Quote:
Originally Posted by heep223
The tell for me was the sudden steep decline in Monahan's faceoffs. That alone tells me he is hurt.
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Time will tell. My guess is that he felt all sorts of responsibilty to lead the team as the 1C, and started overthinking things too much. This explains him flubbing a couple pucks, and losing the puck with minimal pressure. This is good experience for him though. Much like a goal scorer that goes through a slump starts making dumb plays, when all he needs to do is relax.
I also think that during a playoff series, teams obviously study the heck out of their opponents. Being a 20 year old, he doesn't have too many faceoff tricks up his sleeve yet, and I think the more experienced Canucks (and Ducks) were able to exploit him a little.
One other thing that leads me to believe he doesn't have an upper body injury is that I didn't detect any less pace on his shots. He had some decent shots in both series.