Quote:
Originally Posted by stang
Pretty ridiculous take. Gagner pokes at a loose puck just as the ref lost sight and blew it down. Pretty much at the same time.
I’m not even going to comment on the Lucic should take a suspension except to say cmon. It’s a game, and you won the season series.
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I would suggest Gagner knew exactly what he was doing with the late poke check. He then went after Giordano amidst the scrum, no coincidence there. That all said, I have absolutely no problems with his actions. He’s engaged, battled hard, was likely responding to the Giordano/McDavid incident regardless of its intent or perception from anyone’s view. These things happen when two teams are legitimately at odds with one another, settling scores, battling for position.
Outside of that incident, Calgary definitely didn’t have a great game, but much of that was because Edmonton simply outplayed them and was the better team with the harder effort. The two clubs were tied going into the game, so while I would have loved to get another Calgary win, dominant or otherwise, Edmonton is right there with them this year and are winning their equal share of games, and last night they just wanted it more.
Calgary needs to make some adjustments to their club, but it’s not exclusively on the back of last nights game. They’ve been playing mediocre to their expectations all season long. Last night did however showcase the areas of which there are problems.
Top performers having no impact (Gaudreau, Monahan), remedial defense (eg Hanafin committing to a knee then going full statue as McDavid steps around him), role players not playing their role (Lucic), coaches misreading the game and icing the wrong lineup (Dube > Rinaldo, especially when Lucic no shows), etc.
It was Edmonton’s turn last night, hopefully for our sake it’s a one and done, but nice to see some meaningful and emotional games.