Early, Brutal Days

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.

The Hits Keep On Coming

Brian Elliot has been shipped to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for similarly-struggling goalie Craig Anderson.

(Am I the only one who hears Agent Smith from The Matrix saying "Mister Anderson" every time they read Crag's last name? ...yeah, probably. Ok then.)

Elliot wasn't an elite goalie by any means, but I think his name is best added to the (long) list of goalies who's performances were worsened by the dubious quality of the players in front of him. I know the blogosphere loved to hate on him.

I am a bit stunned that Murray managed to find a taker for Elliot (my precise words when reading the news were "Holy Sh!!"). However, the exchange of struggling pending-FA goalies (Elliot is R, Anderson a U) points to two clubs who think that maybe a change of scenery might spark a return to form for at least one of these players -- and frankly at this point in the season the clubs both probably think they have nothing else to lose.

Hard to see who wins or loses with this trade. But at the rate things are going, we won't have to worry about it too long, as there is sure to be more movement.