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Hypothetical defense...


Corp000085

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Ok, assuming teppo is out, you have campbell, mckee, and lydman as the regulars...

 

 

Jillson came in and played great tonight...

 

Rory was suprisingly solid... not a liability tonight

 

Janik may play on friday... maybe if he's not paired with the human brain fart of fitzpatrick, he'd play decent. who knows.

 

 

However, with the solid play of jillson tonight and the not to bad play of rory, i'm not too worried... It's not like lydman, campbell, or mckee won't be in there... Mckee is the man, i'm not worried. the sky is not falling here... Janik is the only question mark, and that's only because he got an incomplete in game #2...

 

 

I'd really love it if teppo sucked it up and played though. then i'd really not be too worried.

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Ok, assuming teppo is out, you have campbell, mckee, and lydman as the regulars...

Jillson came in and played great tonight...

 

Rory was suprisingly solid... not a liability tonight

 

Janik may play on friday... maybe if he's not paired with the human brain fart of fitzpatrick, he'd play decent. who knows.

However, with the solid play of jillson tonight and the not to bad play of rory, i'm not too worried... It's not like lydman, campbell, or mckee won't be in there... Mckee is the man, i'm not worried. the sky is not falling here... Janik is the only question mark, and that's only because he got an incomplete in game #2...

I'd really love it if teppo sucked it up and played though. then i'd really not be too worried.

Dream on.

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And to think I was worried about Lydman when the playoffs began...Now he's one of our top three - oy :o

 

He's been one of our top 2 for a while now. Him and Tallinder are leading the league in +/- for the playoffs while taking most of their ice time against the other team's top line. Why were you worried?

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/stats/bycatego...son_2005&sort=3

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Well, on the bright side, I noticed that Lindy was pairing the defense differently tonite...he was making sure that Campbell and McKee were split up with Fitzpatrick and Jillson. I can only assume since this worked fairly well that Ruff will plug either Janik or Paetsch in with Lydman and not play them with Fitzpatrick on the third pairing which would be a major liability. It seemed that we did not give up a lot of great chances tonite with those pairings and overall, they acquitted themselves quite well...

 

And to think our worst fears before the playoffs was that Fitzpatrick would see the ice if one of our defensemen got injured...now we are down to our 8th and 9th defensemen, and are actually relieved that Fitzpatrick is out there....hahaha

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Yes, I noticed the change in the defense pairings also. As usual Tallinder-Lydman got most of the ice time. In game 2, the second pairing was McKee-Campbell with Fitzpatrick-Janik getting a few very short shifts. They changed that up during the game pairing Fitzpatrick with others, as Janik only got about 4 minutes of ice time total, including only one shift of 17 seconds in the 3rd period.

 

In tonight's game, McKee was paired with Fitzpatrick most of the time. Looking at the TOI stats Rory played almost 19 minutes, and generally played very well. I consider that one PP goal to be more just bad luck/bounce as opposed to poor play on his part. Campbell and Jillsen got some shifts together 5 on 5, with each getting time on the PP and occasional short shifts to spell one of the other defensemen.

 

Even if Numminen isn't ready for game 4, let's not "freak". With the last change, hopefully Lindy will be able to manage things. IMO, especially with the apparently absense of Tallinder, it's much more important that Lindy has a healthy Teppo for game 5 so he has a reliable top 4 D he can count on when he doesn't have the last change.

 

BTW, that "reliable top 4" now includes Campbell. From my observations, he's really "grown up" during these playoffs, as has been much more consistent. For example, I don't have any problem with the penalty he took on the PP. That's a clasic example of a "good penalty", as he was caught flat footed and knew they guy would have had a clean breakaway if he didn't knock him down. If he had hesitated, even for a second, the player might have broken free to the point where they would have called a penalty shot for taking him down.

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Paetsch is back from his injury? That's good news that I hadn't heard...

That's just what I was thinking too - I am not sold on Janik and would rather have Paetsch if available.

 

Overall I am more worried going into game 4 than I was last night, but I think if Lindy gets creative, he can still throw some semblance of a decent "D" corps out there, and protect the rookies for most of the game. I think Teppo will do everything humanly possible to get back into the lineup, and we may even see him dress and take a couple shifts here & there, but mostly stay on the bench to helpout the younger guys between shifts.

 

I'd rather give Teppo & Dmitri another game of rest if possible, and have either of them back for when we go back to Carolina & Lindy can't match lines, but I wouldn't hold them out if they are on the bubble.

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If Teppo, Henrik and Dimitri are all out I would be in favor of matching a veteran dman with a younger guy/less talented(Fitzpatrick) in each of the pairings.

 

Mckee - Fitzpatrick

Lydman - Jillson

Campbell - Janik

 

I would feel better about that than top loading our two pairs and playing Jillson and Janik sparingly. Hopefully, this discussion will be a moot point because on of our injured guys will come back. :rolleyes:

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Paetsch is back from his injury? That's good news that I hadn't heard...

 

He's been practicing since the start of the playoffs, but I doub that he's fully back from the injury. If he was, I'd have to think that he would've been above Janik and Jillson on the depth chart.

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