The way Detroit had us hemmed in our zone in the third was ridiculous. I think they hit the post or crossbar around 8 or 9 times during the 2nd and 3rd periods. It really highlighted our weakness on D.
Being able to hold leads is dependent on capability, and IMO our D still sucks. I get we were missing Guhle who is probably our best all round Dman, but we still suck on D even with him, and I think we will continue to suck on D until guys like Savard or Kovachavic are used as strictly bottom pairing 6th/7th dman and not playing in the top 4.
How far our D progresses is going to depend on the pace that our current young Dmen (Guhle, Harris, Barron, Wifi), continue to progress and whether at least one of Hutson, Reinbacher, Mailloux are viable options as upgrades in our top 4.
lastly, having Dach (and hopefully one other acquired scoring threat on the second line should help us not be in trouble as much when a line other than the Suzuki line is out there.
we can’t have a lineup where Ylonen, Pezatta, RHP, and Anderson are in the lineup on the same night. I’ll also add that Dvorak also looked like crap last night. We had no answer for Larkin last night and it was pretty impresssive the way Raymond scored the winner after taking some pretty hard hits.
If we have an infusion of talent and a substantial upgrade in the middle six (from our roster I think that would only be Dach, Newhook, and Roy), and the Armia-Evans-Gallagher is the the 4th line, we can make a push to be a playoff team. But that means we basically need one legit scorer for the second line, and 2/3 of the third line.
lots to like with the young players we have, but still a lot of holes to fill.