re: NHL Playoffs.

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Losing to the 18th place team in the league after beating the Capitals and the Penguins is still tough to swallow. It's not about losing it's how we lost. Nobody had the will to go to the net? There simply was no compete and it's not acceptable at home in a Conference final.

Sure it would hurt if we had lost in overtime, or if the score was 3-2 and we fired a ton of shots and competed but it would be more acceptable than to hand them a game on a platter in our building. We could hold our head up high and say it could have went either way. We didn't get the breaks. We got stoned by their goalie. But simply none of the above apply. We didn't get stoned as the guy only saw a handful of shots (PAY CLOSE ATTENTION dnswr). Anyone could have had a shutout yesterday. The three losses we don't score one goal? Is Pronger that good? I don't think so.

Cammalleri can not do it all. Neither can Gionta. We needed /need scoring from Andre Kostitskin, the guy we drafted ahead of CARTER, RICHARDS, Parise, Getzlaf. You know that game breaker? What the 4th overall pick we got for latendresse, mr. Poulliot? Where is he? A french canadien playing at home in the spot light, where is his compete?

There are many guys on this team I would not question. Cammalleri, Gionta, Gomez, Plekanecs, Lapierre, Moore, Pyatt, but I do question the work ethic of the Kostitskin brothers, Metroplolit can be much better(probably playing hurt), Moen is up and down, we need more big hits from him on their big players. Richards , Gagne, Briere are out their floating around. Richards is a predatator looking always for the opportunity to destroy somebody. Oh how I wish we had gotten him in the draft. he's a complete package.

On defense, I could not have asked for any more from Hal Gill who guts and determination were an inspiration for everyone else. Georges played very big as did Spacek. O'Byrne is still learning while Subban is a great player already.

Halak has/is outstanding while I appreciate Price being a team player down the stretch. That was good to see. Maturity maybe setting in for him and that will make him all the better.

So what's left for Monday. All I ask is to go out and leave it all on the ice. Play hard and compete. "And (like the lines from Rocky) if we lose? Then we lose with dignity and we lose knowing we gave it everything we had" Don't make this a what if situation.

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