Oh okay got some sleep, went to the game... was nice to see nieds # retired(my mom is a big scott fan so I went with her).
This was maybe the best overall game weve played all season, a lot of players looked somewhat back to their normal abilities.
Our big dmen specially seemed back in form(Montour manson fowler Lindholm) all had strong games.... not sure about the megna/mdz pairing... they wernt awful but still not something id want out on a nightly basis.
1 thing I like about BM already is hes spreading out the mins better. Everyone in the line up played at least 12 mins(I think rawney was only player under 12), and no one played above 19(silf was highest at 18:50), while on defense everyone played 16-20(manson being the highest at 21:30)… BM seems like hes just going to let players earn their even strength mins, and everyone had solid games last night so he distributed the mins accordingly.
He kept the star players out on the powerplay, I feel like this is important in the sense its giving them time to play together/fix their problems together. (getz/fowler/rakell = 4.19 mins of power play time, and perry Henrique had 2:30/3:52) …. granted idk that fowler should be receiving all the mins on the powerplay(Lindholm/Montour I think are both viable options), but I do like that he is giving them majority of the time, and same thing on the PK... hes relying on Silf/kesler/Lindholm/Manson.
Kesler played 14 mins, 3:10 short handed... turning kesler into a PK specialist/faceoff guy is prob best option right now, don't over push him.
Getzlaf played 17:22, 4:19 on pp and :22 on the PK, not wasting getz on PK, I think is a smart/important move, hes our top offensive weapon... no reason for him to be killing penalties for a few of his mins a game.
Great to have miller back.... IDK that the caps really played well. And I don't want to exactly jump the gun and feel like our season is turning around... but the team def has looked much better since RC left.... players look less stressed/more focused and happier, seeing the difference in the players faces/body language irritates me even more that BM waited so long to make that move.