After the other night’s 5-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, I was really considering just skipping tonight’s game. I mean, the sheer existence of the Montreal Canadiens makes me want to rip my eyes out anyway, so I’d really need a good reason to not sit this one out. Re-runs of Parks and Rec are easily more appealing than this team right now.
And Dave Hakstol is somehow making it worse.
According to various reports in Voorhees this morning, Shayne Gostisbehere and Travis Konecny will both sit tonight. Dale Weise will come in for Konecny and Nick Schultz will come in for Ghost. Quick, somebody pull up the Piers Morgan “I want to die” tweet.
I think this sums it up well, actually:
Flyers making us sit through a seven year rebuild at least play the friggin fun exciting players fart crap Vandevelde & MacDonald go screw
— Zoo With Roy (@zoowithroy) February 2, 2017
I’m sick of this “message sending to the young kids” crap. If you’re gonna play a rookie like Konecny in the NHL, he’s going to make mistakes. And he isn’t going to learn from those mistakes by sitting in the damn press box, especially when night-in, night-out he makes the team leaps and bounds better than Dale Weise does. Are we not in a playoff race? Does every point not matter here, or am I going crazy?
The same goes for Ghost, who plays a style that’s always going to lead to pucks in the back of his own net. It’s just the reality. But arguing that he’s hurting the team or a major part of the reason they are losing the majority of their games right now is … whatever, let the smart guy talk:
Gap in evaluation between “Ghost is a mess!” & “Ghost is fine!” crews really comes down to this:
5v5 On-ice Goals%: 34%
5v5 Corsi%: 53.7%— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_Charlie) February 2, 2017
The tenet driving the latter group is that attempt differential better predicts future goal differential than past goal differential does.
— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_Charlie) February 2, 2017
For the former group, it’s simple. He’s on the ice for a ton of goals against, & team isn’t scoring enough when he plays to make up for it.
— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_Charlie) February 2, 2017
Ghost isn’t bad! He’s not getting the bounces he got last year! That’s really all this is, and to sit him for Nick friggin’ Schultz … I mean, shit. Let’s just make Brayden Schenn coach:
Schenn: Ghost not playing as badly as people saying. Says he needs one goal to open floodgates.
— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) February 2, 2017
It’s pretty easy to lose faith in a coach when he watches the tape from the other night and decides that — in a game where literally everybody played like total crap — Gostisbehere and Konecny are the real problem. And it’d be one thing if this was an isolated incident, but this has happened with Dave Hakstol a ton this season. It’s concerning, and I’m going to pop a blood vessel at any moment.
So, y’all enjoy the game. I’ma go hang out with Leslie Knope.
