I want Gourde back
Joined: Jun. 2018
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Thoughts on the first game
The big talk was that we were gonna have to outscore the other teams as opposed to outdefending them. I would say that was accomplished tonight.
I thought the forwards were good for the most part. Kucherov, Point, Hagel, Paul and Cirelli looked really good and ready to score a bunch. Stamkos didn't have the best game, but he wasn't bad by any means. He didn't show any signs of not having a great season. The depth guys, Eyssimont, Glendening, Jeannot, and Sheary all looked decent. I think we'll definitely get more scoring and chances from the 4th line this year. Merela didn't have a great game in my opinion, but he got into 2 or 3 good spots and had chances to shoot.
I don't want to overreact but I was not at all impressed by the defense today. i thought Hedman had a very poor game. I wasn't too impressed with Raddysh or Perbix either (might be harsh on Raddysh). Perbix in particular I thought wasn't very good and only played 11 minutes. Cernak and De Haan weren't really noticeable and that's probably best for defensive defensemen. Sergachev I thought had a good game and looked much better than Hedman.
As for the lines I'm not opposed to the 3 big boys on the first line for a few games but I think Hagel on the top line is better in the long run. Would also want Eyssimont playing more than 8 and a half minutes. I think it will be best to have Sergachev on the first power play unit to allow him to further develop and hopefully slow the drop-off in Hedman's defensive game.
Overall I don't think Johansson was that bad, but there seemed to be a lot of space open on the Novak goal