Line Combos: Pens 2022-2023 Training Camp thread: Its happenings

[HandshakeLine]

Honestly if the big controversy is losing Z... Pens had a good offseason and preseason. I like how we look moving forward. It will be tough but can't argue with what we have.

I dunno, we still got Lafferty 2 : The Laffertying Game, which sucks.

Nothing frustrates me more than a team that sees a need and then proceeds to address it in an absolutely half-assed way.

 

[eXile3]

Completely useful player in McCann is let go for basically nothing. Good riddance, he sucked in the playoffs.

Zohorna and his career 4 NHL goals hits waivers. Rage!! How will we ever recover!

 

[HandshakeLine]

I mean if you want to invent that argument more power to you. It’s just dumb.

 

[Pens x]

Completely useful player in McCann is let go for basically nothing. Good riddance, he sucked in the playoffs.

Zohorna and his career 4 NHL goals hits waivers. Rage!! How will we ever recover!

I think it was beyond stupid to donate McCann, especially to keep frigging Blueger and Carter. But I also think it was foolish to keep Archibald over Z. It’s possible that Hextall screwed the pooch in both situations…

I mean, if they can't do anything it makes the most sense cap wise. Not sure it makes the most sense in terms of icing the best roster or giving Smith development time in the NHL.

That’s the issue though, isn’t it? Sleepy backed himself into this corner by signing too many players, and now we likely have to ice a team based on cap issues, not the best possible lineup.

But, somehow, I’m sure it’s Rutherford’s fault sleepy made unnecessary signings this year, or paid to much to keep certain guys.

 

[ColePens]

I dunno, we still got Lafferty 2 : The Laffertying Game, which sucks.

Nothing frustrates me more than a team that sees a need and then proceeds to address it in an absolutely half-assed way.

The biggest need, IMO, was 2 fold lately. The defense needed changed and the coach needed changed. They decided to stick w/ the coach and the vets so they did the one big thing they could do. For that, I'll give them props.

Now the rest of it is accessory work that can be done throughout the season.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I still think the coaching contract is frankly insane. Sullivan for all his pluses and minuses is still an NHL coach and they have shelf lives. I’m not sure why we should handcuff ourselves to any coach for that amount of time.

 

[ColePens]

I still think the coaching contract is frankly insane. Sullivan for all his pluses and minuses is still an NHL coach and they have shelf lives. I’m not sure why we should handcuff ourselves to any coach for that amount of time.

Makes zero freaking sense. The one thing this era of Pens for sure shows is they lose focus with a coach. Fire the coach, win a cup. That seemed to be the mantra for the Sid era. If they would have stuck with Bylsma, I do not believe they go back to back. Then basically St Louis Blues do the same thing. I'll never understand not keeping that ability and randomly handing him more years. It makes zero sense other than to tell the vets "Hey.. you are set and comfortable from here on out".

I guess they can point to Coop in Tampa? The Tampa fans wanted him gone so badly and patience paid off.

 

[Pens x]

I still think the coaching contract is frankly insane. Sullivan for all his pluses and minuses is still an NHL coach and they have shelf lives. I’m not sure why we should handcuff ourselves to any coach for that amount of time.

We have a GM that is afraid of change. People around here defended the extension by saying things like FSG would still fire him if they aren’t satisfied with his performance. It must be nice to live in a fantasy world to believe Sully will be fired any time soon regardless of how badly he’s out coached or underachieves.

Why would Sully hold players accountable when he’s never worried about accountability for himself? The organization turns a blind eye to Sully like Sully turns a blind eye to awful players like Simon, ZAR, Jank, Lafferty, Archibald.

The fact that this team invited Simon on a PTO is all you need to know. It would have been classic sully to force the team to waive 3 young guys to accommodate Archibald and Simon.

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

Completely useful player in McCann is let go for basically nothing. Good riddance, he sucked in the playoffs.

Zohorna and his career 4 NHL goals hits waivers. Rage!! How will we ever recover!

He'd have like 400 goals by now if Sully gave him a chance on the top line

 

[Flying Dego]

Uh oh. Am I about to look dumb lol

In fairness to you Smith makes the most sense in a vacuum to stay up.

But ya I've anticipated them sending him down to salvage as many D as they can from waivers. They may dislike POJ but waiving him? I'll believe it when I see it.

Still think it's lined up as
Smith - AHL
Friedman- Waivers then the A

 

[Coastal Kev]

Makes zero freaking sense. The one thing this era of Pens for sure shows is they lose focus with a coach. Fire the coach, win a cup. That seemed to be the mantra for the Sid era. If they would have stuck with Bylsma, I do not believe they go back to back. Then basically St Louis Blues do the same thing. I'll never understand not keeping that ability and randomly handing him more years. It makes zero sense other than to tell the vets "Hey.. you are set and comfortable from here on out".

