Well that sucked

Your favorite team got rolled up by a stingy Islanders squad led by former Capitals HC Barry Trotz and goaltender Semyon Varlamov. And it wasn't pretty. Nor was it close. 

A few thoughts, before a deeper analysis (coming maybe this weekend. Maybe):

- John Carlson is not very good. He is great offensively. He is an excellent passer. He is barely a top four in the defensive zone, and got burned by the Isles time and time again, including getting pyloned on the second goal of game five, which really seemed to deflate the team

- Secondary scoring sucked. It did not exist. Not just in this series, but also in the round robin. The third line, as built with Hagelin, Eller, and Panik, earns a combined $9 million and contributed a grand total of 3 points in 21 games played (Eller missed 3 because of a child birth- but also played on the second line because of an injury to Nick Backstrom, and he STILL failed to produce). This is unacceptable.

- Primary scoring also sucked. Vrana laid a goose egg. Zero points in 8 games. Oshie scored 3 goals and 0 assists. Backstrom had just a single assist in 5 games. Wilson had 3 points in 8 games. That's not going to cut it (obviously, or else this post wouldn't have been written).

- Only six players scored goals. In 8 games. Including 0 from the blue line.  You cannot expect the same guys to carry the water all the time. 

- Holtby was solid, not that he had a choice, with Vanecek less likely to play than McMichael. He made some mistakes, especially in Game 1, which turned the momentum, but he was not the problem. It is a team sport, and the team in front of him was not good enough. 

- Is this an embarrassing enough loss to cost Todd Reirden his job? It is hard to say- especially before Seattle names its head coach. One has to think that a couple of big names out there on the coaching market are holding out until that job is filled. Namely, Laviolette and Gallant. Reirden was thoroughly outcoached, and if he is with the team at the start of the year, he will certainly have a short leash, but if one of those guys is still available, one would expect McLellan to look really hard at moving on to a proven winner to try to extract at least one more run with Ovechkin and Backstrom.