We had some guys that played very well. As a team, we're still ragged in some areas, for sure. We get back to the puck slow on any shoot-ins, and we're not as prepared as we need to be so we spend some time in our zone that we don't need to do - it's about preparation. As I've said our defense - they want to carry it, they don't want to pass it, they don't prepare to pass well so we've got to get that part of our game fixed up because we'll spend lots of time in our zone if we don't fix it up.
I'm not sure who he's talking about here other than Lubomir Visnovsky, except maybe Taylor Chorney. Unless he means they don't pass well, because that means most of the back end thus far. If he really does have an issue with Visnovsky's puck handling, I'd suggest that Visnovsky is becoming Mattingly to Quinn's Montgomery Burns.
We had a couple of lines that were good up ice, but a couple of our skill guys want to pass the puck into the net, they don't want to put the puck at the net. They back pass it and then they're doing spin-o-rama's and all this pretty stuff that they think they can get away with I guess. It's not effective and usually every time we turn that puck over we spend a lot of time in our zone. So those are the areas, and I've been saying it for six games now, or seven games, the nights that we haven't got the results that we've wanted, we've beat ourselves.
Did someone actually do a spin-o-rama in the wild game or is he speaking metaphorically? I'm glad someone is finally talking about drop passes - those have been making me insane since October of last year - but who is he on? Nilsson is the one that made a few drops, but is Nilsson really the issue? As for the pass the puck at the net - Ethan Moreau has been guilty of that a half-dozen times this year thus far. He seems to be dancing all around saying "ALES HEMSKY" (or "The Czech Thing"), without pointing the finger directly.
But even tonight we gave them a chance to get back in the game when we just covered it off poorly around our net.
One more knock on the defense. I don't think he's been happy with the defense in a single presser this year - including all of the preseason games.
But, we had some guys that come up with a good performance. Khabibulin was sharp again, Penner was good and Brule was good. I thought Gilbert's game was the best to date on our defense and there's others that I'll miss right now.
That's some high praise for Tom Gilbert - best defensive game to date for the team - and deserved. He's been quiet, but he's effective. He's been moving so well this season - better than he ever did last year - that I wonder if his "nagging" injuries weren't worse than they were made out to be.
We'll keep on working on some of the other stuff. Sometimes when you win it's easier to bring that the next day or the next practice to keep moving towards things we gotta do better.
It seems like the company line is sinking in. Penner, Gagner and O'Sullivan all echoed the same sentiments in their locker room interviews.