I guess they can point to Coop in Tampa? The Tampa fans wanted him gone so badly and patience paid off.

Coop is an outlier. TB also had a constant influx of talented youth, something the Pens can only dream about. As boring as this year will be, imagine this same roster with the same coach in 24 or 25?????

Also, the very same people critiquing my critique right now will be pleading for public hangings in 25.

 

[Gurglesons]

Coop is an outlier. TB also had a constant influx of talented youth, something the Pens can only dream about. As boring as this year will be, imagine this same roster with the same coach in 24 or 25?????

Also, the very same people critiquing my critique right now will be pleading for public hangings in 25.

What constant influx of “talented youth”?

Pat Maroon?
Kevin Shattenkirk?
Blake Coleman?
Barclay Goodrow?

Tampa was the 5th and 6th oldest team
In the league when they got their cups.

 

[HandshakeLine]

For every Coop, there's a Coach Joel "Blind Beggar" Q. and Lindy Ruff there to balance it out.

Again, I get why FSG did the extension-- the big 3 like playing for Sullivan, yinzers love a good Coach Daddy, and it keeps stability behind the bench. The bad news is, I don't think Sullivan's going to be a great coach for rebuilding (and boy if Sid and Geno hang 'em up at the same time, we're going to need to rebuild, regardless of what ownership thinks) and I don't think he's got another gear left for this club. It just seems really weirdly myopic to me. Why wouldn't you want that flexibility instead of just keeping a guy around for 5 extra seasons?

It's like the complaints about not wanting to try cheap young players because they might fail in the postseason, when we've had no success in the post-season for half a decade now and counting.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Eh, give the coach some security. He’s happy, therefore should help him perform his job even better.

If he turns out too stale you just pull the plug and pay the buyout. Not like there’s cap implications.

Fairly easy call for FSG imo. These are peanut numbers for them.

Also I think people sell Sully short. 2 different GMs, a president, and two different ownership groups speak glowingly of him. Very few people in any industry survive that type of changeover above them. Does that mean he can’t go stale (and maybe already has)? No, but I don’t think he’s this idiot meathead.

 

[Victor Z]

Say goodbye (for now) to Ty. This was in the cards all along unless he absolutely dominated in the preseason, and maybe even if he did. Perhaps it never mattered how well Smith or DOC played -- they could be sent to the AHL with no risk, which made it a foregone conclusion that they would be the ones to go.

Now with one of their borderline AHL/NHL types (Zohorna) already having been claimed, the Pens are going to be especially gun-shy about the same thing happening if they try to send another borderline-at-best player (POJ) down to WBS so they'll almost certainly play it safe and demote the better player.

 

[Flying Dego]

Eh, give the coach some security. He’s happy, therefore should help him perform his job even better.

 

[DesertedPenguin]

POJ has only played two preseason games. Smith has played four already. POJ hasn't played at all with Rutta.

It would sure seem like Smith has the upper hand. But I wonder if it could be a smoke screen. POJ knows the system, Smith was new. The Pens know what they have in POJ, Smith is a new acquisition.

I know games aren't the only evaluation tool, but it would seem to be a bit unfair for POJ to only get two preseason games - and none with his potential defensive partner - if there is a true competition for the 3LD spot.

Maybe we've been looking at it wrong and the Pens are just giving Smith a long evaluation so they can identify what he needs to work on for a bit at WBS. Meanwhile, POJ starts the season with the Pens and Friedman gets waived for cap reasons.

 

[LOGiK]

Makes zero freaking sense. The one thing this era of Pens for sure shows is they lose focus with a coach. Fire the coach, win a cup. That seemed to be the mantra for the Sid era. If they would have stuck with Bylsma, I do not believe they go back to back. Then basically St Louis Blues do the same thing. I'll never understand not keeping that ability and randomly handing him more years. It makes zero sense other than to tell the vets "Hey.. you are set and comfortable from here on out".

I guess they can point to Coop in Tampa? The Tampa fans wanted him gone so badly and patience paid off.

I'm past the coaching thing. This team doesn't have what it takes to win a cup... let alone a first round matchup.
Day late and a dollar short.

 

[HandshakeLine]

But if we're not supposed to give players security, why are we handing out cushy security to the shift manager behind the bench?

I don't think Sully's a bad coach, he can be great on occasion, and average other times. But I just don't see how security squares with the reality of coaching in the NHL.

