^ I’d have to agree on all counts. We will see how it plays out.
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Originally Posted by fishnguy
Freaking Vassilevsly, man. I really thought he would pull it together, man. Quite disappointing. And I am not even an “anti-Leafs” guy. Haven’t watched today’s game, but watching the previous one, I just knew the Leafs were going to score in the OT ones they get the pack. Lame, man. And I thought Tampa did very well last game: good speed (especially given the age they have on the other guys), excellent possession, good chances; staying out of the box would help, but what are you gonna do. If only the guy could stop the puck. I would not discount them yet, but…
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fishnguy
Where they are now is mostly on Vassilevski, imo.
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A few days ago, as partially quoted above, I commented on Tampa and particularly Vasilevskiy being almost solely responsible for their loss to Toronto. While this is still true, in my opinion, I listened to his interview and read a few things since (I can now spell his name correctly, lol). Well, the guy is a machine. His record when facing elimination up until the last game was 5-1 with 1 shutout and .944 save percentage, 1.6 gaa. He also played 217 games in the regular season in the past 4 seasons, as well 77 more in playoffs in the same period of time (I believe he started every game for Tampa in the playoffs in the past… who knows how many years). That’s extremely impressive, likely far away from any other active goaltender, and especially given his record over that span of time, including 2 Cups, Conn Smythe, Vezina (was Vezina before that? Regardless, he was a finalist for it for 4 or 5 straight seasons).
In the interview, he didn’t say much, but the idea was that after the first 35 or so games this past season his body didn't agree with him anymore and a few small injuries came back all at the same time, but he kept pushing himself and here we are. He said he thought he was a workhorse and could play as many games as he wanted forever, basically, and for the first time in his career he realized that this might not be the case and he should listen to his body more often and, more importantly, pay attention and take care. The guy is 28 (?), so hopefully this was something for him to learn from and move on to a better season and post next time around.
Not really sure what the point of the post is… Perhaps, it is easy to “coach” (whatever it is we are doing here sometimes beyond cheering and otherwise) from a somewhat comfortable couch without immediately taking other factors into consideration. Something like that. I knew all those things about the guy (exact stats aside), but I never considered it in my recent “assessment”.