Yeah, it's early days yet. But so far the signs are not good.I watched Tuesday's tilt against the Dearly Departed Dany and co, and Ottawa seemed to dominate long periods of play in the Minnesota end. The shot clock reflected this.
I'm still not convinced about the shot clock being a measure of a player's, or a team's, output. Tuesday demonstrated why -- Ottawa could run long periods of time in the Minnesota end, cranking in shot after blocked shot after shot, and all for nothing. Then the team would blink, and the puck would be in the back of the Ottawa net.
The fact that Ottawa hung on keeping the pressure applied until Minnesota started to make a few goal-surrendering-mistakes (or Ottawa kept cranking up the ugly scrambles) is a credit to them, they didn't get discouraged and they kept going.
Offense-wise there was plenty to like, defensively not so much.
And Mr. Gonchar, could you dial the give-a-fuck-meter up a notch or two? Because that was brutal at times.
And then there was the Avalanche on Thursday.
I didn't watch, and by the sounds of things, nobody showed up to play. But the shot clock was being run up quickly by Colorado: at one point it was 3-1 or 4-1 and Anderson's save percentage was still higher than the Minnesota goalie's, even though he'd surrendered way more goals. That tells you something, even if I'm not sure exactly what.
Same old same old.
So I expect that this is going to be the rhythm of the year: blowouts mixed with the occasional close-lost game and a very light sprinkling of victory.
And lots of games where the shot clock is cranked up, but nothing comes of it, and because none of these kids can play defense, blink-and-your-done type goals given up.
We knew it was going to be brutal... but really.
