Lindy makes some sparkling saves last night. He did his part to win this game. We couldn't get past their hot goalie - sad how often this happens.
However....my complaint with Lindy is always the same...he goes down too early and plays small in net.
The second goal was a nice tip-in on a sort of break up the ice - a nasty tip over his shoulder, and typically I am not putting any blame on the netminder here...EXCEPT, if Linday stays up and not been crouched down so much, it would have hit him in the chest or shoulder.
Its like he compresses and bends over to be as compact as possible, likes he's preparing for a punch to the gut. I realize he's trying to cover along the ice, but he squats way to lower with his upper body. He has excellent reflexes, but I think it is his compact style that irks me. (Maybe needs to move out from the net on this one too)
It was a good play and excellent tip, and it was by no means a bad goal - would have been an excellent save if he'd stopped it...but I but the Hens netminder would have stopped that, simply by his size and positioning.
Also what pissed me off about this goal was we had control of the puck in the O-zone and Dowd cleared it around the net and up the boards to....NOBODY..WTF? (it was like he was trying to clear the zone) WE cleared the zone for them... We had 3 guys hustle back and kind of almost had it decent coverage (Mangi stumbled a bit, and Fever (I think) was a half step behind trying to catch Bunting...but Hens should have never got to the net with it. It was bad all around ending with a goal. I guess that's no different than many goals, but I'd like a ten bell save from Lindy now and then that was headed toward the top half of the net, not just the ones along the ice
Lindy made some sparkling saves, some 2-3 in a row, but everyone one of those was along the ice where he gets them with his flippers. He's excellent down low. It's the snipes over his shoulder that usually do him in. I'm sure that's true of most goaltenders, but Lindy gives too much to shoot at up top - especially for his 6'-2" size. He just plays very small in net and todays shooters are better - I am surprised and concerned that this doesn't happen more often. Go back and watch all the shots vs Lindy in slow mo and see how much room there is up top to shoot at...on a REGULAR basis
Sorry - didn't mean to make this about Lindy. Loss can't be hung on him, but goaltending is definitely one of our weaknesses currently...not bad...just average, and you aint going anywhere important riding average goaltending.
I'm really not putting this loss on Lindgren, but there were many examples in this game with his positioning or style which tells me we cannot succeed with the current goal tending. It's like hes excellent like 89% of the time, but we need it 92% of the time
Maybe part of my angst with the goaltending is I played hockey (badly) for 10+ years and its so disheartening, such a let down, when your goalie lets one in, and I still feel that when Im watching the games. You work and work and work, things going your way, and then this one fucker doesn't do his part. Not his fault, but for criminy sakes man, just saves us when we need it most.
That and I HATE LOSING TO THE FUCKING SHITTSBURGH PENGUINS
Anyway.
Go Caps
