turco and DiPietro are so far and above any other goalie who's been in the league in the last 15 years at handling the puck it's laughable to think about it.

and thats fair, but miller is easily in the bottom 10 of starting goalies. he really is bad at handling the puck.

turco and dipietro are exceptional with the puck as well.

but its a boredom thing, it really is.

_________________

Sadly people have put Miller on such a pedestal that they will not accept anything less than perfection. Miller has been up and down all season and last night was just a bad night. He'll be back saving the teams ass again, it was just not last night.

_________________

Well, to be fair, DiPi is good becuase he has two or three weeks at a time to practice.

LOL DiPietro is an atrocious goaltender. Just awful.

_________________
"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

He's not atrocious, he just can't stay healthy.

Squanto was talking about his puck handling abilities.

_________________

Ya, but WHY was the PP bad? I know people hate hearing that LR may have faults, but these coaches know each other like the backs of their hands, and the smarter ones come out on top. Two examples coming up.

1. On what I believe was the 1st goal, Rob Ray pointed out CAR had been practicing that play all morning. What he meant to say was that they found a weakness, and perfected a way to beat it. (btw, i know this wasn't a PP goal)

2. The idea of Connolly taking draws, and dropping back to the point is FUCKTARDED. First off, he isn't going to beat any teams PK face-off guy. Secondly, CAR once again saw a weakness, and exploited it. On one particular play, they won the draw(which they were pretty sure they could accomplish), then they immediately had their 2 forwards bolt out of the zone(knowing the Sabre defensemen had to somewhat stay near the point to try to retain the zone). If I'm not mistaken, this was the play Staffy broke his stick, or their play would have most likely been a goal.

The setup on the PP was all screwed up to begin with. On the ice were Vanek, Staffy, Ennis, Connolly, and Myers. Connolly took draws with Drew in back with Myers, Ennis to the net side, and Vanek along the boards. After the draw, they all played musical chairs getting back to where they were supposed to be. Ok, to eliminate that clusterfuck, why wouldn't you put Myers and Connolly in back, Vanek to the net side, Stafford along the boards, and let Ennis lose the draw(which TC was gonna do anyways). I hope the players voice their displeasure with that setup. Let's face it, we ALL know this team needs a PP specialist behind that bench somewhere.

Actually we held a pretty decent advantage in faceoffs last night. It was well over 60% by the time the game was over.

Connolly was winning some big draws too.

_________________

So are you just pointing out an anomaly, or are you saying TC is satisfactory at draws?


Also, some people don't want to blame Miller, but if Toni Lydman whipped a pass out front to the other team, he'd be lynched for sure. Why does Miller get the free pass??

I just said he didn't do that bad on draws last night, hell I'll go look at the game stats then.

Connolly went 9-17 o draws last night.
http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/2 ... 020961.HTM

_________________

Ok, anomaly it is.

My point that he won't beat other teams own-zone PK face-off guys still stands.

Who is giving Miller a free pass? The general tone of comments has been that Miller didn't play well, but he wasn't the only reason the team lost.

That's certainly not a pass.

He was 60% in the offensive zone. How is that not beating the PK guys?

Goose was 67% in the offensive zone, and Hecht was a dreadful 29%.

If you want to point out a problem with draws, look at Hecht, who lost 6 out of 7 draws to Jokinen alone.

Connolly isn't Goose at 60%, but he's a respectable 47%

http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=84 ... n=20102011

Take a look at his past 7 games, every game except one game was above a 50% FO. Looks like he started working on his draws then after his terrible showing against the Leafs.

_________________

He's atrocious.

_________________
"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Again, if Lydman(or Monty) gave that away, he'd be the scapegoat for sure. That's my point. I realize some other players and coaches were responsible too.

Hecht isn't even a center, so he gets a pass. If you want to insist Connolly is a strong face-off guy, you're going to end up looking really foolish, and please stop trying to circumvent my point.

Connolly has 24 games this year out of his 49 where he had over a 50% FO. He's been good recently, if you don't want to look then fine, but he has not nearly as bad as he was at the beginning of the season where he was only winning around 30% of the draws he took.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=84 ... n=20102011
He's had some bad stinkers since January, but even the top FO guys have them from time to time.

7 of his last 9 games he had over a 50% also. He's picked it up and the stats don't lie.

Hecht isn't an excuse. He's played Center for over a full season, and is not a small guy. He should be better at Faceoffs then he is.

_________________

Ok, he passes the what have you done for me lately test, but it matter not as he'll be gone soon. He was shitty at draws for his time here.

are you kidding me? do you just come here to troll or what

I'm not going to argue it, I want him gone just as much as you do.

_________________