I suppose it's par for what's become a bumpy course to start the season that reading through the list of moves made in response to it elicits a somewhat manic set of emotions. Therefore, let's cut through the crap and get down to the feeling that best encapsulates each players' demotion or promotion... Pavel Zacha: Disappointed, which is not be confused with angry. It may have been a half dozen or so games ago when he was playing a productive brand of puck despite being allergic to putting it in the net. The way in which Marcus Johansson and Pavel Zacha gelled in the early going was basically the best case scenario realizing itself, but - as is the case with a kid who wears his confidence both in his body language and on the tape of his stick - each passing night in which he didn't grace the scoresheet resulted in a more passive version of a player who struggles with the game being played in his head more so than the game being played on the ice. John Hynes made himself abundantly clear on Behind The Glass, you don't have to keep a running tally like Taylor Hall, but to stay in the lineup - especially as a 2nd line center - you need to have a handful of moments throughout each game in which you're creating your own offense. In a way that's become all-too-familiar, Pavel Zacha struggled in doing just that, so hopefully some time in Binghamton will do him good. Brett Seney: Ecstatic. No offense meant to Kevin Rooney, who is too "meh" of a move to deserve its own paragraph, but - in theory - Brett Seney is the type of prospect that fits this team and system perfectly. I don't know that the term 'piss-ant' can be considered a compliment, but - given his size, skill set, attitude - I think it fits and I mean that fondly. By all accounts, he's feisty, tenacious, and an absolutely prick to play against. We will see how that translates for a 6th round pick at the NHL level, but you don't need to squint too hard to see the combination of him and Blake Coleman agitating the hell out of the opposition. Kurtis Gabriel: Disgusted, and - if I'm also speaking for my intelligence - then insulted. I don't get it. I don't like it. And as much of a John Hynes apologist as I am, nothing he can say will make me change my mind. Consider this, a professional production team edited together scenes with the main goal of making Kurtis Gabriel look like a sympathetic figure, and all it made me do was finally think long and hard about cutting the cord...literally. For a team that can't stay out of the box and a 4th line that can't stay out of its own way, I don't see how he helps anything, at anytime or anywhere. His "best" "skill" is instigation, and - in case you forgot - there's a two minute timeout that comes attached to that. I'm sure he's a nice, hard-working guy and all, but I can already taste the vomit in the back of my throat and we're still minutes away from seeing how he looks in a New Jersey Devils' jersey when it matters. Honestly, his insertion into a lineup that's struggled getting depth scoring as of late is a forehead slap waiting to happen, as I'd much rather he be sitting next to me on my couch punching me in the face then waiting to be deployed by John Hynes as the type of big dumb animal that I could have sworn went extinct due survival of the skill...est(?).
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