Two quick notes after a 4-2 loss to Florida on home-ice.
(1) I'm not sure how upset I am with this defeat. For starters, I've talked for a few weeks now about how Florida has really improved since their coaching change. A decent quality of opponent, combined with a back-to-back (which are more or less treated as schedule losses against rested competition), and you have a game where your odds of victory are at best, coin-flip.
This team was totally gassed in the third-period, and Florida made them pay for it. A lot's going to be made about the pair of questionable non-calls (the takedown of Milan Michalek was obviously a penalty), but again, I can't in good faith get enraged over officiating when the team was (again) out-played.
That's what makes yesterday's loss so .... bad. Ottawa was fresh, playing another team that had struggled of late and basically didn't show up. They fought harder today -- much harder. But, there aren't a lot of teams that are going to roll over in the NHL, and certainly not Horachek's panthers.
One thing I found moderately concerning was that the Turris line (specifically, Turris and to an even greater extent, Ryan) were dominated at evens this evening. Far cry from the usual stuff we get from that. When your best line's not-so-great, things tend to get bad quickly.
On the bright side, I thought Milan Michalek had his best game of the year. He led the team in possession, and without even glancing at the scoring chance data I'll go ahead and guarantee he led there, too.
(2) The shitty news, of course, is that Mika Zibanejad left the game after a high hit from Erik Gudbranson. The team called it an upper-body injury, and he did not return.
You can hope it was just a guy banged up on a bad play, but two real possible outcomes aren't very desirable. One could be some sort of a shoulder injury, and if that's the case, you can count on him missing some length of time. Two could be a concussion -- his second, probably third in the last two years. Remember, Ottawa went to great lengths to hide some undisclosed injury, one which was rumored to be his second concussion in just a few months.
Either way, Ottawa may have to cope with the reality of losing one of their best forwards for a bit here. Not good.
Thanks for reading!