Personally, I’m getting tired of doing recaps of bad loss after bad loss. Instead of a recap of tonight’s latest wonderful performance in Toronto (a 4-2 loss with two more Johan Hedberg softies that demoralized the team) I’m just going to do a top ten list of things that are annoying me right now – in no real order, mind you:
1. The aformentioned Hedberg’s play, which has become frighteningly bad since he’s been starting for an injured Martin Brodeur. What’s puzzling a bit is that Hedberg was actually good two years ago during his stretches as a starter. Perhaps age is no longer just a number for Moose, unfortunately. Unfortunately for us, he’s got another year left on his contract and having a 35+ deal you can’t buy out is going to hurt next year when half our forward core is FA and our young goalies could use the experience before Marty retires.
It’s to the point where they really need to start Keith Kinkaid for change’s sake tomorrow. I’ve never seen a goalie play as bad in the Brodeur era, even Kevin Weekes when Brent Sutter didn’t waste time messing around and yanked him in favor of Scott Clemmensen. It’s time for Pete DeBoer to do the same and let Kinkaid show what he can do, especially if they’re hiding a herniated disc or whatever else may or may not be wrong with Marty.
2. Travis Zajac having six points in twenty-two games. You could say he’s struggling after signing his big-money eight-year extension, or just in a prolonged post-lockout slump. It’s to the point where I’m getting worried over something far worse – whether Zajac’s offense actually left with Zach Parise. Zajac was not productive offensively two years ago when Parise was largely absent from the lineup and hasn’t been productive again this year, even with Ilya Kovalchuk on his wing. Their style of cycling worked well together, and there isn’t a lot of time for Zajac to prove he can flourish without his former linemate this year.
3. Kovalchuk playing off the right wing on the power play. I can understand not wanting the power play just to become the ‘set Kovy up for a one-timer in the same spot every time’ show, but the fact that you don’t even have him in position to take one-timers half the time on the power play really limit your options. When he’s playing off the left faceoff circle he has the option to pass, shoot a wrister or take a one-timer. Off the point he still has all three options. When he’s playing off the right wing, he only has one option – pass. Limiting Kovy does not help the power play one bit, and our 5-on-4 has been dreadful this year. Only our 5-on-3 and 4-on-3 numbers have made the overall PP number merely subpar as opposed to dreadful.
4. Our power play as a whole, see above. Really, half our 5-on-4’s are waste forty seconds to get into shooting position when everyone lines up in non-shooting positions, take a bad shot and get the puck cleared. Or fail to get the puck in the zone in the first place.
5. Running Kovy into the ground – his icetime, a full four minutes ahead of the next highest forward and two and a half minutes ahead of his average last year, may already be coming back to bite us. Kovy’s been inconsistent this year, and invisible lately for the most part, despite playing nearly 26-27 minutes a night.
6. Lou Lamoriello‘s failure to replace sixty goals. I said this before the season and it’s only being proven more true by the game now – our 8-1-2 start masked the fact that we lost not one, not two but three top nine forwards before the season. Yes, Lou rectified one of those mistakes using a pick to re-acquire Alexei Ponikarovsky, and got lucky by pulling Andrei Loktionov out of his hat – which helped us replace the dissapointing Jacob Josefson down the middle – but there’s still a giant, gaping hole at wing that hasn’t been filled.
Our latest failed experiment ended today when Bobby Butler was claimed on waivers by Nashville. Mattais Tedenby also flopped (again) earlier this year and now unfortunately is laid up after a horrific skate accident in Albany. Amazingly the Devils haven’t been shut out yet, but they’ve put up a lot of ones and some twos lately. Seldom any more than that go in the goal column, and although the trade deadline’s almost a month away, time’s running out for Lou to make a difference before this skid completely derails our season.
7. Our defenseman merry-go-round. I’ve gone through this one in many prior blogs and won’t belabor the point tonight. However, it’s never a good thing when you have to scratch productive players at one position while you have a crying need at another (forward). Especially when the guys you’re scratching are NHL starters, and in some cases making multi-million dollars on multi-year contracts.
8. Our typical secrecy relating to Brodeur’s injury – is Marty seriously hurt or isn’t he? I don’t see what the point is of hiding the severity of the injury if you’re not going to do anything in terms of making a deal anyway for a goalie – which I wouldn’t expect with both Marty and Moose under contract for the next two years. Having a ‘minor’ tweak putting Marty out for over a week just makes the term ludicrous. With four more games in the next six days, if Marty doesn’t come back soon or Moose doesn’t find his form, this team could be in major trouble. With or without another goalscorer.
9. DeBoer’s public happy face…I get he has to do this, and it’s his thing to not bash the team in the media a la some other guys that coach in this area. I also understand his public demeanor may or may not reflect what he says to the team in private. That said, it’s still annoying hearing the same things over and over again while the team continues to struggle. Our last five-game losing streak was in the nightmare that was the first half of ’10-11, and it’s not just that we’re losing but we’re losing to mediocre/bad teams. What happens when we start playing the good teams again? We can’t count on beating good teams all the time so we’d better start beating the bad ones.
10. MSG broadcasts as a whole. Whether it’s constantly focusing on the other team, or the seemingly endless array of mistakes during the broadcast I’m reaching my tolerance breaking point with Steve and Chico. I love Chico too but geez louise, when one team has the puck and there’s a penalty whistled, they’re the ones getting the penalty! Hearing both of them make amateur mistakes constantly during every broadcast make me wonder how in the world this is a ‘professional’ broadcast.
Then again it fits in with some of the amateur mistakes this team’s making on the ice right now, from Hedberg’s horrific misplay on Toronto’s first goal to Patrik Elias of all people having a hideous turnover leading to the second goal at the start of the third period, which helped turn a 2-1 lead into a 4-2 loss.
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Derek
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