Tuesday 2 February 2016

Game 51: Canadiens 2, Flyers 4

Watching the game on a pretty good stream, all things considered.  Thanks onhockey.tv !  Thanks Gary, way to earn a contract extension!  Genius move, raising revenue by jacking up the price.  Capitalism works!  Everyone gets a bonus!

A now routine loss by the Canadiens, 4-2 to the Flyers, with all the moral victory overtones, lots of effort, came close there for a while, bit of bad luck, hot(ter) goalie on the other end, valderi, valdera, ...

--For the first time since 2012, I was watching and kind of hoping we don't win.  When Jeff Petry tied it up, I got excited, got on board, I hate losing to the Flyers.  But realistically, in the long-term view, I want to improve our draft standing, that's all I want out of this season.  Not just to improve our lottery odds in the first round, but to protect our slot in the second, the third round, etc.

Watching the Draft the last two years, it was agony waiting for our turn to pick, and then to pick again, especially when we didn't have a second-rounder the last two years, having swapped them for Thomas Vanek and Jeff Petry.  All these great prospects still on the board, being picked off one by one, well before we get our turn.

We already have the Wild's second-round pick from the Josh Gorges trade with the Sabres two summers ago, let's draft high in each round, and stockpile more picks by trading off perishable assets.

--I'm getting tired of getting dummied by other teams, especially our division rivals, and by the Flyers.  Why is it always us getting beaten up, injured by other teams?  Like Kyle McLaren on Richard Zednik.  Eric Gryba on Lars Eller.  Ryan Malone on Chris Campoli.  And on and on it goes...

Tonight, Radko Gudas, a thumper who fits in very well with the Broad Street Bullies, lowbridged Lucas Lessio, one of the bigger players on the ice on our side.  Again, we lost out on the exchange, it didn't look good for our boy, hyperextended knee in slow mo made me queasy.

Even when we have big guys who are supposed to stand up to those guys, we get owned.  Colton Orr takes down George Parros.  Milan Lucic spaghetties Alexei Emelin's knee.  Milan Lucic destroys Mike Komisarek, repeatedly.

We used to have guys to stand up to the goons.  We'd have our own goons, or at least big tough guys who could play who'd make the other side think twice before stepping over a line.

There's a perfectly good, logical explanation the GM can make for Jarred Tinordi being traded, for Zack Kassian being exiled, for Mike McCarron being kept in St. John's, for Tom Sestito not being claimed on waivers, for Trevor Gillies not being signed and parked on the bench, then unmuzzled and unchained when appropriate.  Except that after this string of very reasonable moves, we're now quite small and inviting targets.  Again.  And as Denis Gauthier explained on L'Antichambre, when you're not headed to the playoffs, when things aren't going well, players don't really want to get involved in these battles, these scrums, if they don't have to.

In sum, we're back to where we were in 2012, losing game after game, and Habitants tip-toeing skittishly, avoiding eye-contact, Jakub Voracek assaulting powerlifter P.K. Subban with no real response from anyone.  In 2012, eventually, Pierre Gauthier had to throw in the towel and claim Brad Staubitz off waivers to quell the carnage.  I now wonder what Marc Bergevin, who avowedly wanted to size up this team, will do.  He has to do something, to deal with this specific issue.

--Sucks being Lucas Lessio.  The kid was flying out there, wasn't doing bad at all.  I hope it's just a mild hyperextension.

--And since you ask, hell yeah I want Brandon Prust back, now that he's being waived.  I don't know if the GM should necessarily claim him outright, but maybe trade him for a no-hope prospect, one-for-one in terms of contracts, and get the 'Nucks to keep some salary.  Right now, they're desperate to be rid of him, the experiment really didn't work for them.

Our team isn't right.  I don't think he'll necessarily get our guys back winning, but I sense he'd right things in the dressing room, and impose some sort of order out on the ice.  Bobby Farnham wouldn't act so frigging tough with Prusty out there.

--My favourite site these days, http://nhllotterysimulator.com/ , required four spins of the wheel for us to land the 3rd overall, with the Hurricanes first and Flames second.   On the tenth try, we got first, the Canucks second and 'Canes third.

And that's before they adjusted the odds, after we lost and the Leafs won.  I want our odds to be so high that we all pout like Tim Murray in June, when we don't land the first overall pick, and figure with those odds we shouldn't, couldn't possibly lose.  Like, 20%, that's guaranteed to turn out, right?

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