if Mays talkin about Jaskin there isn’t much to talk about
With the loss of Beagle, and Wilson out, gotta praise work ethic, even if the rest of the package leaves a lot to be desired.
Speaking of work ethic, what is up with Ovechkin? Been lazy tonight. There was several times after good defensive plays by the Stars where our boys respond to take the puck back and want to attack and Ovie is caught slowly skating out of the zone. Normally this wouldn't be that big of a deal because smart hockey players like our third and fourth lines tonight would forecheck and create zone time. But because it's Ovies line Vrana or Kuzy half the time are too stubborn to dump it and Ovie's lazyness leads to careless turnovers trying to deke the puck through defenders.
That said we were a bit better that 2nd. My issue isn't that we didn't play better it's who is doing it. If it wasn't for our bottom six we wouldn't be in hockey games right now. Ovie has the shot don't get me wrong. But defensively our top line especially has been a mess. Nicky's line while still getting some points keeps getting hampered by Burts horrible puck possession. To much of our top six feels like good players making good plays getting held up by boneheaded plays by boneheaded players right now. Obviously we have issues on D too, but we need all our forwards engaged to play D in the NHL in 2018. We can criticize our bad D and some bad goals all we want but much to the chagrin of the anti-physical crowd goal scoring is way up in the NHL right now. Which means in order to do what we do best, we need our forwards hitting. Ovechkin hasn't hit a fly tonight. The fact that Dowd, Eller and Madison Bowey of all people have been our most physical players tonight, well that is troubling.
That said I hope what I saw late there until the PP continues. Reirden just started to say screw it and was overshifting bottom pairing forwards in an effort to oversell the work ethic thing. I was wondering about this as scoring started to dwindle or the team struggled. Trotz had no problems sitting star guys for shifts as a work ethic reminder and I was a bit worried Reirden would cave a little and let the stars go. Ovie has been overplaying on the PP for my liking this season, for example, same with Carlson. But the last two games we are starting to see some push from Reirden. He needs it. I love Ovie and Kuzy as much as the next guy but if your just bobbling the puck or getting it on the wall and just lazily giving it up like Ovie did three times that period alone? Like criticize Lars Eller all you want for size but he'll stiffarm any big man to make sure he gets the puck up the wall. He'll take hits and make the right plays. He's probably been our best forward the last three games, him or Nicky. But neither are that big. We really bloody well miss Tom Wilson.
Anyway, hope to see some good work ethic in the third. It was the biggest reason I didn't want to lose Beagle. I agree with May that Jaskin certainly has that more so than Connolly or Burt.
