I know your friend might not be familar with Sharks prospects but that is funny. Reminds me of that line in The Naked Gun: "Hey look! It's Enrico Pallazzo!"
I thought he played better than ANY game I saw him in last season.
O'Sullivan more than Kopitar looked a little skittish, but they both had a whole *** load of ability. Kopitar has that lovely cruise-control style of skating.
Sully is a better passer than I had anticipated. Too bad he has no one to finish.
Cloutier played very well. First goal was hopeless, second, he might have gotten it had he been paddle-down, but Gleason blew it both plays.
Bernier looked very comfortable, but he overcommits in that MAF/Theodore/QMJHL way that is too prevelant with the smaller quicker b-flyers. Its ok, thats something that can be worked out.
Idiots in my section booing O'Sullivan, Cloutier, and Bernier. Kings fans can be the biggest ********. Had guys in jerseys sitting near me that didnt realize the Kings had traded Demitra and acquired Cloutier. Back to the beach, bro.
I thought he played better than ANY game I saw him in last season.
O'Sullivan more than Kopitar looked a little skittish, but they both had a whole *** load of ability. Kopitar has that lovely cruise-control style of skating.
Sully is a better passer than I had anticipated. Too bad he has no one to finish.
Cloutier played very well. First goal was hopeless, second, he might have gotten it had he been paddle-down, but Gleason blew it both plays.
Bernier looked very comfortable, but he overcommits in that MAF/Theodore/QMJHL way that is too prevelant with the smaller quicker b-flyers. Its ok, thats something that can be worked out.
Idiots in my section booing O'Sullivan, Cloutier, and Bernier. Kings fans can be the biggest ********. Had guys in jerseys sitting near me that didnt realize the Kings had traded Demitra and acquired Cloutier. Back to the beach, bro.
Thanks for the update.
Why the hell did the idiots boo Sully, Clouts and Bernier? Makes no sense, especially Sully and Bernier...they just stepped on the ice for the kings! Oh well, what do you expect i guess.
Frolov and Kopitar together is money. Two big bodies who can control the puck like no ones business. I can't remember how many penalties Kopitar drew with guys all over his back, at least 3. And where did that rumor of Frolov being fat ever come from? He's leaner and faster then he's ever been.
O'Sullivan didn't really impress me, but it's only one game, and it seemed like he was still getting his legs underneath him. Had two breakaway chances where he definately showed his speed, but couldn't bury them.
Bernier is fast! His side to side lateral movement is incredible. I wasn't a big fan of him at #11 this year, but man, he's definately playing to change my opinion of him.
Lukacevic is Craig Johnson part two. And not in the bad way. Serious wheels, and will be a pretty good pk'er.
Cammalleri had a decent chance but missed wide. It was weird seeing him as the ceter on the PP, with Conroy on the wing.
Everyone else was pretty invisible aside from Cowan getting beaten up.
Agree with most of this. I think Kopitar is ready to play with the big club. Not so sure about O'Sullivan. I was really surprised at how small O'Sullivan was. He's barely bigger than Cammy.
Speaking of Cammy, he really need to stop trying to shoot EVERY shot from one knee. In warmups, that's all he was doing.
Gleason looked terrible. He turned it over in our zone a bunch of times and looked clueless on the Shark goals. I was a little shocked by how bad he played.
I went last night, and I'll share my impressions. I haven't read anyone else's on this thread, so if I'm repeating things, my apologies, but this is the way I saw it:
Last night looked a lot like the team that finished last year.
Mostly uninspired offensive play, an inablility to finish, poor defense - especially against the rotation down low, with the occasional serious gaffe leading directly to a goal.
Neither Cloutier nor Bernier impressed me in any way. I didn't expect much from Bernier, but nothing Cloutier did last night makes me want to get rid of either Garon nor LaBarbara.
Things that stood out to me:
-O'Sullivan looked real good. He had two or three breakaways. Needs to learn to finish those. Hopefully, Fro & Luc can give him some pointers.
-Kopitar wasn't outstanding - but he certainly didn't look out of place in the NHL. Looked very comfortable & made good plays with the puck.
-What the hell was up with Tim Gleason???! Did we bring back Corvo? Maybe it wasn't Joe - maybe just wearing the number 6 makes you suck - I dunno. But that was a lousy game for him last night. Wake up Timmy! Game on!
-What really incensed me was the way Crawford handled the end of the game. I'm not a huge fan of Andy Murray, but one of the things he did really well was give his team a chance at the end of a game. Down 2 goals, about 3 minutes left, if we get a power play & a face-off in the offensive zone, you KNEW Murray would call a time out - and pull the goalie. This was going to be our best last chance. Might as well try it. But not last night. Last night we wait until the power play is nearly over THEN we pull the goalie. Boy, that's helpful. By the time the new offensive player got out on the ice & entered play, it was over. Oh, and then he uses his time-out with 17 seconds left. WHAT FOR? Did you think we were going to score 2 goals in the final 17 seconds - at even strength? As far as I could see this was Marc Crawford saying, "I don't give a damn if we win. I'm just going to go through the motions like I'm supposed to whether it actually gives us an opportuinity to win or not."
Like I said, I was incensed at Crawford. Give us a chance to win it, Marc. It's not likely that we'll score, but if we don't take advantage of the opportunities we're given right near the end, we definately won't.
Other than that, it was a typical game right from the end of last season. It was nice to see all our friends in our section again. 'Bout the only thing worth going for....
