IDEK

"We made so many horrendous individual errors," said Tri-City coach Jim Hiller, whose team has been outscored 29-12 in its six home losses. "This was one of our worst games. It's in the books and there's no way to change it. I thought their goalie played well, but we are in a rut and the only way out is to put our nose to the grindstone and get ugly."  (Herald)

I dunno, I'd have to say that was pretty ugly.  I think he's meaning a different ugly.

Also, I should have written this last night when my list of annoyances and opinions was fresh.  Because I have plenty of both, in case you were unsure.  

The line shuffling seemed to be sort of working in the first period, the only good decent period the AMS had.  Mike Brown was indeed, as Mr. Spokant called it, between Shinny and Lazo.  Adam Hughesman was down on the line with Moser and Holland.  But as the game progressed, Moser got much less ice time (shoulda kept playing him, not like he was going to worse than anyone else out there), Holly got more, and by 3rd period, Brown was nowhere to be found.  Well, until he took that goddamn 5-minute major.  Way to help your team when they're already behind.  I want to like Mike Brown.  He did well enough at the start of the game, but to end the game like that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The only lines that stayed consistently together were the Feser-Prokop-Wilgosh line and for the most part Macek-Messier-Drozd.  Macek is almost there every night.  Needs to stop trying to be fancy and look for the perfect play and just shoot the damn puck.  Sergei had a good game, worked his ass off.

Speaking of working his ass off, Eric Mestery was nails last night.

At what point does a coach bench Tyler Schmidt to send a message?  Yes, he's one of the top 3 defenseman on this team, I get that.  I personally think he's a great D-man.  That is, when he's concentrating on playing, not the incessant bitching to the refs and linesmen.  Guy in my section said "he'll shut up when they start doing their job".  No, no he won't.  We all know the refs in this league are imperfect and horribly inconsistent, but he is drawing so much negative attention to himself and to the team.  I can only imagine being a ref having to listen to that bullshit, you can be damn sure I'm gonna pay closer attention to the team whining to me and call every little offense I can.  Which is obviously a shitty move, but you'd be delusional to think it happens any other way.  Maybe coach feels they can't sit Schmidt, perhaps he doesn't have faith that whomever replaces him will step up and fill his skates effectively.  But at what point is Schmidt's bitching as much, if not more, of a liability than a 5th or 6th D-man stepping in to fill that top D role while Tyler sits?

Which brings me to leadership.  I don't know what is going on with this team.  I was recapping the game for Scotty Wazz and he said "it's just a lull that all teams go through."   It's not a lull.  A lull was November.  This is derailing.  Mr. RL said about the line shuffling "this is the time of year to be fine-tuning that kind of stuff, not totally overhauling it".  I have held back on solely blaming coach, since it's a team game.  Some of the responsibility of leading the team rests on the shoulders of the Captain and his Alternates.  I'm not necessarily questioning Toll, I don't know what does or doesn't get said on the bench, in the locker room, or during practice.   I don't know how vocal Tollsy is, perhaps he's more of the lead-by-example type Captain, which is fine, but being vocal still needs to be a part of that.  I have to think the boys respect him enough to listen to him, but if he's not talking enough....

I was shocked coach left From Russia With Glove in after the third goal went in.  Clearly he's had better games.  I have nothing else to add to that.

You know that saying "you never know what you got till it's gone"?  I've been a harsh critic of Kruise Reddick in the past but holy crap I miss him out on the ice.  I'll take his inconsistency over him not playing at all any day.

Here's the thing, this team is still in 1st place in the division and the conference.  That's something to be quite proud of.  But from a fan standpoint, it's frustrating because we know (ok, I know, since I can only speak for myself here) that Bob has built a very talented team.  I know Jim is a decent coach, Bob wouldn't have hired him if he didn't believe in him.  Virch is a good coach.  To see them struggle is much harder when expectations are so high.  There has been an atmosphere of winning that has been built over the last 4+ years and so the expectation level is ridiculously high.  That why every loss, every play that happened during a losing game, is so scrutinized by the fans.

Alright, I think I'm done with last night.  On to tonight.  Boys are in Spokane to take on the Chiefs.  The Maple Leaf Mafia will be there (minus the Don).  As a result, I will not be running a liveblog tonight.  Sorry all other regulars.  I have nice long weekend and have some projects going on at mi casa and am just gonna sit back and enjoy the away game.  Maybe that will bring them some luck, I have no idea.

Bottom line, something I want to make explicitly clear, I love this team, win or lose.  The losses are frustrating, sure, but I still adore this team 1000%.