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

[AjaxTelamon]

Reminder that the Penguins haven't won a playoff series since Hornqvist's extension kicked in.

The mythicization of Hornqvist on this site is really weird. People conveniently forget how often, especially in the regular season, the Penguins offense wouldn't create anything on dump-ins and eventually give up on forechecking because 72 was too slow to pressure the D retrieving the puck.

Who the hell cares about being pretty in the regular season?

Perimeter play does not win Stanley Cups. You don't need PH to win a cup, but you need what he brought. And maybe you forget, but PH did a lot of things to make other guys better, from screening goaltenders to setting picks to drawing coverage down low opening up all kinds of prime shooting lanes. Who cares if it wasn't always pretty. Kunitz, Guerin, Fedotenko and even Talbot did it for the first Sid cup team. Tocchet, Stevens, Joey Mullen, Bourque, etc did it through the Mario years. Those guys were willing to pay the price, and could take the beating.

We don't have that now, we're built to be a regular season team. And maybe not even that any more.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Organizationally there is an obsession with the 5 man unit of GCR, 8-58.

It is such a weirdly fixed star. Like I get it, traditionally these are 5/6 of the best players. But 2-3 of those guys are playing loser hockey, and the combo knows it's stale.

 

[dogthateats]

So what on earth do we attribute playing Rutta and Rackell 12 minutes a night to? Honest question here.

It's just such a bizarre thing that it could easily be for different reasons, but Sullivan being Sullivan, he's not going to address it.

I know that this question wasn’t directed towards me, but I can answer most of it being a former coach myself.
We reward players not only for their on-the-ice effort, but for most of what they put in off-the-ice as well, and most importantly in the locker room. If there are two players competing for an opportunity to play in the finals minutes to win the game, or play with one of our elite players, I am certainly not going to reward the guy who leaves his wet towels laying around the shower area or a young player who doesn’t make eye contact when he shakes my hand. These are just a couple of examples, but I think they give the common man a brief glimpse into our thought process. Hope this helps.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I would find it darkly humorous if it's actually Sid begging Sully to not put Rust back on his line, but Sully just ignores him.

 

[PensandCaps]

Looks like holding on to POJ was very smart, as Dumo has totally declined. It might get to a point to dump Dumo and bring up Ty Smith.


Petts - Letang
POJ - Petry
Smith - Rutta

I would find it darkly humorous if it's actually Sid begging Sully to not put Rust back on his line, but Sully just ignores him.

Yah but how could Sullivan possibly think Rust's a better fit than Rakell based off how well they started the season with those lines until Injuries hit.

Breaking up Zucker - Malkin - Rust just because injuries happened and never going back to it when healthy, is just so insane to me. That line was destroying teams.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Yah but how could Sullivan possibly think Rust's a better fit than Rakell based off how well they started the season with those lines until Injuries hit.

I mean, your guess is as good as mine. It was a rare situation where the ol' eyetest matched the advanced stats. If I had to guess, I'd say that HCMS thought it was the best way to spread the offense, but...

 

[Gurglesons]

This is right. GCR are his guys - Crosby is Crosby and GR were his 2 star pupils at WBS who turned out great at the next level (Sheary being the third, to some extent).

Then Sully traditionally falls in love with a checking line. BART. Or he thinks Heinen-Carter-Kapanen is gonna be some ace checking line.

The rest of his ice time upfront is moreso fill in the blank type stuff. Geno gets his shifts and then it's the rest.

On the back end, Letang is Letang and Dumo is his guy.
Though I could see Petts (a Euro) having his playing time ramp up FWIW.

He was using Poehling, Archibald, and McGinn to go head to head with Bergeron and Marchand last night.. They did a decent job.

But like.. why are you putting a young forward in Poehling trying to find his game against one of the best lines in the league?

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

The media soundbites are all bullshit, for sure. But Zucker-Rust is a fine winger combo for a 2nd line. /shrug

The issue isn't that Zucker is on Geno's line. It's that he's hurt forever, and instead of keeping the other wing occupied by Rust--who has worked perfectly fine with Geno--the coach just grabs his Jake-Sid-Rust teddybear at the drop of a hat even when it makes no sense.

Jake-Sid-Rakell
Zucker/Heinen-Geno-Rust

That's as good as it's gonna get with what this team's got. Just leave it and don't torpedo things, Sully.

Yeah I guess. Best this team can do, I suppose.

 

[eXile3]

Looks like holding on to POJ was very smart, as Dumo has totally declined. It might get to a point to dump Dumo and bring up Ty Smith.


Petts - Letang
POJ - Petry
Smith - Rutta


Yah but how could Sullivan possibly think Rust's a better fit than Rakell based off how well they started the season with those lines until Injuries hit.

Breaking up Zucker - Malkin - Rust just because injuries happened and never going back to it when healthy, is just so insane to me. That line was destroying teams.

I would be all for trading Dumo and bringing Smith up. It’ll never happen though.

If they would even consider knocking Dumo to the 3rd pairing it would be a win. He’s so outmatched at this point.

 

[Pancakes]

He was using Poehling, Archibald, and McGinn to go head to head with Bergeron and Marchand last night.. They did a decent job.

But like.. why are you putting a young forward in Poehling trying to find his game against one of the best lines in the league?

We're having trouble scoring goals lately. Maybe he wanted to give GCR softer matchups and see if they could get some goals.

And he almost certainly didn't trust Malkin's line to go against them.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Yeah I guess. Best this team can do, I suppose.

Best this team cares to do, for sure.

 

[SEALBound]

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.

Looking at the roster...who is the dead weight?

 

[HandshakeLine]

Looking at the roster...who is the dead weight?

Carter, McGinn, Dumo, Kap, for starters.