Some notes on last night's Heat game:
The Bad: The team played much worse than its individual parts. Most of the players were slow, lazy, and unmotivated. In fact, Ward sat the Kolanos-Walter-Desbiens line for the whole second half of the game, no joke. The Armstrong-MacMillan-Howse line was very undisciplined, although they did play with a bit of intensity. The referees were BRUTAL. They disallowed two goals, one of which should have been a goal. They were giving the Heat the penalties when it was clearly the other team who should've got the penalty. The 4500 fans let them hear it. The entire defensive core (with the exception of only Mikkelson and maybe Negrin) was downright awful. Clay Wilson is so soft he makes Bouwmeester look like Shea Weber and Robyn Regehr's lovechild. Henry was easily the worst defenseman out there. He was slow, made the stupidest plays I've ever seen, and was incredibly reactionary in the worst way (i.e., he would make passes without looking and hit people who shouldn't have been hit but rather should've had the puck taken away from them instead). Of the forwards, Desbiens was the worst. Take what I said about Henry and apply it to him - especially the part about being slow.
The Good: The Sylvester-Nemisz-Rheault line played very well. I think Ward was impressed by them as well because they were the beneficiaries of the Walter line getting sat for half the game. The Nemisz line was getting double shifted. The whole line was very intense and you could tell Nemisz was getting angry about losing because he elevated his game. He started laying on some huge checks and actually got faster. That is not to say he doesn't do that under normal circumstances, but when he got mad, he did it with more intensity. Actually, come to think of it, I've never seen Nemisz have a bad game. He's had average games where he simply "blended in", but never a bad game where he's made numerous mistakes. Despite the score Irving played well. In my opinion, one of the four goals he let in could be said to have been his fault. The first goal was a slow shot from the point that wasn't even elevated off the ice and it through Irving's five-hole. It should've been stopped. The other 4 goals were direct results of lazy, stupid plays from the defense and zero backchecking by the forwards. Ortio looked decent when he was put in for relief, although he's got to work on not going down on his knees to early. Finally, the last good thing of the night was the attendance. There were 4576 people there tonight, which is a good sign. However, I suspect the attendance will be very low on Sunday afternoon because of the Grey Cup.
On another note: Bancks, Ivanans, Patterson, and Martin sat for the game. Maybe the team would've played with more intensity out there if Bancks and Patterson were in. Perhaps they're injured (didn't listen to the pre-game show), but they should certainly be put in on Sunday afternoon.
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