OMG THE SKY IS FALLING

It's not really falling you know.  Then again, I'm generally too optimistic about everything.  I am not hitting the panic button.  I am, however, banging my head against the frustration button...repeatedly.

There are a lot of excuses that could be/are being used:

• young defense
• missing Shinnimin
• week off between games

But there's a couple things I do know for sure:

• Excuses are just that, excuses.  Make changes instead of excuses.
• The loss of Virtue has proven to be bigger than anyone thought (ass-pat to Spokant for mentioning that last night)
• The depth that is supposed to be the strength of this team has been relatively invisible--Macek, Holland, Feser.  Yes, they're working hard (not sure if it's hard enough) but not showing on the scoreboard.  Again with my optimism, I keep waiting for Macek to magically pull it together one of these nights, and that's just not happening.  Not sure how much longer I can be optimistic about him.  Sorry Brooks, your looks will carry you only so far in my book.
• Something has shaken Drew's confidence.  He'd probably be the first to tell you he's been off his game.  Maybe not having Alex pushing him is the issue, maybe he doesn't have confidence in the D in front of him.  I believe the position of goaltender is the spot most affected by mental stability.  If his confidence and the mental aspect of his game is off, that spells some trouble.  
• Last night the hope that this was just a rough patch came up.  Last spring when they had some struggles, I looked at the scores, they went 6-9-1-0 (so 10 losses in 16 games).  I looked at from February 10, 2010 against Portland until March 7, 2010 against Seattle.  So far in the past 10 games the Ams are 5-4-0-1.  What's my point?  I don't know.  I guess it reaffirms my decision not to panic.  Granted, if the trend of losing continues, then it will be panic time.
• Who knows what the problem is?  I mean, we can all bitch and speculate and point fingers, but none of us is in that locker room.  And I don't think it's one thing, it's multiple things going on.  But again, you can make excuses, or you can make changes.  I know for a fact that Bob Tory is not an excuses kind of guy.
• Personally, I'm not ready to ditch Hiller.  During the blame game liveblog last night Hiller's name came up and doubts about his abilities.  That's a tough one.  He took the Americans farther than they've ever gone in their history last year.  I could buy the early success to the Nachbaur-hangover, but the 2nd half and playoff success I give to Hiller (and Virtue).  This team is loaded with talent but it's not carrying over to success night-in and night-out on the ice.  I dunno, he handled a talent-laden team last year.  Again, my over optimism shines through, but it is cautious optimism.
• I wonder if it's also an issue of too much talent.  I know, you wouldn't think that would be a bad thing.  But if you've got big egos and guys who want to be the standout superstar, guys who want to do it all themselves, there's going to be some trouble.  It's a TEAM game, wins and losses.
• I like making bullet-point lists

I don't know what the solution is.  They did have 47 shots on goal last night.  That's impressive.  Course, the stats don't show how many were quality shots.  But I swear to God, all I heard last night was Siemens' name so shots were definitely getting through.  It also provided a lot of semen jokes in the liveblog. 

I sure hope they have done some soul searching on the way home last night.  I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Dreidger started in net tonight.  They'd better be ready to play, that's for sure.  The Chiefs may not have any depth, but Don Nachbaur knows how to make his boys work.  A game wouldn't be complete without a goat picture:

As for liveblog tonight, I'm going to set it up, but the Bishes are coming to my haus today and last time we all tried to connect for liveblog, my internet couldn't handle it.  So of course, we're going to try it again!  If it crashes or whatever, be prepared for liveblog to end.