I’ve been in the South Pacific for almost 5 weeks and have only been able to follow the disaster by stat watching. We fly out of Ft Lauderdale to get home so we decided to stay a day and watch the game against the Oanthers since it happened to line up.
It’s extremely disappointing that our leaders and best players continue to be the most guilty of terrible defensive play. Even with the season hanging in the balance it’s the same old from those two. Cheating for offense, blowing the zone, losing their man in the defensive zone, constantly getting caught below the puck, low percentage plays and passes resulting in turnovers. I saw all of that in the Florida game.
And that play rubs off on everyone they play with because the expectation is that they have to score so proper play gets thrown out the window in order to try and keep up with 97/29. A perfect example was the Ekholm clearing play. You could say it’s bad luck hitting Hyman but Ekholm is supposed to be one of our most steady players, if everyone is where they are supposed to be he probably has more time to make a play and he probably goes up the board with it. Instead, while the puck is below our dots, Mcdavid is at the opponents blue line, Draisaitl is at the red line and Ekholm attempts to force it up the middle to them.
Goaltending has been horrific from what I understand but if your best players can’t be bothered to play the right way when the season is in the balance then I don’t see how you hold anyone else to account.