Running on Empty! Lacking Desire!
By Frank Rekas
Its starting. Again!
Two words come to mind among others, NO DESIRE!
Playing their seventh game in ten days including 2 games back to back the for the second time in that span, the Florida Panthers, are showing that they are out of shape gas. After not being able to hold on to three different leads against the Leafs at home on Friday night, the Panthers simply were outplayed, outhustled, and outscored against a very stingy Nashville Predator team that appeared to have the desire to stop their one game losing streak.
That my loyal readers is one of the keys. Having the desire!
I’m not going to make excuses for this club since they will make enough of their own and we will continue to hear how tired they are throughout the long season. But one thing for sure is that there is no depth on this team. That being said it’s game’s like this that it shows the most. Look at who scored our only goal: Jordan Leopold. Where were The Little Weasel, Lazy Ass, Rusty, or even Frolik? These four former first round picks combined for a total of 7 shots on goal! Are you kidding me? These are the players that are supposed to lead our team?
Last night all of them looked gassed. Well to me The Little Weasel looks gassed all the time, but in reality our top 6 forwards are playing way too many minutes and its showing in their performance. The problem is that head coach Peter DeBoer doesn’t have enough confidence in his bottom 6 and has to overuse his other players. While I’m no coach, I would think that on back to back nights you have to play your 4th line a bit more that usual to save your top players, but who am I to second guess.
In addition, and here comes the bitch slap at Big Mac, why was Kenndal Mcardle allowed to fight twice last night? The first one ok, but the second one where that little shit Jordan Tootoo suckered Mcardle and sent him off with what looks like a shoulder injury, was enough for me to see that there is no life in these Cats. What the heck was Big Mac doing last night? I love Mcardle”s energy, but if he’s lost for any length of time, these players need to do some soul searching. Stop letting your rookies get beat up and fight these battles. Someone step in!
This roster isn’t good enough to carry a guy like Big Mac and only play him 4 minutes a night. Matter of fact last night he played less than three! DeBoer needs to have some better bench management to get some of these players some rest, as well as be able to show a little more trust in certain others. Are we actually thinking that things will get better when Soup comes back? Yes another 4th liner to the rescue!
For now it appears that McArdle will miss Monday nights game against the Thrashers and another player from Rochester will have to be called up to take his place.
Scott Clemmensen doesn’t get the blame on this one as he stopped 25 shots including 3 saves in a row in the first period. Nashville got goals from Dan Hamhuis, David Legwand, JP Dumont and an empty netter by Joel Ward for their scoring, as they outshot Florida 29-24. PP’s for both teams were once again piss poor.
The schedule isn’t getting any easier and the games will become that much more difficult to win. Seems like the Panthers will blame injuries, being tired and not knowing why they can’t put teams away as the excuses.
A former NHL head coach who someday will get another job, once said, there are no excuses, but there are reasons. Well here’s three of them for you
1) lack of depth 2) lack of desire 3) no mental toughness.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers