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Post-Game Talk: Cole's Plus/MINUS: Pens need a 40 goal lead to close it out! (Pens/Bs)

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Big Friggin Dummy said:
They haven't done anything for years except swap a couple pieces around on the blueline for essentially the same effect. Rutta is the defensive-minded RD that replaces what Marino brought for the team, though with Letang and Petry, he's playing bottom pairing now as opposed to Marino being the 2RD--but Petts is playing 2LD and he's basically the LD version of what Marino brought, imo. They swapped Matheson and Petry, which more or less does the same thing imo. Petry is better, on paper, at producing offense directly whereas Matheson's the better skater and transition guy. They're both a shitshow defensively, and prone to absolutely braindead gaffes in the d-zone, either due to low hockey IQ or laziness. So you went from Matheson-Marino and Petts-Ruhwedel/Friedman or Petts-Marino and Matheson-Ruhwedel/Friedman to Petts-Petry and POJ-Rutta. I don't think that's really much different in the grand scheme of things.

They kept Rust, who I think was a prime candidate to try and sell high last season if they wanted to really make any kind of a change and reshape the top-6. But that was verboden, as Jake-Sid-Rust must always be, and being locked up for six seasons, Jake-Sid-Rust *will* always be. :laugh:

I don't really care too much about the bottom-6 make up, as I think the years of overly caring about guys in that role are way in the past and the focus needs to be on getting Sid and Geno surrounded with the best help they can get. The bottom-6 hasn't been good enough to shift the tide of games in favor of the team, and it hasn't been bad enough to lose them games/series. It just is, and that's fine, imo. I think years of Staal's 3rd line, HBK, and Cullen as 4C have sorta skewed our expectations of what a bottom-6 needs to be. Those are extreme anomalies, imo.

I don't know. I'm not asking for a JR-esque mad scramble of throwing shit at the wall randomly to see what sticks at the cost of 1sts, prospects and hefty/lengthy FA deals. I'm just saying, seeing the team more or less the same as it's been going back to the Cups isn't exactly making me lean toward "They're trying super hard, they're still all-in" like they'd love everybody to believe. You've still got Sid, Geno, Jake, Rust in the top-6, but instead of Sheary and end-of-career Kunitz, you've got Rakell and Zucker/Heinen. You're still running with a blueline that's anchored by Dumo-Letang, and secondary layers of a mix of offensive and defensive guys providing a mediocre result. You're still dealing with inconsistencies and injuries in goal, whether it's Murray/Jarry or Jarry/CDS.

I wouldn't say I really care too much either way, because this is just the predictable decline of the end of an era. I'm just saying, the team hasn't really committed to an avenue one way or the other for years, but has more or less thrown cruise control on and coasted along the same path that's failed. That's not on Sully, Hextall or ownership solely, but a combination of all of the above.
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on paper being key words here

Icarium said:
Yeah but this is Jarry we are talking about, not Hasek. Is his performance the only difference from top 3 to absolute disaster on the PK?
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yes
 
vodeni said:
on paper being key words here
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Everybody wants to turn ex-Pens into like, exceptional players. Matheson wasn't some wunderkind. He skated very well and that's that. :laugh: Reality is the Pens shipped out a one-dimensional, dramatically flawed player for another one-dimensional, dramatically flawed player. Matheson's the far better skater and transition guy, Petry's got a better shot and is more physical. They're both complete dipshits in their own end who make glaring mistakes that frequently result in chances or goals against.
 
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Buddy Bizarre said:
That's maybe 20/25% of the reason.

PK tactics last year were at least a bit solid and had some rhyme and reason. They were emphatic about not letting the other team enter the zone to the extreme. Sometimes even pressuring at the other teams' blue line.

We also saw they stayed in a close box and prevented the cross ice or bumper pass. That seemed to be effective too. Then when ZAR got traded it seemed they changed tactics and the high forward was creeping to the point vs collapsing like it had been. That was when it started to really crumble bc the Rags fed on that in the playoffs.

This year, I honestly have no idea WTF they are doing. On the PK you cannot defend everywhere, you have to concede somewhere. But man this PK is conceding EVERYTHING. They cannot get on the same page...guys are hesitant and not knowing their roles or switches. I've seen HS teams more cohesive.
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not sure if you dreamt this up...that was never the case last year. They were collapsing so easily even when the PK was producing excellent results all due to above .900 saves from Jarry. There was a period before the last season that they were agressive, I loved it, unfortunately they got scored once or twice due to some mistakes and ever since they reverted to this crappy, collapse, waive your sticks system. Last night they tried agressive approach and they looked great until for whatever reason they just dropped back for one PK, and that lead to the Marchand's onetimer. I think they finally realized that with Archie, McGinn, Kappy and Poehling/Rust they should be able to pressure more so I expect that PK will get better unless it coincides with jarry shiting the bad
 
Well... that was somehow both a better and way worse result than I was expecting.

Also... Tristan Jarry... 7M dollar goaltender.
 
