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 HamBlaster
Messages: 924
Registered: June 2007
No Cups
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This is such a divisive team... re unlikable.
I love elements of this squad. I love the truculence, commitment and determination of some of our players. Hyman, Kane, Foegele, Holloway, Hamblin and Ryan make me want to cheer for this squad. Ceci has pulled himself together and he and Nurse sometime play some really solid games (Nurse will always be an albatross because of that contract though). I keep rooting for Skinner as I keep reminding myself that he's not supposed to be the #1 for this team. He should be developing and he's being rushed because of Campbell being a catastrophic disaster. Desharnais and Broberg... they are also still developing. They are being rushed and so I can't fault them too much either. Some D take a while to develop.
I find myself very disappointed with Bouchard and Ekholm, McLeod, Brown, McDavid and Draisaitl. Bouchard scores and is a wizard sometimes in the offensive zone, but he's not a particularly scary PP quarterback (because he stands still) and he's an absolute dumpster fire on D. His vision on O makes the lack of vision on D totally inexcusable. He can see the ice... he just chooses not to. That is brutally frustrating and I do find myself angry at him almost all the time. Ekholm just looks.... off... and doesn't seem to be able to cover for Bouch the way he did last year. He's not communicating with Evan now the way he was earlier, and we're seeing the results of that. Evan doesn't communicate with anyone particularly well, however I thought he'd found some level of synergy with Ek. I guess not.
McLeod is the definition of a public skate dynamo. Lots of flash and flair, but zero in terms of real production and threat. I don't know if I've seen a player that is more gifted that just achieves absolutely nothing meaningful. Also, the PK is a gong show and he could be saving himself by really excelling there. I love McLeod's smile and positivity, however he needs to start producing something. Anything. Hit someone. Do something meaningful and don't just go for a public skate every shift. Ruffle some feathers.
Brown. Enough said. What a brutal contract that's looking to end up being.
McDavid and Draisaitl. Ugh. I can't be too angry with these two, as for years now they've been the absolute backbone, heart and soul of this team... and they've performed consistently. You can't fault them for the body of their work, and they are getting points... just not the league-leading points that we've grown accustomed to. You CAN fault them for their body language and their lack of will to achieve. When things go wrong for either of them, they just turn into pouting little kids... sour-faced and morose. The team feeds off of that. When that starts to happen, you see the team completely wilt. They need to be the leaders of this team and when they become pouty, sad toddlers... it ruins the team. They need to pull up their big boy pants, put on their letters and be the leaders that this team needs.
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