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Penalty Killing Slide
The final buzzer echoed around the arena like a pied-piper calling it's frenzied followers to a mass celebration. While the final score read: Detroit 6, Vancouver 4, we did punch the shot clock 54 times, so it's not as though we played poorly.
GM/HC: "The puck didn't bounce our way tonight boys, but great work out there!"
We hadn't beaten Detroit all year, but even more concerning was the recent slide in our penalty killing from top five to 13th in the league. While PK was a team stat, the fact remained we didn't have a natural center on our second unit. (Since the start of the year, we'd been forced to use Robert Kron as our 4th line center, even though he was primarily a winger). Kron was dependable, and always gave you all he had, but his faceoff ability was less than ideal. In the Detroit game, he went 2-for-11, or 18.2% in the faceoff circle. As a result, and with the trade deadline approaching, we were feeling pressure to upgrade down the middle.
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