Gurglesons said:
Not really sure how we could have had more cups. We have the most appearances and wins in the cap era.
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Well, they did get Bylsma'd, Johnston'd and to some extent Shero'd while the core was in their prime. Not saying they would have won more, but 1 more wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility.

I still think we are spoiled, 3 cups from this core is an outstanding achievement.
 
Been posting since the get go, I like the roster but clearly the Sullivan just not willing to make anyone accountable who should be is why this crap continues. Extending Sullivan was such a bad move it is just so lazy and tells me ownership just wanted to keep the party going. But moves like this when they don't work and continuing to not keep the statement made when hired as to team girt and size to at least keep some level of BS limited just shows up now.
 
Big Friggin Dummy said:
-edit- As for Jarry, he's never been anything more than a mediocre starting goalie with random streaks of getting hot and playing above his normal capability, imo. You just gotta hope the stars align so that one of his hot streaks coincides with the post season, and that he's able to avoid his frequent injury woes for a time.
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Been saying this for a while, but keep getting pushback. I think his numbers are actually inflated due to those hot stretches. He'll randomly have a 20-game stretch where he plays like a top 5 goalie. But as a whole, he's a guy that's no better than what you'd get out of the dime a dozen pile like Reimer, Halak, Jones, etc. who move around teams every 2 years.

I'm dreading the inevitable contract extension where they pay him $6 million per year thinking he's the guy to take us to the promise land, only for him to be Joe Average once again when the playoffs begin.
 
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Sidney the Kidney said:
Been saying this for a while, but keep getting pushback. I think his numbers are actually inflated due to those hot stretches. He'll randomly have a 20-game stretch where he plays like a top 5 goalie. But as a whole, he's a guy that's no better than what you'd get out of the dime a dozen pile like Reimer, Halak, Jones, etc. who move around teams every 2 years.
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Yeah but what can you do? You can't NOT sign him. That's scary! What if the FO has to do work?

Better just give him at least 6M at term.
 
Jarry was way out of position way too much. There was a burst of energy after Bs hit Jarry a couple of times and they looked good, but that faded quickly.
+ for the announcer calling Ruhwedel "Marino".

I do like watching Rakell play. He's fun to watch even in these dark times
 
HandshakeLine said:
I mean, I do think the FO and coaching staff bear some responsibility here-- the line combos, ice time, pairings, the breakouts, special teams... these are all a mess. The roster has tons of dead weight on it, some of which was imposed by JR but others of which were signed/traded for by the current regime.

The players should be playing better too, of course. But when the tough times come, that's what coaches are supposed to do-- coach. And GM's are supposed to manage. Right now, this team looks absolutely rudderless and disheartened.

At the end of the day, I don't expect Sid or Geno to carry lines anymore. But I also don't expect the coaching staff should make their jobs harder. I don't expect Letang to anchor the blueline, but that doesn't mean that he should be playing 25+ a night with an obviously washed Dumo. It's just so self-defeating.
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This x100.

Especially the final paragraph.
 
BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Also I'm never getting excited for a player acquisition ever again. Brassard, Zucker and now Petry.

Guy looks like 20 pounds of rancid ground beef stuffed in a 10 pound bag out there.
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Good news is that you won't have to worry about that with how locked up this roster is until the heat death of the universe. :laugh:
 
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BusinessGoose said:
I think often times, it's more like we're hoping for the best.

As a fan, you want to think it went well. That the dangers fans from other teams warned about won't continue.

Then reality happens.
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I mean one truly horrific stretch aside last year... he's always shown to be a pretty impressive defenseman over the years. At the least a second pairing role should have been a pretty easy ask. So far so bad.

To be fair of course the whole TEAM looks disorganized, toothless and bored/frustrated. I'm not sure who that comes back on but I'm positive it has nothing to do with the best coach ever.
 
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It’s cute, like watching a dog with peanut butter on the roof of his mouth.
BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Also I'm never getting excited for a player acquisition ever again. Brassard, Zucker and now Petry.

Guy looks like 20 pounds of rancid ground beef stuffed in a 10 pound bag out there.
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I mean the team including Petry looked pretty okay up until 6 games ago. :laugh: I'd expect a player or two to slump or to start slow, but it's really weird to see a team come up firing on all cylinders and then utterly collapse within the span of a month.

Like maybe we had a 4 game fluke and this is the actual regression to mean (certainly possible) but you'd expect there to be a little more variation in how the team plays. It's either complete horseshit or looking pretty good, trending more towards the former than the later.
 
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I watched the first 2 periods. I was like damn 5-3 we can win we are getting out played but now we can counter attack and play smart.

I check the score later 6-5.
I see Crosby played 25 minutes.

What are we doing?

Recipe of disaster.

Also I don't harp on GCR as much as other people but how come GCRak looked good and ZMR was fine and then we switch it for no reason.

Also Rakell minutes 14? Huh!!!!

I'd like to see a system where the players playing the best get more time and the players putting up stinky poos play less.
 
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