It's six games in now, and Mike Cammalleri has yet to light the lamp. It's got a lot of people very worried, and in the post game interview tonight he stated that if he could have converted on a couple of his chances this season we might be 4-2 instead of 2-4. While this is true we can't expect a 30-40 goal scorer to score every game. Players not named Alexander Ovechkin do go through extended scoring slumps. Luckily for us we can look at Cammalleri's recent career history, and find out that he experienced some slumps last year in the west as well. Mike didn't score in 6 straight games from November 1st to 9th, another 6 straight from March 6th to 18th, and and in 8 straight games from March 25th to April 7th. When you look at that it doesn't look very good for Mike, but he still scored 39 goals, which means he scores in bunches. Upon further inspection, he scored his 39 goals in 29 games. If Cammalleri doesn't score for another six games, I'll be the first to be annoyed, but let's cut him a little bit of slack for the time being, as it's not for lack of effort. Unlike our last expected offensive leader (Alex Kovalev) Cammalleri doesn't float around the ice and play well for 2 minutes of ice time every 20. He works hard everywhere he goes and creates chances for his linemates. It's because of this that I don't feel that stressed out that he hasn't lit the lamp.
Another reason to not be that worried is the re-emergence of some secondary scoring. We haven't exactly taken over a game yet, but we have got a second line pair that seems to be getting better every game in Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn. It took a few games for Tomas' solid play to rub off on Andrei, but tonight it finally seemed to click, and we're in for an improvement there. So far the lines haven't managed to click on the same night, but that will come with time. Other positives to come out of this game include Pacioretty looking a bit better, as well as getting his first point of the season, and Shawn Belle looking very much like he belongs in the NHL. He made a couple mistakes during the game, but that's to be expected in his first game up. He plays a safe, simple game and he has great speed which he showed a couple times when Colorado forwards got behind him, and he promptly caught them. Kyle Chipchura is also looking better every game, and I can't wait until Metropolit is back so Chips can shift to the wing and bump out Laraque. One thing that worries me so far this season is the play of D'agostini, who won't remain with the organization much longer if he can't find a way to contribute. He's been looking lost in every game he's played but the first against Toronto, and Jacques doesn't seem to have much faith in him. Hopefully my seething optimism isn't too annoying.
GO HABS GO!
