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GDT: Canes @ Preds 12/23 8:00

andyt

Canes Moderator
Staff member
The Canes close out the pre-Christmas roadie in Nashville.

A Jimmy Vesey goal 17 seconds into the game yesterday didn’t portend a good result, but the Canes tightened up and allowed just that one goal in a 3-1 beat down of the Rangers. The Canes scored on the league’s best PK and extended their own PK scoreless run. Kochetkov had 2 assists to go with 22 saves but somehow that didn’t translate into a star. We might see him again tonight, the Canes are off until Friday. Edit: I missed the part where RBA said they’d probably go with Tokarski today.

Nashville went out and spent a boatload of money in the summer, signing Steven Stamkos, Brady Skjei and Jonathan Marchessault to big contracts. It hasn’t translated to wins, the Preds were the last team to get to double figures, beating the Kings on Saturday for their 10th win of the season. They’re 3-5-2 in the last 10 and their 27 points are 1 point better than the Blackhawks and Sabres at the bottom of the league. Marchessault leads with 10 goals, Stamkos and Filip Forsberg each have 9. Forsberg and Roman Josi each have 17 assists. In goal, Juses Saros is being run into the ground, starting 27 of their 34 games. He’s at 2.72/.907. Scott Wedgewood started the season as the backup but was traded for Justus Annunen. He’s been very good so far, beating LA and Dallas his last 2 times out and sporting a 1.67/.944 stat line in his 3 games. Nashville isn’t scoring, DFL in the league at a paltry 2.32 goals per game. They‘re tied for 16th in goals against. Their PP is 24th but the PK is 2nd.

FanDuel for TV.
 
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FWIW, goal tending is down across the league over the last couple of years and the league average save percentage is below .900 now ... more like .895 currently. I say that to point out that Saros' current .907 mark is truly heroic given that the over-use and Nashville's lack of support, reflected in the overall W/L record, haven't exactly done him any favors. The Preds have been awful, but they can't blame their goalie. They COULD blame their GM for building a roster that just doesn't work, but since Preds fans spent all summer crowing about what a genius Trotz is as a GM (mostly for signing a bunch of guys they'd actually heard of for once), that's a bit awkward. Instead they seem to be mostly blaming their coach. Fans are a fickle and largely moronic bunch. Just sayin'
 
Hmm, doubtful all the goal tenders are bad So it must be the players are shooting more accurate and harder. Like golf, the ball is traveling too far and the longest hitters are winning so the pga is gonna change the ball. So, the nhl should change the sticks. Back to straight bladed wooden sticks.
 
I don't think overall quality of goal tending has slipped all that much. It's a combination of some down turns for long time stalwarts like Vasilevsky and that the next generation of keepers hasn't really stepped up to NHL average level. LOTS of promising young goalies are either still kind of hit or miss or they've taken a bit longer to develop than their skater counterparts. Oettinger is the best of the younger generation and even he's been kind of all over the place statistically. Meanwhile young-ish guys like Georgiev, Korpisalo and Merzlikins have kind of crapped out while guys like Spencer Knight just haven't hit yet. Young guys like Levi and Wolf look promising (even Montembeault or Ingram on the right day), but there's kind of a big sand trap filled with guys one step further on in the developmental chart that just never settled in for all kinds of reasons. Maybe it's also a byproduct of the GMs treating goalies a bit more like disposable assets than they used to. Not as many teams are even focusing on finding a "franchise" goalie because they're so stinking expensive.
 
Looks like RBA is sending a message about someone’s 5 on 5 play. Per Walt Ruff they’re skating thusly. Tokarski in goal.

Roslovic - Aho - Jarvis
Robinson - Kotkaniemi - Necas
Carrier - Staal - Martinook
Svechnikov - Jost - Blake

Slavin - Burns
Orlov - Chatfield
Gostisbehere - Walker
 
Hate that Tokarski has been hung out to dry so far in this game. Our team is wasting a good goalie performance.
 
They’ve lost pretty much the entire thread of what was working for them earlier. Sadly Your “best players” have to be good. Not sure where our best players are. Aho? Svetch? What the hell?
 
Svetch is falling into some of Staal the elder’s bad habits of reaching instead of skating. Move your feet kid.
 
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