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GDT: Canes v. Rangers 11/7 7:00

Apparently Huala is the straw that stirs the drink this year because this offense stinks without him it seems. Let’s not get caught up in the shots total and focus more on the finish or lack there of from the Canes during this funk. No excuses tonight, they took another divisional loss in regulation against a team that played last night, that just doesn’t smell right.
 
Canes of old. Many shots, no goals. Make the opposing goalie look like king Henry.
 
This has not been a good team this year. They started out with a good record but got a lot of breaks and didn’t play that well. They’ve not fixed anything.
 
Left after two. Knew the L was coming. Gardiner looked craptastic tonight and if Aho can’t get tougher on the puck, we’re in a heap of trouble. Lost to a team that played 3 in 4 nights. Uggh
 
Two horrific defensive breakdowns on the 1st and 3rd goals, Hamilton outbattled by Clod Lemieux’s kid on the power play, can’t get the puck out of our zone with the extra attacker and Adam [Polar’s Word] Fox gets the empty netter. And Lundqvist stole the points.
 
Martinook back soon will at least get someone with some fire and passion to wake the rest of the room up. I’ve not been impressed at all this year with the leadership, these are the types of funks where you need the JWilly type to right the ship and get everyone on the same page.
 
I agree CC. I like Jordan but I think he gets too wrapped up in his own game ups and downs. Willy was able to lead by example and by enthusiasm/fire regardless of the ebb and flow of his own game. I think Jordan gets quieter when he feels like he’s personally not getting it done. That’s just based on his post game interviews so I could be wrong.
 
This was another tough loss. Watching from the stands, we totally dominated the Rangers during the first period (except for where it counts) and I loved our speed and pressure. But we are snake-bit by our inability to finish scoring chances and last night's game was the clearest example of that. I didn't expect us to score during the empty net, but man - you'd think we could move the puck out of our end with a man advantage. That was painful to watch, 'cause you knew they were going to score. Roddy needs to shake things up. We're 4-6-1 over the last 11 games and it's looking like a typical crappy November for the Canes.

One thing - we need to be a lot more physical in close to the net....and push bodies out of the way.
 
Brindy essentially swapped Aho and Wallmark in the 3rd. Svech was held without a shot on goal but had 8 attempts, 4 blocked, 4 missed. Is Haula really the missing piece to the offense?

Something else I saw on Twitter last night, from Dan Rosen. Lundqvist has started both ends of a back to back 85 times in his career. He’s 54-23-8 with a 2.12 GAA, .928 save % and 9 shutouts.
 
Gardiner was abysmal last night. I prefer the pairing of Edmundson and Pesce--because I think Gardiner brings Pesce down as well.
 
That one's going to stick in the old craw for a bit, I think. It's taken me awhile to boil this down to a few coherent thoughts ... well, at least I think they're coherent. It might just be the ravings of a madman. You be the judge.

Mile high view of the game ... yeah, King Henry stood on his freaking head. Carolina out-chanced NYR so badly that it wasn't even worth counting anymore and the guy stopped upwards of five really strongly redirected shots in addition to a fair number of Grade A one on one looks. He was stupid good but he still should have lost that game given the sheer quantity of good chances he faced. It's a freaking miracle that one of his own guys didn't deflect in a Canes shot until 2 minutes to go in the 3rd, because they were almost recklessly throwing themselves in front of everything Carolina threw at the crease. There's being good and there's being lucky and Lundqvist managed to dial up a game when he was both. And the thing is still headed to OT if the Canes could get their heads out of their own butts in the defensive zone and don't barf up that third goal. I'm not sure what the heck Gardiner was even trying to do with Buchnevich coming out of the corner but it looked to me like he was so scared of taking another penalty that he just froze. Meantime he got no help from anybody else, largely because they all had dead legs from taking a lazy icing call just beforehand. That kind of crap is the difference between getting points out of that game and not, and it's happening WAY too often. There are going to be nights when the offense just can't find a goal and you need to rely on the D to grind out a point, and this D group is PLENTY good enough to make that happen ... especially against a team like the current Rangers. And ... nope. Just not happening right now.

Now, if you don't mind I'm never going think about that game ever again. There are actually some individual positives I'm tempted to point out, but nobody cares ... including me ... and it's better to let this one quietly fade from memory.
 
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