Quoting: BenjaminWalder
2 of the goals andersen let in were easy saves (goals #1 and 3), Matthews and Marner look out of sorts a little and Boeser basically became Tavares's dad that game from how many times boeser dumped tavares into the boards, i agree with every little word you say
Quoting: BulinWall
Yeah agreed. Imo it’s like Marner and Matthews chemistry is like the Sedins and Lecavalier with St. Louis but Mariners chemistry with Tavares is still really good. However Tavares and Nylander even though they can still put up points, isn’t like that good in terms of my eye test. It’s like two shooters making plays to each other where they have some playmaking ability it’s not to the level with Marner or Matthews. Maybe the chemistry isn’t there anymore where they tried it and failed? Iunno but I liked the Matthews-Nylander and Marner-Tavares combinations they had last year just to get Tavares going a little. He’s still one of the best center men this year but he can personally impact games more than he has so far
I feel Marner and Matthews need a Hyman type player on their line again to get into the corners and do the dirty work, or just a better player. Maybe they could try Nylander - Matthews - Marner, Kerfoot - Tavares - Barabanov, Hyman - Engvall - Mikheyev, Vesey - Spezza - Boyd. (give Thornton a break and let Barabanov play a little in a spot he has earned to play) Maybe Taylor Hall deserves a bit of a deeper look from Dubas, I mean it couldn’t hurt. But if he is gonna make a trade he should do it soon, during the least busy time of our schedule, because of the two week quarantine.
I’m unsure what change needs to happen, I am confident in this group of players when they’re playing well. But when they play like this... yikes.
I am, quite honestly, more confident in Hutch starting games over Andersen. Campbell would be my choice for some more starts, but he’s obviously injured so we’ll have to wait on that.
Maybe even a new goalie coach would help. It can’t hurt to try some new things and see what works best. Better to be like this now rather than in the playoffs.