Well.
Brent Thompson had talked last night about shooting more. Asked Aaron Ness about it, and he pointed to those 10 shots on goal after two. “It’s not good enough,” he said. It goes through the team, forwards, defensemen, getting traffic, everything.
Then he was off to sign autographs. And before long, he was back from autographs. A few other players had been called back in as well.
There was lots of talk afterward about work ethic.
“There are good things and bad things in a game,” Brent Thompson said. “There are things you can learn from in a game. Whether you win or lose, it’s how you play. The frustrating thing is looking at the full 60 minutes. We haven’t put in 60 minutes in a long time.”
Discipline (Colin McDonald talked about how facing that many power plays disrupted their game), consistency, and heck, getting shots on net — seriously, I’m pretty sure they put double digits wide in the first, and that with passing up some shots — all little things adding up to six losses in a row. (Missing their top penalty killer can’t help, either.)
They are very clearly not happy, and they’ve got 60 minutes tomorrow to put things back together.
“We’ve got to get back to what we were doing earlier in the season,” Ness said. “Simpler plays. … Supporting each other. Playing for each other.”
….
For good or ill, coming in tomorrow is a team that has lost four in a row and had a worse second period tonight than Bridgeport did. In the #pointsforall world, something’s got to give.
Presumably.
Cedrick Desjardins didn’t face a lot of shots on goal, let’s say, but he made a couple of really nice ones. A split save on Colin McDonald’s one-timer was probably the best (to be honest, with a straight-up look, I was kind of thinking shot from Aaron Ness, but the pass required that save, so what do I know). Robbed McDonald again in the last minute diving to the left with the glove. Desjardins had stopped just 49 of 62 in three starts since his last win 24 days ago, including that 6-1 loss to Bridgeport up in Hartford (Bridgeport’s second-to-last win).
Third-period lines became Persson-Mouillierat-McDonald, still Halmo-Stretch-Zolnierczyk, Gillies-Quine-Vaughan and a couple of shifts of Gallant-Langkow-Courtnall.
Meanwhile Springfield has given up losing, Syracuse won again and Albany knocked off the Fightin’ Pedans*, so Bridgeport, atop the conference not long ago, sits last in the Berkshire League tonight. (Though seventh in the conference.)
The Capitals called up Steve Oleksy. Didn’t play tonight, though; maybe a good thing. (Or maybe he turns the whole thing around! Maybe. Ehh, who knows. Sorry to waste an exclamation point.)
Big club back on track, speaking of the Capitals and transitioning awkwardly. Apparent beauty from Calvin de Haan (nice line from Jack Capuano); will have to give a look later on.
*-Seriously, Pedan vs. Matteau. Concussions do funky things to memory sometimes, but I suspect Matteau remembered what Pedan did to him here in October.