Quote:
Originally Posted by dino7c
First month is BRUTAL...tough teams, 3 back to backs.
Then its lowest number of back to backs in the league, substantially lower than most teams in a compressed schedule and an easier strength of schedule.
Its so unbalanced I think this year especially you will need to wait 20-25 games to even get a read.
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Agree - you don't know a direction until Dec 1 really but the deeper the hole now the harder it just becomes to work out of it.
Ignoring the results for a second there are a couple of things I do see though that I think are going to be issues if they don't turn around:
1) Power Play: This team needs it's PP to click to have success, and it's just not happening right now. Huberdeau coming back might help but honestly feels like PP has been an issue for a couple years now that they can't fix.
2) Defensive Veterans: Weegar and Andersson haven't been great to start the year, and they need those two to be anchors. Because they haven't looked as good I feel like Hanley and Pachal have struggled more too.
And really the coach doesn't trust Miromanov, or Bean at all. And Parekh is still being very sheltered.
But really they need Weegar and Andersson to get going lol.
3) Kadri: It's too early to tell for sure...but to me he looks like he's lost a bit of a step...which isn't impossible when you consider he's 35. If he dips from 35 goals to more like 25 goals then that's tough for this team to overcome.
I think guys like Farabee, Frost, and Bahl have shown some promise to offset some of these issues. But if these end up being more than just slumps it's going to be tough.