Erndog said:
We're regressing though.
Last 12 games last year we were outshot an average of 33 to 22.
This year has been a debacle of epic porprotions. I have never seen something like this save for an expansion team. Getting outplayed, outshot and outchanced every single game by a wide margin. I'm not sure we've outshot/outchanced the opposition more than once or twice in the last 23 games or whatever.
The goaltending has masked a LOT of problems.
The whole year hasn't been a debacle. I think there's a lot of revisionist history going on here, where we are cherry picking some bad games and using those to write off a whole season that for the first part produced some good results. They have had a lousy November. They had a very good October. The only anomaly there is shots on goal but that can't be the defining factor in a team being considered good or bad. It's a contributor.
They worked their tails off last night but couldn't handle the Pens in the 3rd. Is that impending doom? Not to me. Frustrating as hell? For sure. You take away that stupid 5 on 3 which became a 5 on 2 when Bozak lost his stick, and Malkin takes a penalty and no goal after shoving Bernier to score and it's a different game. Anyway, that's just one game. I didn't see effort as the issue. Effort WAS the issue vs. Columbus for sure.
By my count if they reduced SOG against by 5-6 and increase their SOG by 4-5 and they would be middle of the pack on shots. But is that really going to mean they are suddenly dominant, even if it was 10 shots in each direction?
I recall the CUJO years being full of games they were horribly outshot. yeah they were in over their heads in the first couple but it didn't mean they were a "bad team" with goaltending masking all sorts of warts. They were like most other teams save a small group of contenders.