Larkin getting bullied at the end of the game and everyone is just standing around. That was the worst part of the entire game.
As much as I am upset that Larkin was in that position, he did get himself into that situation by how he went at Kulak earlier in the game with his slashing. This is basically the same thing that happened with Mantha and Giroux, in my opinion. Giroux acted like a little shit, Mantha took exception, and then responded. The result was having to meet with Simmonds for a fight the following game. In this case, Larkin was being a little shit (if you can't say this about your own team, then you shouldn't be saying it at all) which I can totally understand with how much he wears his emotions on his sleeve and how terrible the team was playing. Kulak responded, Larkin kind of handled his own business. Now the next time we play Montreal I would expect someone like Ericsson or Abdelkader or Witkowski to handle things the same way Simmonds did, and if they don't, then I will have a bigger issue.
The worst part of the game was literally the entire game. I'm not sure I've have seen a more disorganized, careless, and pathetic attempt at hockey from this team. Between Hronek's gaffs giving the puck away in the offensive zone, or Dekeyser's passes to nobody in particular and finding a way to not make offensive chances difficult, to Green being completely disinterested, or Abdelkader being completely unable to carry the puck on his own, to Athanasiou barreling into the offensive zone into 3 opposing jerseys and losing the puck, to Ericsson being dusted on a rush along the boards, to Helm being completely unaware of the trailing man's position. Everything was horrendous.
I know you didn't mention this at all in your post, so don't take this as me responding to you, this is more of a generic response to the board. I don't think that sending Zadina down is the right thing to do, mainly because I think the kinks will work themselves out after the trade deadline. I know people think that this is a damaging arrangement for him to have to experience, but it would send a 100x worse message if you send him down after he has played so well to earn this opportunity, and since coming up he hasn't been bad and as a matter of fact he was the only player on the ice who looked like he wanted to respond to the beat down. He was busting ass, finishing checks, backchecking and forechecking relentlessly, creating turnovers, getting pucks on net. Is that the message we want to send? "Hey, you played really well, that type of game will help us win, but because the team is playing so bad we think it is best for you to go back to Grand Rapids." This is his tryout to prove that he deserves to be with this team and we have people wanting to end it after 2 games because the team is bad? News flash, the team has been bad all year. Let the team free fall, it's what most of the fan base wants anyways. Let Zadina prove he belongs. Let Blashill get his team back to playing the way they were all season. If it doesn't happen, then maybe Holland axes the extension talk.
This was the worst game we have played all year long from an engagement level perspective. It was miserable to watch, but I think it hardly tells the story of the season, and I expect we will see some fires lit under the asses of players on Saturday.