over him is a huge joke because Conn Smythe 2006..

Yep, even worse is that Ward had the benefit of a healthy Faulk. Ellis was playing most of his games while Faulk was out of the lineup.

 

[Ole Gil]

The only issue I have was calling embellishment on Ruutu when he was hooked in the process of trying to shoot the puck. He fanned on it, and was overbalanced, which is why he feel. We got 9 PP's, so complaining about the refs on that one issue seems a little silly.

Speaking of Ruutu, holy crap is he slow as molasses. He wasn't effective at all.

He drew 3 penalties. So he was somewhat effective.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

He drew 3 penalties. So he was somewhat effective.

Somewhat, I just noticed how he was the slowest member of any line he was put on, and he moved around the lineup for most of the game.

 

[bleedgreen]

What a gong show.

Ward was fine, he got sniped on by klinkhammer. Perfect shot. He rarely stopped that at any point of his career. He's a positional goalie, not an agile highlight save guy. Was always such, and has always given up the perfect glove shots.

Eric staal. Best offensive game of the season, actually played well with the puck and was assertive. In the offensive zone only. Worst defensive game of the year. He may have regressed a couple of years in one day. Lazy and pouty. Bad decisions, leaving early. Jordan staal is becoming concern into me. There's embracing a defensive role, then there's just not trying to be offensive. The post shot was unlucky, but he isn't asserting himself and going to the net very much at all - though that one play would've been exactly what he needs to do more of.

Lack of execution. Everywhere. We can't tie two passes together very often, and we ofen mess up the most simple. Semin and staal, Faulk and sekera coughing up an easy puck behind our own net that turns into a penalty, then into a pp goal. The power play!?!

Gerbe and skinner showed a flash of chemistry, that could be interesting down the road. Murphy had a very assertive game at times, still makes the obvious young errors at times. Just like in junior he seems best at setting himself up more than others.

We didn't do our diving reputation any favors in this game, it was embarrassing. Yotes were so frustrated with it they started throwing themselves on the ice. Semin twisting in the wind then rolling on the ice towards the end was awful, the toe of his stick was caught in a jersey. C'mon man. Skinner should never complain to a ref.....ever. They give him so many calls he doesn't deserve. I'm glad he's hitting the net though. We need his skill SO badly around the net. Semin looks lost. Our best offensive players are skinner and gerbe.

To second what someone else mentioned, why not gerbe on the first? I could care less about the defensive profiiciences of the second. We aren't going anywhere with that as our second.

Gerbe staal semin
Tlusty staal ruutu
Skinner Nash/lindy/ Dvorak
Bowman sutter Dwyer

That second line could be just as effective defensively and should be better offensively. Gerbe may spark semin and staal. I think Eric is ready to start scoring, not sure what's up with semin.

Khudo....get better soon and never leave your net again, save us from Pete dawg.

Better team won. Great game from the defense out for them. We don't compare at all to that back end.

 

[cptjeff]

The only issue I have was calling embellishment on Ruutu when he was hooked in the process of trying to shoot the puck. He fanned on it, and was overbalanced, which is why he feel. We got 9 PP's, so complaining about the refs on that one issue seems a little silly.

Speaking of Ruutu, holy crap is he slow as molasses. He wasn't effective at all.

Honestly, this is why I have a problem with calling embellishment on the ice at all. Usually when they call the penalty, it's something like this- a guy having his legs cut out cornering, a guy already off balance, a guy getting knocked over easily because he wasn't suspecting a hit, or that somebody would be trying to take his legs out at that moment. Remember, the whole point is that the other guy is doing something outside the bounds of the rules, which means players aren't always preparing for that thing to happen.

They never get it right. IMO, the best way to address diving is supplemental discipline- with a hearing and replays where they can see things more than once and hear the player make his case.

If you do it on the ice, you get jokes like Williams getting called for diving after being tackled. Or this. Or Semin the other night.

I honestly don't think I've seen a diving call during a game that I've felt to be a good one, and I still see lots of dives the refs completely ignore.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The Ward debate is raging on 99.9.

 

[dogbazinho]

Honestly, this is why I have a problem with calling embellishment on the ice at all. Usually when they call the penalty, it's something like this- a guy having his legs cut out cornering, a guy already off balance, a guy getting knocked over easily because he wasn't suspecting a hit, or that somebody would be trying to take his legs out at that moment. Remember, the whole point is that the other guy is doing something outside the bounds of the rules, which means players aren't always preparing for that thing to happen.

They never get it right. IMO, the best way to address diving is supplemental discipline- with a hearing and replays where they can see things more than once and hear the player make his case.

If you do it on the ice, you get jokes like Williams getting called for diving after being tackled. Or this. Or Semin the other night.

I honestly don't think I've seen a diving call during a game that I've felt to be a good one, and I still see lots of dives the refs completely ignore.

Agree with this. There is entirely too much going on the ice to expect refs to fairly call embellishments. It needs to be handled via a video review process and when its caught discipline should be harsh. Several game suspension and fine adjusted based on the severity.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

To second what someone else mentioned, why not gerbe on the first? I could care less about the defensive profiiciences of the second. We aren't going anywhere with that as our second.

To me, E. Staal and Semin make that line. We can cycle whomever we want on that line, be it Tlusty, Sutter (for one disastrous shift), Bowman or Ruutu, but if those two aren't clicking then it's just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Putting Gerbe on that line won't do anything if Semin continues to try blind passes that result in icing or E. Staal keeps cheating on his assignments (which lead to the 3rd goal against IMO).

I can see "why not", with Tlusty not generating anything, but Tlusty was never supposed to generate anything by himself. He was supposed to find holes and wait for Eric or Alex to find him so he can pick a corner. He was supposed to be the 1st man back every time and to give puck support to the other two. The "glue" guy, as has been said often. And I don't really see how Gerbe will fix any of these issues.

I think you're spot on about Jordan Staal though, he's gotten way too 'grindy' for my liking lately. I honestly don't know what he's trying to do; he plows ahead, breaks a check (which is impressive), keeps on going down the boards, then just turns it over when two or three opposing players converge on him. Never tries to center it, or pass to a teammate. Just get it deep. He's been completely ineffective offensively, which is something we can't really afford in the long run.