Martinson Post Game Comments - 2/4/13

2-1 Shoot Out Loss, Is The Glass Half Full or Half Empty

If you are a glass half full type of person the headline from last night is "Americans In First Place, Extend Lead To Two Points" but if you look at the glass half empty the headline would include the following numbers:

 1 - the number of shoot out goals we have scored in the last 14 attempts (Schaafsma last night)
 3 - the number of shoot out games we have lost in the last week
 6 - the number of overtime games we have lost in a row
 8 - the number of home games we have lost in a row
 11 - the number of games we have lost in a row
 30 - the number of days since our last victory

As the guys from ESPN football would say: COME ON MAN

I have to give coach Martinson credit as it would be easy to send someone else to the after game press conference as we have certainly seen assistant coaches or players show up in the past after tough losses. Martinson is always there, he gives his analysis of the game, takes all of the questions and is open and honest with his answers. I know as fans we don't always agree with the answers but that is the nature of sports. I find it amazing we are still in first place.

 I don't think most people are pleased with anything at this point but that comes with losing so hopefully things get worked out soon. Enough rambling by me, here are the coaches comments after the game:

- Defensively I thought we were good in the first period but we are not generating much offense.

- In the third period we had a lot of turnovers at the blue line, we didn't get the puck in deep, we didn't make them go the full 200 feet to eat up the clock.

- It is frustrating getting down to the last couple of minutes and then having the game come down to a 6 on 4 power play.

- We were better defensively tonight but we weren't good offensively. We keep finding different ways to lose. The biggest thing in the third period was losing battles for the puck. Fort Worth has some of the smaller guys on defense but they were winning the battles for the puck.

- I expect Pineault and Lukin to play by the weekend which will give us more speed, experience, and leadership . We need to get back to blue collar hockey.

- I thought Hendrikx made some good plays but I have been concentrating on the forwards so I can not say much.

- I thought we fore checked better tonight but some of our player changes  caused a problem.

- I am still spending time on the phone, shaking the bushes, as we may need to sign another scorer.

- We worked on shoot outs yesterday and it looks like we need to continue to work on them based on the results. Howes and Skinner were a our best shoot out guys and we have missed them.