 

[Peat]

But if we're not supposed to give players security, why are we handing out cushy security to the shift manager behind the bench?

I don't think Sully's a bad coach, he can be great on occasion, and average other times. But I just don't see how security squares with the reality of coaching in the NHL.

I can't think of a sport that gives its players more security than the NHL tbh. Just look at the cases of Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, good but not earthshaking players. They're officially tabbed to be in Pittsburgh longer than Sullivan. 2/3rds of their money is guaranteed. I can't think of a sport that says to two 30 year olds "you'll be in this league for six more years, if you get injured you collect your money, if we hate you you get 2/3rds of your money".

And you see plenty of similar for players not as good too. Four years for McGinn. Eight years for Nick Paul! Four years for a 31 year old Calle Jarnkrok.

Sullivan's contract is an extension of how they treat players, and I think we'll see more contracts like it as the really rich teams continue trying to figure out how to use that to their advantage in a salary cap league.

 

[3ladesof5teel]

What constant influx of “talented youth”?

Pat Maroon?
Kevin Shattenkirk?
Blake Coleman?
Barclay Goodrow?

Tampa was the 5th and 6th oldest team
In the league when they got their cups.

He won't answer this b/c he can't

Eventually if he keeps throwing shit at the wall something will stick.

 

[ColePens]

Coop is an outlier. TB also had a constant influx of talented youth, something the Pens can only dream about. As boring as this year will be, imagine this same roster with the same coach in 24 or 25?????

Also, the very same people critiquing my critique right now will be pleading for public hangings in 25.

My argument ALWAYS against you is this:

1) I never like to be definitive when it comes to sports. That's why sporting events are so fun. It really is unpredictable.

2) If you keep saying doom/gloom you will inevitably be right. Father Time is undefeated. Then we will just get the next Mario/Sid/G/Jagr and win more Cupzzz

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Again, going into camp the opening NHL roster was nearly set. The only "questions" were:

1. Who was going to be the 13th forward?
2. How will the D-depth shape out?

Question 1 was answered and perhaps was never in question. Question 2 is being worked on but I think it's been clear since opening day of camp.

To add, the above was always contingent upon team health.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I can't think of a sport that gives its players more security than the NHL tbh. Just look at the cases of Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, good but not earthshaking players. They're officially tabbed to be in Pittsburgh longer than Sullivan. 2/3rds of their money is guaranteed. I can't think of a sport that says to two 30 year olds "you'll be in this league for six more years, if you get injured you collect your money, if we hate you you get 2/3rds of your money".

And you see plenty of similar for players not as good too. Four years for McGinn. Eight years for Nick Paul! Four years for a 31 year old Calle Jarnkrok.

Sullivan's contract is an extension of how they treat players, and I think we'll see more contracts like it as the really rich teams continue trying to figure out how to use that to their advantage in a salary cap league.

Well, not being able to restructure or buy out contracts certainly does affect that.

But that McGinn contract is not great. Rust's contract is pretty ugly too, as are the rest of them you name. I guess it's a logical extension on how teams are operating now, but that doesn't mean it's good in the abstract. And in the end, I think that ultimately, it's one of the reasons we didn't squeeze more cups out of this era-- it's just simply too hard to build a roster even taking away the parity and lack of prospects. It's also why I wish we would have explored trading TB, not signed McGinn for a dumb deal, and not resigned Carter and run some internal stop-gaps instead. We basically shot ourselves in the lower body because we panicked that we'd lose some ultimately mediocre pieces and now we're stuck with a mediocre roster at the end of era and no room to make any moves going forward.

I'm not trying to sound alarmist or stealing PensX's thunder or anything. I don't expect us to compete for a Cup, just have some cool last hurrahs. I just think it's hard to look at the roster moves we've made over the last 3-4 years and have them be anything above "okay" or "possibly decent". The best non-UFA/RFA moves we made frankly in 5 years were trading Marino and Matheson.

 

[Coastal Kev]

My argument ALWAYS against you is this:

1) I never like to be definitive when it comes to sports. That's why sporting events are so fun. It really is unpredictable.

2) If you keep saying doom/gloom you will inevitably be right. Father Time is undefeated. Then we will just get the next Mario/Sid/G/Jagr and win more Cupzzz

1) That's my complaint, this team has become so easily predictable through adhering to the status quo.
2) I'm not trying to be right, I just don't get the point of a wasted decade so that we can give guys 5+year swan song. I'm just ahead of the curve, trust me; Most will be joining me with my same complaints in the upcoming months/years.