Post-Game Talk: DET is better than PIT

[Honour Over Glory]

I nominate Brooks Orpik.....

That should set this place off....

Brooks Orpik - "So first things first, we're going to strip Sidney Crosby of the Captaincy and give it to Ryan Graves..."

I nominate.....


Craig Adams

(Imagine he becomes Coach and we somehow become an offensive powerhouse with a top 10 PP)

Malkin punches him out in the first practice.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

Brooks Orpik - "So first things first, we're going to strip Sidney Crosby of the Captaincy and give it to Ryan Graves..."

Orpik will always be a f***ing traitor. And not even for winning a Cup with the Caps. But for that bullshit he tried to pull about getting said stripped of the Captaincy.

I actually really enjoyed his prime years here and his Cup runs/win in 08' and 09'. But dude turned out to be a shitbag

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Orpik will always be a f***ing traitor. And not even for winning a Cup with the Caps. But for that bullshit he tried to pull about getting said stripped of the Captaincy.

I actually really enjoyed his prime years here and his Cup runs/win in 08' and 09'. But dude turned out to be a shitbag

Orpik would be BFFs with Sullivan. Two shitpeas of the same turd pod.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

And why does this matter? When the team gets younger because K12 Kyle should be making moves to, you aren't going to get to pick and choose what youth has experience in what, they're gonna be hungry to play and if you can't give them direction or use them to the best of their abilities - which Sullivan absolutely cannot, then he should get the f*** gone.

The fact that Sully keeps staying on, I mean ok so they wait until the 4 Nations thing, if that's the case then a lot of this season is really wasted. Dubas needs to just start moving shit asap.

Pettersson, Acciari, Grzelcyk, Nedeljkovic, etc. Move what you can now, wait to move the rest at the deadline.

 

[cygnus47]

Orpik will always be a f***ing traitor. And not even for winning a Cup with the Caps. But for that bullshit he tried to pull about getting said stripped of the Captaincy.

I actually really enjoyed his prime years here and his Cup runs/win in 08' and 09'. But dude turned out to be a shitbag

He also hit Sid in the face with a slapshot and ruined any chance of Sid ever getting in front of the net again.

Shero not trading Orpik at the peak of his value because Bylsma hated Despres/Bortuzzo/Dumoulin who were all better players already was the beginning of the end for that era.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Looking back, I think the Reaves illustrated a shift in the player market and league trends and the glaring supply and demand issue. In 2016, we caught everyone off guard with our four lines of speed. Every single line could play offense and defense and skate you into the ground with aggressive forecheckers. Being backstopped by Murray helped too. But in both 2016 and 2017, the goal was be physical enough to try to stop that speed. Washington with guys like Ovie, Oshie, and Wilson, came very, VERY close both times. And when "push came to shove" we didn't have the ability to push back. Remember Wilson's knee on Sheary? Who was going to do something about that?

Well you go around the "league market" and it was more or less barren of guys who could be physical that weren't pure goons. There weren't many, if any guys like Maroon, Wilson, Lucic, etc available. I think Reaves was a guy that JR could actually get that could actually take a shift unlike a guy like Godard or god forbid Steve MacIntyre. The guys that could actually play in the top 6 that could bang were super valuable. Hell, we understood the value Hornqvist had!

2017 marked the shift towards speed AND physicality with the depth. That was the direction the league was going in and honestly, it's been going that way ever since. Washington won with it, then St Louis took note and won with it, then you had Tampa whose back end was a bunch of redwood trees. All the while, we watch guys like Maroon and Perry be valuable to their teams. Now whether or not Reaves could have been is highly debatable but at least those teams were willing to play those guys and find out. I do think a problem with Reaves as a player is, he's a "I'm gonna hit, fight, and be physical first and worry about scoring and playing second". If he had a mindset shift to "I need to focus on scoring and let the physicality part come to me", I think he could have done better.

JR was always a bit ahead of his time. Good example of when thought processes and how the game is viewed trending wise can differ and be destructive.

I still think it ultimately comes down to Sullivan not using players at what they're good at and trying to pigeon hole them into something they're not.

In the case of Reaves, maybe you don't use him as a full time player against the speedy teams that don't have any muscle or aren't physical. But you dress him against the teams known to take liberties with the Pens' stars and the teams who employ their own "goon". And when you *do* dress him, let him play a physical, mean game, including stirring it up by going to the net and being a bit of a shit disturber. Sullivan, instead, tried to turn Reaves into a relatively passive generic 4th line "grinder" who is responsible defensively but doesn't do shit all else. And Reaves isn't fit for that role.

As I said, maybe Reaves sucks and maybe he doesn't. But his usage and how he was expected to play is an illustration of how Sullivan takes any player -- no matter what they actually bring to the table -- and tries to turn them into ZAR.

 

[SEALBound]

I nominate.....


Craig Adams

(Imagine he becomes Coach and we somehow become an offensive powerhouse with a top 10 PP)

To be fair, Dan Byslma won a cup with us. Sullivan won a cup with us. He fits the mold, lol.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

To be fair, Dan Byslma won a cup with us. Sullivan won a cup with us. He fits the mold, lol.

I don't even give a shit if we suck after firing Sullivan because Dubas went all in for trading everyone but the big 3, I am even fine if he swaps out Letang for Karlsson in the big 3 as well, as long as it's a coach that wants to play youth and try shit I am f***ing good with that.

It was absolutely foolish of us to think Sullivan would be fired before the 4 Nations wank fest. An absolutely idiotic show case series. We just have to hope Sullivan does his Sullivan shit with the usage, line up decisions, and can't adjust for shit against the other 3 teams and gets dunked on hard. Because that would out him as a fraud that even with a stacked US roster, he's an epic tit.

So we just have to keep suffering until February 12-20th.

Let's just hope the damage he does to players like O'Connor, Blomqvist, Rutty McGoats and if they're still here - Puljujarvi, Glass, Puustinen, Poulin, etc is irreversible by a top bloke like Todd Nelson.

I will f***ing lose it if they fire Sullivan only to make David Quinn the coach...

 

[Fordy]

He also hit Sid in the face with a slapshot and ruined any chance of Sid ever getting in front of the net again.

Shero not trading Orpik at the peak of his value because Bylsma hated Despres/Bortuzzo/Dumoulin who were all better players already was the beginning of the end for that era.

i’m sure it still had an impact, but sid was actually like 12 feet to the side of the net when orpik missed by a mile and hit his captain in the face who likely assumed no professional hockey player could miss that badly

 

[Honour Over Glory]

i’m sure it still had an impact, but sid was actually like 12 feet to the side of the net when orpik missed by a mile and hit his captain in the face who likely assumed no professional hockey player could miss that badly

Letang's been trying to head hunt with his shot in Orpik's honour ever since.

 

[Ryder71]

I'm pretty sure they've split up. I hope Geno doesn't read Facebook comments because the ones on his celebration post are filled with yinzers asking where his obviously estranged wife is. It can't feel good.

That's a shame, I'm sorry to hear that if true.

 

[BusinessGoose]

... Was the possible split AFTER Geno re-signed here???