Now back to our regularly scheduled time this week. We only have a couple of games to look at and they couldn't have been more different in both pace and quality of opponent. Nonetheless, different players stepped up and rose to the occasion.
It may have been something in that Florida water making this one weird two-game swing.
Three Boomers Up
Josh Anderson
As someone who was selling off a lot of Anderson stock before the season even started, he is proving me very, very wrong. He is one of the top scorers on the team despite missing a few games. His underlying numbers are still slightly questionable but you can't really dispute a two-goal night, can you? He is seeing top line ice time and it will be interesting with an expanded role if he can keep it up.
Seth Jones
Yawn. Seth Jones made the list once again. Three points in two games. It isn't even a big deal for this guy anymore. He is going up against the top lines each and every night with Zach Werenski and they're dominating. This shouldn't just get you excited for the future, you should feel pure elation for the now.
Power Play-ish?
They were 2/4 against the Florida Panthers which was a nice step up from basically never scoring at all. They then went back against the Tampa Bay Lightning and laid another goose egg. Either way, getting goals on the power play is a good sign but they need to start scoring in bunches to raise their percentage. One observation: they never play the puck into the middle of the ice. Could it unlock a key to success?
Three Boomers Down
Sergei Bobrovsky
This isn't a player that you're going to see here often. And to be fair, this isn't all on him. He had a .912 save percentage performance against the Panthers and then a .889 save percentage against the Lightning. Both are well below his normal average. Being a goaltender is like being on a roller coaster, it is a bunch of ups and downs. He is never going to have the same night. It is mostly going to be different chances and opportunities. It only makes the life of a goaltender that much more difficult.
Ryan Murray
Having one of the best starts to a season to date, Murray has done well and could probably not be added to the boomers down, side of the list. After his coverage on a Lightning goal, he felt like a prime candidate. Caught in no-man's land, he couldn't commit and it only made the goal against that much more painful. Murray is going to bounce back and given that he has been a solid shot differential player, it should happen quickly.
Alex Wennberg
Putting up points is what Wennberg is supposed to do. The team obviously wants him to shoot the puck more and for whatever reason, that doesn't seem to be fully ingrained in his DNA. After coming up with a goose egg in the points column for both games, he is up against it. He has been moved all over the lineup and for a player that should be the number one center on this team, what is it going to take to get him going?
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