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Lundqvist drew much of the heat for the seven goals allowed. But if you watch the replay of all seven, you will see that likely six of the seven resulted from poor defensive play in front of him. That doesn't fully absolve him, because in the past, Lundqvist made those saves more time that not. This year however, it's been a different story.
Lundqvist has still been very good on high danger shots, and he clearly is used to seeing them, as the Rangers are markedly worse than others teams in the league. Maybe as a result from or impacted by seeing all those difficult shots, Lundqvist has been worse than usual in low- and medium-danger shots. Whether it's due to him regressing due to the years of carrying a subpar defensive core or age or recession or just a slump, New York better hope he finds his way soon. Not just for now but for the future, seeing how much money and years are tied up in Lundqvist.
If games like Friday and Saturday and yesterday don't spur GM Jeff Gorton to action, nothing will. But reacting by trading off prime assets would be a foolish move. The good news is that offensive core is young and mostly locked up. If Gorton can retain Mike Zibanejad at a reasonable price on either a bridge or long-term deal, that means that Zib, CK20, Miller, Hayes, Buchnevich, Stepan and Zucc at a minimum all will be back. With Nash and Grabner possibilities as well along with reasonable fourth line options. That would make this upcoming offseason the time to radically overdue and bolster what has been a nightmarish blueline.
Whither Marc Staal? For all the criticism of him coming into the year, oh boy do they miss him. Nick Holden may miss him most of all because he has been a nightmare lately, regardless of who he is paired with while Staal has been out. McDonagh and Girardi each were not good yesterday nor were Holden-Skjei. The best D-man, if there was one, was Adam Clendening and I actually didn't think Klein was that bad yesterday. Maybe move Clendening hope, shift Klein to play with Holden and Skjei with G or maybe call up Ryan Graves and see what he gives you.
Over last his 7 periods, Lundqvist has allowed 16 goals on 76 shots in 138:18. As noted above, not all were his fault. But what he has failed to do this year that he did in years past is make the big or key save. Yesterday, down 7-6, Magnus Hellberg slid post to post to rob I believe Jason Spezza. If New York had come back to tie or win the game, that save would have been the difference. Just like the one Carey Price made on Grabner on Saturday. But Lundqvist has been unable to make that big, momentum saving or turning save this year.
Here are the seven goals with my commentary after them. As you will see, six of the seven were caused by poor defense. But the seven scores end up on Lundqvist's ledger:
1. PPG - great puck movement, initial shot saved, McDonagh tied up with Benn, Eaves puts in rebound
2. 2-on-1 - Holden misplays puck, then doesn't take body on Sharp or tie up stick, goal just 12 seconds after first goal
3. Breakaway - Zucc missed pass in O-zone, McDonagh goes to wrong side in D-zone, Zucc beaten by Benn to front of the net for easy open backhand goal
4. Turnover behind net by Skjei, who was penned in by initial forecheck by Korpikoski, then hit by Rousell creating turnover, Pirri late getting to front of net and Skjei unable to get back, Korpedo to Roussel in front of the net, goal
5. Uncontested wraparound by Sharp where Lundqvist lost sight of the puck and went to wrong side of the net, good forecheck by Dallas. Goal came 48 seconds after Buch made it 4-3.
6. 2-on-1, neutral zone turnover, then Cracknell basically splits D at blue line and goes top shelf
7. Girardi watching, bouncing puck and G unable to clear it, allowing Eakin to put in rebound. The sixth and seventh goal came in a span of 1:47.
If there were any positives from the loss, it was the play of the first two lines. Kreider (G.A)-Stepan (2G)-Zucc (3A) and Nash (2A)-Zib (2G)-Buch (G,2A). The third line didn't do much at all while the fourth line was stapled to the bench in the third period. Offense shouldn't be an issue on this team but the D is crumbling quicker than we even thought.
Everyone said the right things after the game with the all the quotes below from the post-game press notes. AV noted the D issues and said Lundqvist would start Thursday. One quick note on AV, for everyone getting on him, what do you want him to do? The system is in place. If players keep making same juvenile mistakes, there is little he can do save for benching them. On the latter, he should sit G or Klein or bench others, so on that, yes it's on him. But the talent is what the talent is and masking those deficiencies is easier spoken about then done.
