The past half dozen games or so, I think Berglund has looked better out there. I'm still on the "trade Berglund" bandwagon though as he should have some value.
I like Ott on the 4th line. Just sayin'. If they need to get rid of his salary, that's fine...but salary aside, I think he is playing fine.
Brodeur was ok last night. He had some nice saves, and a couple of really good ones. Probably should have had one or two of those goals...maybe. But he looked shaky. He gave up some rebounds he shouldn't have. He was back in his net a lot and just looked a little overwhelmed, like he was fighting off everything. He made me nervous.
I didn't want to see Brodeur start that game. I wanted to see Allen start. I'm sure there were some other strategies involved, such as not overexposing Allen too much to a team we may face in the playoffs again or whatever...but like someone else said, Allen is the #1 right now. He should have gotten the start vs. the Kings in the home and at home matchup. Maybe we win that game with him in net...maybe we still lose. Either way, I think he should have started.
The biggest problem I see on this team right now, by far, is our inability to clear the puck out of our zone consistently. I think at least two of LA's goals last night came from when we had a good chance to clear the puck out and we couldn't. This seems to happen almost every game where it burns us for a goal. I know it happens to every team to some degree, but I expect better of this team which wants to win the cup this year. We've given up far too many goals this year from our inability to clear the zone.
I can't wait for Elliott to come back.
Their first goal was a huge kick in the balls...which happened because we couldn't get the puck out when we had a good chance to. If we could have gotten out of the 1st period with a 3-0 lead, that would have been huge. But no, they get the late goal and that seemed to be a huge lift to them going into intermission. If we don't allow that goal, things may have been very different.
The 2nd goal was just a bad turnover by Oshie and then he didn't pick up Kopitar in the Blues end and he takes a pass right down the slot and walks in and scores. Bad shift by Oshie.
Petro was sleeping on the Kings tying goal late in the 2nd. He let Gaboric go right behind him and grab the rebound and put it in. I'm not sure what he was thinking.
Petro also looked bad on the tying goal early in the 3rd. For some reason he slid down and slid towards the puck carrier. His job is to take away the pass while not giving the puck carrier a lane to the net. He didn't do that. He abandoned the winger and gave a passing lane, which forced Brodeur to move across to try to block the shot which is what the Kings want in that situation...to get Brodeur moving....and of course he scored.
Petro also screened Brodeur on the Kings 5th goal...just skated in front of him and made no effort to block the shot. Not a good night for him at all.
The Kings 6th goal was just flukey BS that pretty much squelched any comeback we may have had in mind.
Great start to the game...bad finish to the game. And I'm really down on Petro right now. He needs to be waaaaaay better than he has been playing.
