Tuesday, March 20, 2007

ohyeah... another thing....

just before i head out the door to catch my friend's band, followed by the last period or two of the flames getting annhialated by the wings, i thought i'd add the following note:

my biggest beef with playfair, thusfar, has been his line combination juggling act. i totally understand the need to make changes during a game in order to maximize offensive potential and minimize defensive breakdowns, sure. but i also believe in, and put a huge value in, line chemistry. ie: if iggy's been practising with lombardi and tanguay, then let's let him play with lombardi and tanguay for more than a couple of shifts. if it's not working out by, say, the start of the third, then sure --let's split up a working line (huselius/langkow/moss) to see if iggy's gonna work better with langks and tanguay (okay, it doesn't REALLY make sense but you just can't double-shift everyone....). i thought to myself, "at least playfair has a good enough mind on him to keep his defensive pairings together"...

but on saturday v. the wild, he dressed seven defensemen. which, to me, meant that between zyuzin, giordano & hale SOMETHING's gonna click. but, to playfair, it meant "let's see if hale looks useless when he's on the ice with regehr, or if it's just when he's with zyuzin," or "maybe giordano should get a shot with hamrlik." it was truly outrageous. towards the end of the game (y'know... when we looked like an atom team) it was really anybody's bet which two Dmen would end up on the blueline for the next shift...

it really makes me hopeful for warrener's return, which leads us to the post below...

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