1) You cannot have night after night of 3 or 4 goal games because no team in the NHL consistently wins every game by scoring 4 or 5 goals. You have to be able to win by 3 or occasionally 2 goals. This means:
a) your goalie has to be better and
b) your TEAM defence has to be better including forwards who (all of them) look lost on where to be and who to pick up.
2) we have had some bad luck in D injuries. Tanev, Kylington, Stone are all big losses and then as Sutter said people stepping up have not been good (in fact, they’ve been bad). Meanwhile Hanifin and Weegar could be better too and I’d say have been average. Andersson has been, occasionally good but should be off the PP and Zadorov has been the lone good player on D consistently.
3) Sutter reliance on grinders is costing the team valuable time to build energy and momentum in the game. I think he is trying to send a message but it’s confusing and not working so he should keep it simple and coach with strategy (aka use your good Forwards). None of this Lewis and Lucic in the final minutes stuff especially when you need a goal, it is crazy.
4) Dube and Mangiapane need to seriously pull their heads out of their asses. They need a talking to. Like, wtf are they even doing.
5) Drive to the middle of the net. I think they were doing a slightly better job of this tonight / at the end of the game but they need to create traffic and crash / bang.
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