John Tavares called the tepid third-period effort in Saturday night's 5-2 loss in Columbus "soft."
In the Newsday recap by Arthur Staple, there was this:
"It didn't seem like we wanted to do the work . . . I don't know why."
This, this is not good.
Coach Jack Capuano was similarly disappointed in the effort...
"They've got to figure it out," coach Jack Capuano said. "We're not talking systems or structure here, we're talking battles. We're losing battles. They've got to figure it out."
...but Capuano also had this, quoted at nhl.com:
"Our penalty kill let us down again; 5-on-5 we were right there," he said. "We did a lot of good things."
To be fair, they did do some good things. Not nearly enough good things, obviously.