Wilde Horses
- Paul Byron with speed so impressive you would have to not like hockey to not like him. How can you not love a player flying like that? He scored once and as Mitch Melnick said on the TSN 690 round table, if he had more natural goal scoring ability he would have had three or four.
- Alexei Emelin would be the world's best defenceman if you could just tell him to see Bruins jerseys as the opposition every game. Laying out hits, playing smart, killing penalties, even keeping the puck pinned in the offensive zone. That's what I wrote after two periods. Please see below to the goat section.
- The line of Desharnais-Fleischmann-Weise back together and so dominant again that it is a mystery why they needed to split them up. I don't believe in splitting a good line up if they go sour a bit. Let them work through it. As Ray Ferraro said, he hated being on a good line and had to see it spilt just so another line could get going instead. Ferraro said he always found that unfair. Well they're back and they were their old selves.
- Daniel Carr took a hard hit and knew it was coming to make a strong shot on goal. Good guts. Coach loves that.
- Tomas Plekanec with his best game in a while. He seemed to benefit from Byron. Byron set him up once on a third-period beauty that he couldn't convert.
- Lars Eller is stringing a lot of strong games together these days that no one is noticing as usual.
Wilde Goats
- Christian Thomas lost his discipline and took a bad retaliation penalty. When you're playing well but are on the cusp, that's one the coach is looking at and he's probably going to judge you harshly.
- Therrien said the Galchenyuk line was going to face tougher match ups and pairings and was curious to see how they could handle that. Night one: not so good; okay, bad then. You don't get a lot harder than Bergeron as an opposite on some shifts and Chara on D pretty much every shift. Therrien didn't do anything to rectify it either. He seemed just fine with Galchenyuk not really touching the puck all night and the first line playing against all of Boston's best. Not sure what the last change is for if you're not going to use it to try to help your best players. He basically made Galchenyuk a sacrificial lamb out there. Left him hanging out to dry. Galchenyuk took two seconds off in the D zone and Marchand to Bergeron burned him fast. Galchenyuk got schooled yes but is that how you want to coach this? Wouldn't Plekanec vs Bergeron have been what you are looking for on home ice?
- Galchenyuk was only partly to blame on the goal though. Emelin was completely out of the play going for some sort of stroll. Fairly odd that Galchenyuk was even in a position to get schooled. Emelin and Petry to a lesser extent on that play doing their jobs right means Galchenyuk doesn't look bad or even have to cover poorly at all for others. It takes a lot of mistakes to allow a goal that ugly.
Wilde Cards
- Time to heap some praise on the Habs organization. Just look at the fill-ins with the roster thinning out. Carr free agent not drafted pick up. Thomas acquired for Kristo. Andrighetto a third rounder. Byron a waiver wire pick up. Weise for Diaz. Fleischmann a tryout. Flynn a trade for basically zippo. That's not a who's who of high pedigree. That's hard work finding hidden gems by a lot of different Bergevin hires.
- Can't put any goat horns on Condon. He let in a breakaway and a gorgeous shot to the top corner. Quality efforts. I will give credit for those efforts instead.
- On the overall, stay calm. You lose Price, Mitchell, Gallagher, are thin on right wing with both Kassian and Semin not panning out, so then you have to ride the storm out until the injured return and Bergevin pulls a deal for a right winger. This club is going through a natural low in a long season. It will pass. They'll be fine when Price is fine.
