Game seventy-six is in the books now. The first seventy-five games were spent examining ice-time and trying to reconcile the play of grinders who always get out-scored like Zack Smith and Chris Neil and Colin Greening and basically anyone who doesn't possess a shred of ability to drive play.
So, why should game seventy-six be any different? Game on the line. Some would say season on the line, though I really don't think Ottawa was ever in it. And, the extra attacker is Chris Neil. Who, of course, watched a nice little drop pass placed in his direction sail away in the dying moments, with the Islanders winning in regulation.
There was, I guess, a theme in the third period. The theme was if you have any semblance of skill, you are seeing a slash of minutes. And if you are continually out-shot and continually out-scored be it this season, or the season prior, or the season prior, you're rewarded with minutes.
So the coaching staff opens up with the third or fourth line, then rotated back and forth, back and forth for the six opening minutes, which even included thirty seconds of power-play time.
Whatever the story is -- and I'm beyond sick of hearing it's the "penalty situation" causing the odd deployment; again, the bench bosses opened with the above trios in the third -- I hope it's a good one. And whatever the message is being sent, I hope the players are getting it.
I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the Smith line (which almost always included Neil and another guy with limited offensive skills) is always rewarded when the team is down or struggling. And today was even more perplexing, because despite the score, I thought it was Ottawa's better performances of the year. Save the ugly penalty situation, they were definitively the better team at five-on-five.
What, exactly, do these forwards bring to the table? I hear the arguments about how they give an honest effort and play hard every shift and that's great, but it never manifests in the data anywhere. They're basically pulverized relative to the other forwards, and this happens over, and over, and over.
I thought there were good players and bad alike tonight -- the Zibanejad/Hemsky duo was fun again; Erik Karlsson looked absolutely dreadful for the third game in a row, and I suspect there's an injury or something going on there. Patrick Wiercioch looked fantastic, and Eric Gryba went back to lobbing grenades over the ice.
If you're going to lose a game, do it with your best players.
Seventy-six games of message sending is, officially, over the top. I don't know who is responsible for all of these messages, but enough is enough.
Thanks for reading!