I feel bad for Talbot and Rittich, this is the kind of loss that stays with you forever.
Other than that I'm kind of okay with the game. Every player showed up to play, they started well, got some goals. Dallas was going to have a pushback. Then there was a a goaltending collapse, and the game was out of reach. I'm actually happy with the way most players kept pushing even when the loss was inevitable. It's incredibly deflating to put up a good effort and have it all undone by things mostly beyond your control. Dallas also got all the luck there with the bounces.
But mostly this game was a goaltending loss. Dallas earned the series win though. They were the better team in 4 out of six games. They lost one of the games they were better in but got a freebie here to make up for it.
Now that said, yeah, Monahan and Gaudreau are not good enough to carry a team offensively in the playoffs. I don't know what's up with Monahan especially, his shot seems completely gone. We used to call him moneyhands because he was a premiere sniper who buried almost every chmace he got. Now he can't even hit the net most of the time.
The upside is that both Monahan and Gaudreau are on very affordable, tradeable contracts. They're not terrible players, nor are they generally speaking even overpaid. They're not just as good as what almost every other team has in their first line. Lindholm was another big disappointment.
A player by player post mortem is probably saved for later.
Ward wasn't terrible, but wasn't very good either. As expected. That said, he did get the team to give a consistent effort.
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