Devils Vs Panthers - League - 30th Oct 2021
- Thread starter James
- Start date
I’m not watching tonight but hopefully this is an eye opener for a few people. Clearly there’s no disgrace in losing to a full strength Panthers team but they were seriously depleted tonight. Not just depleted, seriously depleted. They weren’t just missing fringe players they were missing crucial players. They went into the third period with 14 out skaters and two of those were kids! I’d be less concerned if we lost 4-3 or 5-4 but we didn’t even score a goal! Thats worrying. Its very poor against the team we were facing tonight. They even outshot us 37-29.
For me it depends what Steve and the other owners want out of this season. If they’re hoping we can maybe win the CC or the play offs and finish 3rd or 4th in the league then we can achieve that. And I don’t necessarily blame them If that’s their thinking after the financial strain of Covid. If they’re hoping this team will win the league though then in my opinion it’s not going to happen. I’m not saying we need drastic changes but unless a proven goalscorer is added to this team then we will not win the league. 100%
For me it depends what Steve and the other owners want out of this season. If they’re hoping we can maybe win the CC or the play offs and finish 3rd or 4th in the league then we can achieve that. And I don’t necessarily blame them If that’s their thinking after the financial strain of Covid. If they’re hoping this team will win the league though then in my opinion it’s not going to happen. I’m not saying we need drastic changes but unless a proven goalscorer is added to this team then we will not win the league. 100%
Devils looked very poor tonight. Register looked very sluggish. O'connor was not at the races & gifted an easy goal. Dump and chase lose the puck dump and chase lose the puck. The Devils looked lethargic all night and only picked up the pace when they were chasing the game. Simply not good enough. Panthers as I predicted would play a strong defensive game and the Devils had no answer. It looks like if you neutralise Reid from scoring then the Devils have no other scorers.
I think it comes from the owners personally. I’ve heard Steve King say several times that releasing players during the season just doesn’t sit well with him. Having said that if Kelman or Skalde told him they wanted to release a player I don’t think Steve would say no. I just think Todd knows that Steve doesn’t agree with it
That was the worst performance of the season for me. We could carry on playing until tomorrow and still not look like scoring. I’ve been positive about this team generally so far this season, apart from Brodie DuPont, but that was terrible tonight. No wonder Carruth was annoyed, he deserved better than what was in front of him. It's been said by several on here that we don’t have enough goals in this team and the lack of firepower support for Brodie Reid is starting to bite now. We utterly failed to recruit any sort of decent replacement for Joey Martin, and I don’t know how we're going to find one now (although Sointu has come in and scored plenty). Never mind this “we don’t cut players” crap - if players aren't performing, then pack your bags. Or it’s going to be a long, hard season.