Wonder if any of the coverage problems are related to the scoring problems. Some of the players, Hello Drai, appear frustrated with not cashing. Team has been susceptible to getting too deep and getting caught on some counters.
Yep. Nuge was playing very well and not the only game he has. Even on the PP GA he's aware of every situation on ice and was almost in position but the shooter was even better as he stood away from net to get the open net shot. Made it more of a challenge for Nuge to cover. So glad Nuge got his adult strength and is somehow better at post peak age. Physically he's aging like fine wine. Nice to have him on this contract and he's been better than in the previous contracts.
If I had to boil down the entire pre-season into one statement it would probably be “no finish.” If it wasn’t over passing, it was missing the net, firing it into pads, hitting posts, etc.
It’s a bizzare feature this team has that seems to have carried over from last year. They can produce chances in bunches even if they aren’t feeling it fully, but the lack of finish is so incredible at times that one would swear they’re deliberately trying to not score goals. Drives me f***ing crazy, and when they’re like this it always seems to coincide with uneven goaltending the other way.
I thought that this was kind of a random bad luck one off last year, but we’re right back there this pre-season at least. Leon alone should have had about 7 goals in the pre season, but found so many ways to not score.
To this day I have no clue what Kulak was thinking on that play. Then you have Skinner cheating for the pass even though a near 60 goal scorer has the puck on his stick and an open lane to the net but most likely the goal is on Foegle for losing his man which probably caused Kulak and Skinner to cheat.
I love Kulak, and he rarely makes that mistake, but that goal might always haunt me. I could see it coming a mile away, screamed “GAP GAP GAP” at my TV as he slowly backed in and let the shot through.
A one off f*** up for a steady contributor, especially in the playoffs. But man that one hurt.