OK, everyone close your eyes, take a deep breath and think back to October and November. Remember the HABS? Remember the work ethic? Skating hard, working hard, hungry for the game and the win...this was our key to success.
Last few games and mainly last night we've seen the same team and all it took was some young blood. Following another solid start and getting scored on in one of the first shots on met, I grew worried. In recent history this is the point where we stop fore checking and collapse I'm front of the net waiting for the game to end without getting too amassed. A shift by our third and fourth lines and we're back on the fore check and skating hard. Same goes for the momentum shift following the Isles second goal. Props to young Lapierre in realising his spot in the team and doing a bang up job at it...literally. His shifts are what I'm looking forward to the most when we go in to
Getting back on topic, how about Mr. Kostitsyn. I couldn't help but reminisce about the Great #99 following his pass to Higgins from behind the net. He sat in Gretzky's office, put his feet up, lit a cigar and when the defence flinched made 2 foot flip pass over 12" of sticks and skates right on to Higgins' tape. If that doesn't earn him a spot on next year's roster, maybe his cranial capabilities will. Mid way on the third, he watched Pleckanecs shred it passed the sloth like Islanders D and challenge the goalie on the left side. It seems I was not the only one to notice how far left the goalie came out to play Plecks (he left his crease to the right to challenge Pleck’s...signs of inexperience). In any case, later on that period Kostitsyn had the exact same trajectory as Pleckanec. He's as smart as he is talented this kid. Even though he was facing the goalie 1 on 1, he never hesitated to pass the puck to #35 who was facing an empty net on the account of Dunham enjoying a bag of popcorn and some cotton candy with Kostitsyn on the third row.
But the star rookie of the game, who incidentally was the star of the game, was Guillaume. He almost potted a hat trick (just could turn fast enough) was active, stood in front of the net and crunched some bodies. By far his best game in the NHL thus far. But you know what really impressed me? When Koivu got man handled in front of Di-Pietro’s net (which magically was not a penalty for the record) who was the first to jump in? Not the veteran Ryder (in fact Mr. Newfound Land never showed up) but it was Guy Guy Guy Guy Guy! When a rookie stands up for his captain, it gets his whole team going, and that was a momentum shifter of a moment as well.
It’s the little things that make or break a great team. We were doing them all right last night. I sure hop we can keep it up because two wins over the weekend will go a loooooooong way in this playoff race. With the accelerated return date of Huet we’ll have a goaltender who can stop a puck (no offense but Halak has some maturing to do and Aebi couldn’t stop a cab) things are still looking good for us. If we win on Friday and Saturday, we have a chance (pending other games) to be tied for or in 8th in NL standings. So Carbonneau and Muller, whatever you have been telling or feeding the troops to get them playing that motivated, make sure you keep doing it for another month or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment