EmilyM

Even Shorty was imploring Jake to clear the puck like a disappointed dad

Just give me Bailey/Petey/Hogs one time please

A team will take him?

Yikes, the giveaways are back in the third

I can’t imagine what would happen to their psyche if they lose after an effort like this

Rous...

Bailey has good wheels. On a team that doesn’t have a ton of top end speed, I’d be hard pressed to sit someone who gives you wheels on the forecheck.

PETEYYYYY

So a hurt Hogs comes back even stronger. You love to see it.

We may be down, but I’m all for the “get 40 shots” strategy vs the “allow 40 shots” strategy

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I’ll take it

There ya go Holts!

I mean, if someone asked him where he got his scar and he said “I played in the NHL”, that’s nooooooot exactly the worst line in the world to have

Quick whistle. Holl’s possession was questionable.

Yiiiikes.

By that logic, we should have the greatest 4th line in the NHL. Toronto is front loaded, but not unbeatable. We could mitigate a lot of their offence with possession, like we have done more in the early goings tonight.

Imagine the energy we’re going to see on a Hogs/Podz line

We’re actually playing pretty good. A slump like this gonna take a heck of a lot more than pretty good for ten minutes though.

With all due respect to Holtby, he came here by free will and hasn’t necessarily been playing heads and shoulders above the rest of the team or anything. It’s wrong to count him out, but he’s also part of this team and not a victim.

I just meant I don’t think the goalie decision will make a massive difference for tonight in isolation, but I 1000% agree that Demko should take priority as we continue to move forward.

Minuscule sample size. They both looked good against Ottawa, so not much separation between the two there. The only other promising performance may be Demko’s game vs the Jets. Small sample size. Outside of that, both goalies have been quite average to below average and I have no qualms who starts tonight.

I think that was the general thinking, but I sometimes question who was on which side. During Linden's parting, Aquilini used the r-word, which we all know is very rarely used in this market. But he said, and I quote: "A rebuild is a long, slow, gradual process. Everybody needs to be united behind the same vision and pulling in the same direction" That doesn't sound like Linden was being pushed out because he wanted the slow, rebuild process. Sounds like the opposite. Of course we're all just reading between the lines, but I wouldn't say with any certainty that Linden is the one who wanted the rebuild.

Real good question. Along the same lines, how far are we from our expectations? Standings-wise, if you told me before the start that we'd be in 5th place in the division at this point, I wouldn't be shocked. Disappointed, but yeah i'd make sense. The way we're losing is the shocking part. Goaltending is far from our biggest problem, but what would our mentality be like if we had a couple game-stealing performances vs teams that are not Ottawa? What if our top line was performing a little bit better? An extra goal here or there that could've shifted momentum in a given game? What if our specialty teams were even half of what they were last season? What if Schmidt and Hamonic were both playing at their par? "perfect storm of mitigating circumstances" is an apt description. Every single thing is going wrong for the team right now (outside of Hoglander's development) but one where a seismic mental shift might actually fix somewhat. What that inciting event will be is the question.

Not being privy to the dynamics of the locker room, we don't know if that'd have the reverse effect on the teams psyche. What if benching one of the vets, a perceived "brother" to the rest of the team, draws the team further from the coaching staff?