The word I was going to use for the first period was pitiful.
This team makes no sense. They play that awful in the first period and then come out and play that well in the second.
I don't think there's any doubt you can tell some of the players are playing injured. I'll let you decide who, but there were at least two players I noticed tonight who could barely get up the ice, and no, I'm not talking about those wearing numbers 44 and 21.
Amazing the difference Brett Smith makes in this team.
Comments
It's nice to see they have worked to improve their shootout oppurtunities. That is pitiful.
That's the frustrating part about this incarnation of the team. They play extremely well together when they want to. So how do you make changes when technically "it ain't broke"? Maybe it's a "Tortoise and the Hare" kind of thing. Maybe they're too good for their own good.
Smith is a tough hard nose hockey player period love his energy and grit. I agree with your thoughts on first period and that is the second straight game they have come out with no emotion. Playing with 9,000 home town fans and you get an emotionless hockey club is just plain embarrassing. And if I read about the "heart" of this hockey club climbing their way back to get a point I may puke. how about some heart to start the game and energy against a team playing two men short? This club has got to start playing 60 minuets of sound fundamental hockey or they will have an early exit out of the playoffs. I really don't think they have played al that well here of late including the games they did win and yes there are guys who are banged up, but every team has guys who are hurt this time of year. The defensive breakdowns here of late are concerning because those mistakes you at the beginning of the year not now. The PP is also something that has gone south and a lot of it is trying to be to cute with the puck. I don't understand why they scratch Mele I think he is one of the hardest workers on the ice and he plays the body, something the Komets need more of, hopefully they will come out Saturday with a huge chip on their shoulder and take to Eville from start to end otherwise it will be a 3 point gap!
I was a little shocked at pulling Bouch but that move by Sims proves who runs that locker room. Festa earned tomorrow's start in my opinion. Agreed on the shootouts, we better find guys that can score. DeAngelis is the only one who has scored consistently. I knew they were done when Frankie got stopped. I love Smitty, he makes all the difference, but man, BURY it with :12 to go. Great comeback bad loss. Gotta get it tomorrow.
Pitiful isn't accurate. It isn't strong enough. Inconsistancy is the only constant for this team, this year.
Note to the Franke family. The attendance for tonight (Saturday) will probably be close to last night's figures. Whatever it will be, it would have been more with a win on Friday. The effort of this team just took money right out of your pocket. It has happened before during the year, too. Do you understand what you have here? In two games you will bring in as many people as it takes the bottom four teams, attendance wise, eight games to match. You are raising prices. Be careful because if this team doesn't care if it wins or loses then why should I??
You may be paying the price by the "hands off" policy you lived by during the year. Many times this roster needed tweaking. The offense stumbled through the year and not one change was made. Guys have gotten lazy. Lazy with their kmowledge that their job is safe and hustle is just something to do whenever they feel like it. You have encouraged that by not shipping them out. I would assume that if one of your employees was just showing up and not doing the job, you would make a change. The same holds true with your roster.
Too late now. No matter what happens tonight, or for the rest of the year, I'm going to remember the awful effort from last night and the events that led up to it. And I'm going to remember that when this team needed help, none was on it's way.
Smith is definately the heart of this team. Why is Bennfield and Thomas still on this team? Talk about lazy, won't battle for pucks and won't batlle down low, you can't tell me there aren't any other players they can sign who will compete better than that? Leo had one big hit last night and was invisbile after that. Hope they show up for all three periods tonight, this team will make an early playoff exit if they play like they did last night.