Taro T

Agreed. No data on if he's been practicing since then, but he has not dressed for a game since then. Ruff does continue to say he's willing to play all 3 and will play whichever one on any given night he thinks will give them the best chance of winning. (And with that said, we haven't seen Ellis dress in about 2 weeks.)

Samuelsson and Greenway have both been significantly more physical than they've been in past seasons. Don't know if it's due to Ruff harping on physicality ordue to guys like Doan, Dunne, Timmons, and Benson setting the example and shaming the others into playing more physical. Probably a bit of both.

Well, when you actually send pressure, there almost always is SOMEBODY open. The key is, to have that breakdown happen to the side of the field you're chasing the QB away from or at a minimum far down his progressions so that you get to him before he can look to that receiver. Would MUCH prefer they step up the pressure on Mahomes than play like they did on 4th and 17. 2 guys actually getting pressure and a 3rd doing jack gave Mahomes a week and a half back there and enough time for Rice to finally get open. They usually don't pressure Mahomes in the playoffs and they usually get 2 stops the entire game whether they needed those stops or not. They have Josh Allen. Pressure Mahomes and the couple of times that he makes you pay for not getting there, let Josh Allen go clean up the mess and get the score differential back to where it had just been.

Yep. Granato was all about puck possession in OT and trying everything you could to get the other guys tired and then, and only then, taking a shot at actually scoring in OT. And it was a pretty successful concept. Ruff doesn't seem to care about possession as much as he has the skaters be more aggressive and go for the win when they can. So far, it's backfired in 4 of the past 5 games, and the only reason it didn't fail in the other game is the exhausted OTers did a good job of not allowing anything in close and UPL was lights out in OT. Take either of those away and we're likely looking at 5 points in the last 5 rather than 6 out of the last 5. And the skaters were more aggressive tha they'd been under Granato last year too.

Well, per UPL, YOUR expectation ain't happening, as HE expects to get the start tomorrow.

As expected. But it would've been nice for them to give Ellis that start against his old organization.

@tom webster, we'll likely have 3 for Union.

Improving the coaching would help in that regard. The same guy drawing up schemes for the PP and late in the game seems to be the same one drawing up the schemes for very late in the game (aka OT) as well. You (usually) can't fix stupid, but you can fire it and put someone better in its place. 😉

Well, yes, it would be good to not have Georgiev around. But why would you rather have Ratzlaff sitting on the bench in Ra-cha-cha rather than playing in Springfield or elsewhere? He's in Jacksonville so he can get the bulk of the starts. That is NOT going to happen if he's paired with Levi.

So glad Ruff didn't go with UPL though right after the Caps game thought that would be the right choice (see if his late game heroics could go to his head and get that January '23 juju back) but just don't see how UPL could've gotten this game to OT. Lyon was fabulous until he got hung out to dry in OT. Never like to see a 5 hole goal, but that was Keller and he was in clean. Expecting UPL next game and they probably need to give him that one to keep from getting into his own head, but would like to see Ellis get a shot against his old team.

Was kind of curious if he'd let the 2 kids out there in OT; they both played well tonight and Rosen has points in 2 straight now. Oh, well. Bring on the Blues.

Good.

His can't be any worse than Appert's.

Really curious as to why they (minus Lyon and 1 or 2 others) collectively looked so terrible out of the gate. Their 1st 3 games, they were REALLY bad. Since that Otter game when they got a few breaks but also made a lot of breaks, they've looked like an NHL team and haven't been out of any games. Yeah, they got Benson back in game 4, but he wasn't good his last game and he wasn't there this last one and they still played well (outside of OT that is 😉 ) in those 2.

Eh, maybe some other team will get into goalie purgatory and will be willing to bring him into their organization on a loan to get him 50% AHL starts and their farm team some W's. Could be win-win for both organizations.

Yes, and yes.

Can't send injured/ ill guys to the minors. Need to be healthy to be demoted.

You honestly consider what Snow was doing as having been "subtle?"

And of something that reads as AI generated at that. And of something that reads as AI generated at that.

Because much as Granato loved him some Jokiharju, Ruff loves him some Geersten.

Get it right. A 2x4 wouldn't even add 4 full inches of height to his shoulders.. Sheesh.

One of our neighbors has signs up every year for the local elections. Which works well, because if we don't know all of the candidates in the "little" races we can reliably vote for our neighbors' favorites' opponents and end up with someone that will get that particular job done. Hasn't failed us as a strategy yet. (Of course, should they someday twig to the fact that people see who they're voting for and do the opposite, they could fake us all out and put up signs for the people they hope to see lose, and end up seeing their folks get in when everybody votes against the candidates with their signs up in their yard. Doubt they'll ever get to that level of 3D chess. They seem to have issues with good ol' 2D checkers.)

Lesser competition, into his comfort zone on knowing what to expect from his teammates in any particular given situation, fully healthy; better goalie. 😉

2 things they've been better at this year than last on the PK. They aren't giving the pass through the crease to allow a clean tap in this year. Teams aren't trying it much, and the 1 or so time they try it during each game, the D-man has managed to get enough of his stick on it to disrupt it. Is that luck or a slight change of alignment, or simply being a year older and being more ready for that pass? No data. If it's luck, that'll bear out as the PK falters. But if it's one of the other 2 or something else, then it likely is sustainable. The other thing they've been better at is not letting themselves get out of position to the point that there is a wide open shooter dead square in the slot leaving the goalie to hope the shooter misfires as the goalie needs to move to even get into a spot where he MIGHT block the shot. That happened a LOT last year. Can't recall a single instance of it this year (neither from taking the puck below the goal line and sending it back to the slot nor from getting a 1v1 win at the boards with a man open in the slot) though it probably has happened a bit. Would really like to know how the people deciding what is high danger are making that evaluation. Expect that there really should be a further deliniation between a high danger chance and a high high danger chance. Am not seeing nearly as many high high danger shots against as there were in the past. And, clearly the GTing has been significantly better on the PK this year than in past years. Expect that isn't just that the goalies are playing better (though it's a huge part of it); expect it's also lesser quality high danger chances than there were in the past.

Have seen Allen called for that exact play that Mahomes didn't get called for. Had Mahomes not gotten called for the grounding earlier expect there's a reasonable chance KC does get called there (say reasonable, not that it's likely, intentional or not KC gets calls other teams don't get; just like Filly gets calls on the tush push that others don't get) but not after the controversy of the earlier call. My 2 cents, YMMV.