| Texas Stars 6-6-6-0, 18 pts #10 Western Conference | v. | Iowa Wild 5-13-1-0, 11 pts #15 Western Conference |
November 29th at 7:00 PM
Cedar Park Center, Cedar Park, TX
How many ways can you say win? The Iowa Wild are literally the worst team in the league. They have a points percentage of 0.289, earning just five wins on the season. They've already had a coach fired owing to their poor performance. Texas absolutely has to beat this team. If they don't, they will stretch their losing streak to nine. I don't know what happens after that. How much rope does Coach Laxdal have here?
Stars injury/call up report:
McKenzie, Jokipakka (callup)
Ritchie (questionable, lower body)
Wild Web Resources:
Website: iowawild.com
Blog (Official): I Wild Blog
Twitter: @IAWild
Twitter: @IowaWildFish (former Stars PBP Josh Fisher)
Texas is in somewhat a unique position, sure its early and your first thought is give it time. However Texas is now closer to an AHL Championship roster then they will be until they win another championship, so how far does "it's early" work as an excuse? So do we think calling up a few more guys from AA or (continuing) to shuffle the depth is gonna help things?
ReplyDeleteI thought the Laxdal hire was a good one but I would of rather had Lidster given the transition ease. My first thought outside of Lidster still would be Brent Hughes but he isn't on anyone's radar (but should be). I generally had no problem with Laxdal though, he has some Texas history and that's a good thing.
Here however is where I oppose to what has happened. The Stars "Style" of play shouldn't of changed a bit. I commented about this when Laxdals first interview was posted here (http://www.100degreehockey.com/2014/07/coach-derek-laxdal-excited-about-new.html#comment-form) . I respect what Laxdal has done but he was given a blueprint to success and from the start made changes to it. Why? Sure we have new people but we have enough remaining players to at least go with what works. Sure last year we had a different roster but at the start of the season McKenzie, Ranford, Nemeth, Jokipakka, Stransky and Faksa were all as unproven and unknown as Hulak, Trook, Root, Smith and Honka are this year. So who is to say this "class" of players will be better or worse?
It's been mentioned that this team isn't the team that won the championship by some including me, so we shouldn't expect the same results. However what is reasonable to expect? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a "good" team.
All that being said we have a number of players that aren't producing.
In 10 games played defenseman John Klingberg had 4 goals and 8 assists for 12 points which is more than non rookie forwards:
Ranford 4G 7 A (18 games)
Glennie 1G 10 A 11 pts (18 Games)
Richie 3G 4A 7 pts (12 Games)
McKenzie 2G 2A (6 Games)
Rallo 2 G 2 A (15 Games)
Stransky 1 G 3 A (17 Games)
Faksa 2 G 0 A (18 Games)
Henderson 0 G 1 A (15 Games)
Basically we need a couple guys to fill into the Sceviour, Mueller, and Hedden rolls from last year. Considering we won the Cup without Sceviour we could maybe consider that not a need. Most my frustration is with Glennie, Rallo, and to a lesser extent Richie, Stransky and Faksa . It is "Their time to shine" and they are failing. I'm not sure we shouldn't try to work a deal with Gennie (if we could find a taker) to get something for the future at this point. This will be his last year here and it looks like things just haven't happened the way Dallas or Glennie would of liked. Glennie averaged about 1.2 points a game (.48 goals a game) in the Jr's but has a abysmal . 50 points a game in the AHL...worse is his .18 goals per game in the AHL. The first few years he was here I was a big supporter, but slowly those arguing he was a bust of a draft have been proven right, at this point he is just a vet forward with little upside.
Pretty sure I could go on forever but things to do!
Hopefully we can use Iowa as a slump buster...