You can see the frustration and feeling of being lost on Hank. His voice clearly articulates that. The players noted how they left Hank out to dry. All that's great, now fix it. If you know it's a problem, then stop repeating the same problem. If not, it's just words, which has become the default position rather than remediating the problem.
[size]
AV:
On the team’s defensive play…
“There’s no doubt that we need to do a better job in front of our net. Our offensive game is pretty good at this time, but defensively obviously there are too many breakdowns. It’s all business here, we have to get back to work tomorrowand get ready for the next game. On three of the first four goals we have someone in front of the net, we’re just not taking the pass. Twice were defensemen, once it was a forward. It’s an easy read to make, it’s an easy pass to take, and we don’t take it and we give the other team a grade-A opportunity. It’s something that we can work on, we’re going to work on, we’re going to try to get better and get ready for the next game.”
"He's going to play next game," Vigneault said. "He's going to play and he's going to try real hard and we're going to try and play better in front of him. This is a team. We're all going to stick with one another and do what we can here to get out of this three-game" losing streak.
McDonagh:
On allowing seven goals tonight…
“It’s not good. It’s simply not playing the way we need to play and we don’t want to play this catch up game here. We have this last stretch and it shouldn’t take us an embarrassment, beating or whatever you want to call it to get ourselves to play with some pace and energy. Individually here and as a team we’ve got to find a way to come out with a jump and come out with that intensity. It’s something that just crept into our game here, the starts, and it’s been a stretch here, but I’ve got confidence in this group. We’ll find a way to start clicking again.”
“It shouldn’t take us an embarrassment, beating, or whatever you want to call it, to get ourselves to play w/ some pace & energy."
Lundqvist:
On his play recently…
“It’s tough. I feel like it’s embarrassing, frustrating, and disappointing, at the same time. I spent the last 24 hours really working hard and trying to prepare for this game and you come out and get a pretty good start. Then our first period, there were a couple missed plays where they made us pay. Most goals were scored right in front. As a goalie, you need to just be more aware I guess. The bottom line is I need to find another level; it’s not good enough. Obviously when you’re looking for confidence and a good feeling you’re hoping for a game where there’s a lot of structure and shots are more to the outside, but that’s not the case right now. There are a lot of opportunities right in front and I just need to find a way to get going. But it’s hard when you’re trying to do all the right things and it’s not paying off right now.”
On the importance of the mental and technical aspects of his game…
“It’s a combination. The mental aspect - if you’re not in the right place you start making technical mistakes. Sometimes the game can help you with the structure. The last couple games there’s been some chances where there’s a lot of bouncing around right in front and you try to be in the right place but you’re not. You just need to keep working hard here. I work as hard as I can right now in practice, I try to prepare mentally, I think I just need some good momentum going my way.”
On the toughness of this stretch…
“It’s definitely a low point. Right before the break, two wins there and played really well in Philly. I think this season so far, parts have been really good and definitely there are games where I feel I need to play better. I think this year we are a team that knows we can score, so sometimes we are going for that a little bit more than we’ve done in the past and it’s going to have an effect on how we play at times. But in the end I just need to focus on my game. Sometimes it might be a 5-4 or a 4-3 game instead of the 2-1 you prefer as a goalie. Sometimes you look at the game and you just see all the goals, but as a goalie when you feel that structure and everything is happening and you know what to expect, sometimes it’s definitely easier to play.”
Girardi:
On the defense…
“It wasn’t fair for him [Henrik Lundqvist] tonight. We didn’t play the right way in front of him for the first two periods and that’s not helping the situation at all. He’s working hard, he’s doing what he has to do. To leave a lot of guys in front of him wide open, it’s hard to stop open nets. We can’t do that to him. He’s our number one guy and he’s a leader on our team and we can’t do that to a guy like that. That’s very disappointing for us.”
Stepan:
"It's terrible. Good teams don't leave their goalie out to dry like that," Stepan said. "That's just unacceptable. Simple stuff. It comes down to working hard and working smart. That's all we did in the third period."
Four games until the break. They either will learn from this, fix some if their issues and head into the bye period on a positive note. Or they will continue to make the same mistakes and a three game losing streak could be six or seven, erasing all the good early work and creating a scramble for a playoff spot. The choice is yours.[/size]
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