Three Stars:
- Corey Crawford
- Artem Anisimov
- Erik Gustaffson
Welp. (I’m tempted to leave this as a one word recap. So I’m going to be writing in parenthesis throughout this recap. Just so we know that that’s the one word I can give this performance).
(What was up with the two hardware players last night? Kane and Panarin made a dozen mistakes, and neither of them contributed anything of great value after the first minute. In fact nobody did, but we’ll get to that.)
(I think Stan made a mistake. There, I said it. Why couldn’t he wait another day so that we could get Sekac here in between games? The timing on this was off, especially when Panik didn’t show up to practice. Playing both Mashinter and Scuderi less than five minutes a piece was a mistake. Scuderi being the defenseman on the fourth line was also a mistake. Goose should have been there instead. I blame these three moves for the loss and snap of our streak.)
(But again, players are not blameless in this game. The Lightning showed up. We didn’t. They were playing for revenge and we had nothing to play for. Let’s hope that changes.)
(I think Shaw needs to start scoring again or be bumped down to four. He’s been playing well, but the production of the line is down and we need three scoring lines in the playoffs. Somebody’s gotta step their game up and it seems like whenever I doubt somebody they explode for the next few games [see Panik, Artisimov, Hossa]. I’m trying to use that to my advantage, doubting my favorite player.)
(The only player who showed up last night was Corey Crawford. Vezina trophy better be coming his way if Holtby continues his fall off. The trophy race is between those two and while Crawford’s best aspect is consistency, Holtby falling off could mean wonderful things)
(Let’s just say I’m incredibly happy about the Stars’ January and if that continues we’ll be fine.)