Well I want to give some thoughts and hopefully, a positive spin, on last night and our season to date. First of all I have read everyone's posts so instead of commenting on each one individually. In regards to those who said it was a "terrible effort" last night..I disagree 110%! I felt for the most part that we dominated. Spent most of the 3rd killing off penalties and then got back into it through an effective power play of our own (and a couple BRUTAL calls against Florida..if I were Jacaques Martin I would be LIVID over that call in OT..Bouillon trips over his own feet and they call it a trip). What you need to realize is that NO LEAD is safe in this league now. One thing for certain in the "new NHL" is that nothing is certain. Everywhere we have seen teams blow 2 goal, 3 goal, 4 goal leads. This is what the NHL brass want. So live with it. The bottom line is that we won. Good teams find a way to win and it is not always pretty. But 9-3-1 is VERY pretty. As they say, it don't matter how, just how many.

Those choosing to poop all over Theo. Get a life. I am the first one to give him a hard time when he deserves it. We scored 5 goals on who some thing is the best goalie in the league. Theo outplayed Luongo.Theo made big saves at key times in the game. We can anylize individual goals on him to death. I felt he played a strong game. Pretty tough to stop a couple of those goals where the guy is just standing all alone waiting for a pass. As far a shi srebound control goes I see a big improvement. I will also say that there are times he lets a rebound go where our dman simply stand and watch a forward pick up the rebound and put it in. It is a TEAM GAME. The goalie's job is to stop the first shot. After that, the defence has to take some responsibility in front of him.

As for Ab Habman's comments on Rivet not deserving to be on the Power Play we will agree to disagree. Craig Rivet has earned his spot on the PP. Is he a power play specialist or "quarterback"? No. But for now he is doing what needs to be done. Keep the puck in and get it on net consistently. By the way. we had a good dman on the powerplay who could pass and had good vision but all of you wanted him gone and he is now in Colorado.

Yes Begin is contributing and you cannot help but like the guys grit and determination. But he is what he is. A 3rd or 4th line role player. But great teams are built on players like Begin. Look at Kris Draper or Maltby in Detroit. Same type of player. But do not try to put him on the 1st or second line. That is not his role and his effectiveness would drop substantially if he was on a power type line where he was being checked more closely by the opposition. Right now Begin has the luxury of not having to play against a "checking Centre" and he can mak ethe most of it. Credit needs to be given to CJ for realizing Begin is hot an dputting him out there when the game is on the line.

Ryder took a STUPID penalty last night that coule have quit epossibly cost u sthe game. Selfish elbow to the head. As dumb as Theo's was the night before (and I heard alot of you poop on him for that) I have not heard a peep about how dumb Ryder was lats night taking that penalty. But I am positive he heard about it from Julien.

Bottom line is our record. ON paper we have no business being where we are now. We are overachieving. That is a credit to the coaching staff and the players buying into the system and working hard. We need to start counting our blessings about where we are instead of thinking we should be 13-0. Let us not kid ourselves. On paper we have a VERY average team. But we are getting contributions from many different players on many different nights.