The weight hanging over the bench"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."
Perhaps this is the best way to explain what the team is going through right now. But I am of the belief that things would be better if this fucking season wasn't all crammed into a week thanks to the fucking Olympics. I'm also of the belief that Cal Clutterbuck would have been way more awesome as a part of the trade but whatever. Hey, RDS' revelation du jour is that he speaks french. Yay?
It was just a frustrating game in that the team just skated...and skated...and couldn't even buy a powerplay no matter how much they were hooked, held, and tripped, but I doubt it would have mattered anyway because when Pleky can't win a faceoff during a 6-on-4 well, what can you do? Price doesn't have a mirror to tell him his position was off for that first goal, and Price doesn't tell them to miss wide open nets either. And regardless of the shakey start, if all those chances in the second period could have been buried, or even half of them, Andrei would have a 5 goal night and no one would care.
But as a goalie this is your worst nightmare. It's the thing I hate the most. Standing there, watching from a distance, while the team appears to be facing an invisible wall and just can't bury anything... You bite your lip and tough it out, battle hard to hold them in it, and then suddenly in the middle of the 3rd period the puck walks in front of your net where some guy just tucks it in behind your foot and there was nothing you could do.
It's telling when the coach forces the team to play 2 minutes without a goalie. Hey the Rangers tried that at the beginning of the season. It didn't work for them either.
The play-by-play made us believe they had control of the game, but I don't call being kept on the outside "control". The Wild had them right where they wanted them, watching on the outside, getting their sticks in the way, forcing them to back in every time they had to defend and forget about covering someone backdoor on a weird bounce while preventing your goalie from sliding over. It's not Sergei who was purposedly shooting into the netting, but the Wild defense purposedly preventing him properly.
Being a back-to-back game didn't help. I mean how many times did you see them unable to lift their sticks to finish a good play or just weakly dump in something despite giving it a full swing. Yea it was that type of game. But do we have more than 5 players doing anything? What is D'Agostini doing this year? He's not even going to the net anymore. And though we have no idea how long Hammer will be out, Mara is back at least. Gionta is joining them on the trip. Markov will be there too. And how gorgeous was Andrei's goal? That was magic.
But like Cammy said "Moral victories suck in this business". However, right now, it's all we have.
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
This was probably not the best of seasons to make a wholesale change... However my moral victory as a fan of this team is to keep the faith because I wouldn't dare kick them when they're down. I know what's going on elsewhere. I know other teams are having a similar or harder time despite NOT having the changes our team faced. So for all the "team sucks, players suck, fire the coach, fire the GM, fire the mascot, the farm team is full of crap" well, go cheer for someone else. You don't think Bob wants to make trades? He's always looking for something. But at the same time he won't handcuff his team by losing a guy like Price or Patches or Subban. And it also takes two to make a trade. Similarily how the Flyers would rather pick up Leighton off waivers than bother trading for Jaro. Life isn't like NHL10 so deal with it. And booing the team in a tough game after a long night for the last home game of the season was pure crass you douchebags.
Moral victory #2: Guimauve was pretty useless tonight, and got checked by old man Spacek. And frankly he can go to hell for his comments on losing powerplay time to the more useful Metropolit and never being given a chance.
Still RDS held a full analysis on his game and what he was/wasn't doing. Jokes. He's a fifth wheel to Havlat of all people and could keep up with his speed. Get over it.