One issue from the early season has reared its ugly head this weekend, and that is the fact that our slot is free real estate for opponents. It’s something that we will need to fix if we want to remain in the mix.

Many comments in the GDT on Saturday and Sunday were lamenting that we “can’t get a save”, but it’s hard to get saves when we consistently hand out that many prime scoring chances. Playoff teams don’t allow 4+ xGA ever other game. Luckily, we managed to counterbalance our shaky defence with better offence, but we can’t expect to have 4+ xGF every night, and we can’t get expect to reliably come out on top by playing high-event hockey at both ends of the ice.

It’s not great for Monty to allow 6 goals on 4xGA, but that’s the risk you run when you play high-event hockey like that. You’re essentially gambling on who the hottest goaltender will be, and while it makes for some extremely entertaining hockey to watch, it’s going to tire out any goalie eventually. Even if we had Hellebuyck in net, it’s not a strategy that we should strive for imo.

I’m extremely happy with the win yesterday, but this weekend might be a turning point for the season. Are we going to keep regressing back to our early season form defensively, or are we going to bounce back and go back to playing like we did against TB, FLA, and COL? I’m hoping for the latter, but the next handful of games will be extremely telling in that regard.

I have faith in our team and coaching staff, they’ve earned that much over the past month, but it’s something that might be interesting for us to keep track of between now and the TDL!