his most likely injury is a concussion, followed by broken orbital bone. no one will know until he plays in practice and what kind of gear he's wearing.
As usual, Chico's run-through of the game at msg.com is meaningless since he talks like some cheerleader for his grandkids' team.
But if someone told me 3 days ago we would lose 3-1 to Kings in a pretty tight game, I would think it's a positive step
And Taormina is our leader in goal scoring
Anyone care to give a little info on how the game looked?
I watched the first two periods before passing out and waking up with 3 minutes left. Watching us against nearly every other team, it's very clear that our attack is very slow and lacks creativity. Such was the case again. Most of our shots were from 40' out with no one in front causing havoc. Taormina's goal, Zubrus screened the goal. We did something right. The PP was bad again for the same reasons. No movement of players, no cycle, passing was off the mark, no traffic in front, no rebound shots.
They really are just gliding around out there and this team, outside of Kovy, Zubrus, and Pelly, are just not hungry enough for the puck, We won against the duck by chipping it out but that doesn;t work against a team that actually wants to play a puck possession game because you just keep giving the biscut back to them. We don't play tight checking, we don't play aggressive forecheck, we don't play puck possession...what kind of system do we have?
With three rookie D-men back there, mistakes will be made and each made them tonight. Eckford's cost us the first goal. Tao coughed up the puck to cause a 3-1 rush against. Magnan coughed it up to Williams behind the net. Greene has been more out of position than in. Tallinder played better the last two games and dare I say that White has been our best d-man.
I was a huge Arnott fan the first time around but this time, he's a shell. I've been watching him and he never wants the puck. If it comes to him, he pushes it along because he doesn't want to have to skate with it. He's too slow and knows it. Lou got totally ripped off on that deal. He's not even worthy of 3rd line center duties but at least we're only stuck with him for this year.
With Zach getting injured, I think we're really up the creek. We have to dump guys to clear cap room eventually but the guys we want to dump clearly have little value out there and those we thought we might dump (Zubrus/White) have been solid for us. Half our team are Albany players and we are getting crushed with injuries (A-Train, Zach, Salvador, Josefson, Rolston, Corrente, Fraser, Salmela).
It's time like these where it's a matter of throwing pucks at the net and crashing. Every team collapses guys around the net except us. We need traffic and to try to start working hard. They say it but I just don't see the effort yet....if it fails to return over the next 4-5 games, our consecutive playoff string will be stopped for sure.
The looming cap moves have to be a major distraction for the players. Lou needs to get on that.
We won't have to do anything about the cap if the doom and gloom reports about Zach are true.
Oh, and I read this on another board from a Devils fan in attendance, the LA bitterness vis-a-vis Kovy continues:
Quote:
I give KINGS management credit for one thing. They had small card in every urinal that on one side said "Cost of a top sniper - $100 Million Dollars, Cost of being last place in the league - Priceless" the reverse side had a picture of Lou with a wad of bills saying "I spent $100 M on this?"
i would trade ANYTHING/ANYONE on this team to get that kind of leadership back on this team. its painfully obvious that theres nobody out there on the ice rallying the troops or leading by example. i never thought id miss stevens as much as i do. could you imagine him with this team? christ, he wouldve beaten langs upside the head, punched jmac for having not enough direction and questioned every other players manhood. im all for parise becoming the captain, but i just dont see that "leadership" quality in him just yet. then again, few were like stevens. sigh. were all sad pandas with a sad sad sad ****ing team.
