McNabb will be on the roster to avoid waivers next year, but guys he is a work in progress still.
He couldn't crack Buffalo's blue-line full time, think about that for a sec.
His foot speed is slightly above Greene's, his outlet pass (first pass) needs work.
Taper you thoughts accordingly.
You were told why in another thread--it's not because he's not good enough. The foot speed criticisms are sure apt, but it's disingenuous to throw the Buffalo line out there when every reason given was that they were pretty much protecting the prospects from the lineup.
@AbbeyMastracco: On John Gibson, Sutter sarcastically says "He's the best goalie I've ever seen. I don't know how we ever got one past him tonight."
That's fantastic
Well, I'm done giving the NHL my money for the playoffs, so we may actually win a game. I'm 0-4 this year now.
Should have taken this game, bad lapses cost us, and Ducks will bury us in a way SJ couldn't. Zero margin for error was fine once, you can't do that twice. We may win game 6, but I doubt we win 7 now. Too many team mental lapses for that. I hate to play the 'what if' game, but the combination of posts, bad bounces, bad passes, brain farts, bad penalties, all is adding up to our losses. We let the Ducks off the hook and now we're boned. It's not I don't have faith in our team, it's that I believe the Ducks are that much better than SJ and actually have guys with the balls to take over the game as well as working hard enough to create their own luck on the lower lines.
Muzzin, vomit. I knew it was going to be one of
those nights the moment he fell.
J Schultz has been surprisingly fine, he's just miscast at 2nd pairing. The guy is an average bottom pairing guy, and i've liked his game, he's just in the wrong spot vs. the wrong team. If he played there all year he'd probably look better than Regehr (minus the PK), but walking right into this hellhole makes him look remarkably average. No foot speed, no thread of a great breakout pass, just passable. But I mean that in a good way--he's a good bottom pairing guy and deserves to be in the NHL.
Greene, I said in the GDT, I'm really disappointed. Total bummer.
You never thought we'd miss Mitchell and Regehr but they're showing their value imo. If you're going to have hulking slow defenseman, they have to at least be able to punish, PK, and get the puck out. Mitchell was actually a surprisingly decent puckmover on top of that and was the premier shutdown d-man in the league in his time. It's a shame injuries have taken their toll, but I'd love to see him back. Regehr is similar, but as the Hawks and Ducks have shown us, there's not really room for more than 2 strictly defensive d-men on the roster. The ducks sat their physical guy and brought in Vatanen and goodbye forecheck. I can't imagine running another guy out there who is a threat, would be fantastic for our game.
The
good thing about going this far, if it's the end of the road, is this is two consecutive postseasons showing us our weaknesses and who needs to go. I am a-ok with that. Bottom 6 needs hunger and life. Doughty could use a partner but imo that's low priority next to signing Gaborik and shoring up our D. Bye Fraser, bye Greene, bye one of Clifford/Nolan, hello Andreoff, Hello McNabb, maybe goodbye Mitchell/regehr and hello Gravel/Schultz, maybe hello Shore/Weal.
And this will mean a lot coming from me, hopefully, but bye Richards, unless it comes out he was hiding a major injury or had been possessed by an alien overlord.
Brown will be back with a vengeance.
Oh, and even though I've said Gibson will be the best in the league in his time, he had a horseshoe up his ass tonight. He didn't see the pucks that were hitting him 1/3 of the time, was looking completely the wrong direction at other times. I'm confident we'll get to him--hell, we already have, 3 should be enough to win a game.
It's not over, but I have more respect for the Ducks' game than the Sharks--this is a tall, tall order.
