I don't have any confidence in Darling. He seems to play goalie like I would. In a panic, flapping arms, kicking out here and there, constantly out of position. Say what you want about Luongo, pumped tires or not, he sees the puck and reacts. Darling just flops around and hopes he gets in the way. At least Cam seems like he's in control.
There is plenty of blame to go around here. Bottom line is we don't have the talent to be a consistent playoff team.
Maybe our owner is broke and can't dig any deeper. (or wouldn't/shouldn't; hell, I'm not his accountant)
Maybe GMRF just doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to make a big deal. I like his off-season, shore-up moves but maybe there wasn't a big one to be made.
Maybe our coaches' expiration date has passed. He really does seem frustrated in interviews. I like what's he done with limited talent, then he leaves Skinner on the bench during overtime to, I don't know, teach him a lesson or something. We lost. Ryan in the top six? nine? Ugh!
It's probably some variation of many factors and it might take several moves to figure out.
Bottom line is we need to move a defensemen for some scoring help. Rask and Teravainen are not going to get better. I love McGinn, on a fourth line. Nordstrom, Staal and Lindholm are all third line players. Only SKinner, Aho and Williams are top six players.
I do love Slavin/Pesce and Fleury/McKeown. I'm over Faulk and I only see Hanifin getting worse.
Is it James Neal? Alex Galchenyuk? David Perron? Evander Kane? Only Galchenyuk has/can play centre. I feel like the current plan is to wait for draftees to assume leadership roles. The dual captaincy shows we don't really have a team leader right now. I've been patient, but I have to admit, sometimes I only feel dread on game day. I was excited about open night and that's pretty much it. If the Canes are losing me, they are in real trouble. I'm still buying season tickets and its occurring to me that I'm not enjoying it anymore.
Oh well, I'm just going to fantasize that John Tavares has fallen in love with North Carolina and he's just keeping everything on the DL because that's what hockey players do.
And yeah, why make your son look like a jerk just to sell water? My first thought was, that's not cool.