Post-Game Talk: Pens/Flames

[TooManyHumans]

When you've finished out of the playoffs two straight years by one freaking point, everything is important.

 

[SEALBound]

To be fair, I'd guess that a lot more games end in OT now with the 3-on-3. So shootouts probably aren't as important.

....but they also seem pretty terrible at 3-on-3, so....



Also, it seemed like the players thought it was fun back in the day. Might bring some levity and enjoyment to this team. They seems pretty listless and bored most nights.

My greater point was that Byslma placed value on our ability to perform after regulation. Johnston and Sullivan have not. Granted a big part is an older and less dynamic team but that hardly means would should look as inept as we do at times.

 

[Khelandros]

Sullivan Angrily Stops Practice; Clarifies Jarry Status

CALGARY, Alberta — Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan isn’t playing around through the Penguins’ early season struggles. Monday, Sullivan angrily stopped practice during more than one drill. He stopped both the power play and a five-on-five drill meant to drive home the concept of playing...

pittsburghhockeynow.com

Haven't seen this talked about much, but this is what it looks like when a Coach has started to or has lost a room.

 

[Duffy13]

Fell asleep on and off throughout the game... however

-Graves seems to be the only defenseman trying to play defense, Letang is just awful now, Karlsson is amazing at reading the play and anticipating pickoffs, as is Malkin, but if he misses... oh boy. Petts? where did you go this offseason? holy hell man... you were such a great opportunity to get a high pick at the deadline.
-Jarry is playing poorly which is only exasperated by playing behind this god awful defensive system. I mean lets be honest there is no system, the players do not have a clue what the coaching staff is expecting them to do. This is as big of a systems tank I have ever seen. These are not dumb players, they have all shown at some point they can play at a much higher level than this, they have not all of a sudden forgot how to play hockey, yet here we are.
- Ned and Bloom in net are making saves that a decent goalie should, and are being overwhelmed by wave after wave of odd man rushed and high danger shots. Jarry is having a rough go right now and I think he should go to the AHL discover his confidence, come back, play well for a month and demand a trade. This team is not getting better for the rest of his contract, go get some Jars!!!!
- Bottom 6 is very adequate, and buoying the fact this team should maybe be winless this year so far.
- Top 6 still needs help on wing
- Coaching staff needs to go, this is awful.... commit to the rebuild now, give guys a chance to either be in on the rebuild or move on.
- ADHD meds have worn off and I'm all over the place... seems like a good fit with the coaching staff, I'm in boys!!

- Is it just me or has the decline started when Martin left to go become a head coach again? I always felt the Defense and the Specialty teams were pretty solid under his hand, Tocchet was pretty decent as well. Sine then however woof.

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

This team is so bad. There's no identity to the roster. It's like a beer league team got thrown together for a tournament. They should go with the the crazy idea of letting your prospects play and actually develop

 

[Pancakes]

It's hard to say what's going on with Sid. He's always a slow starter but his on ice body language looks terrible. If I didn't know any better I'd say he's trying to get Sullivan fired lol

 

[Icarium]

I don't know hockey well enough to really say, but it sure seems like they run the same system they did when they were one of the faster teams in the league.

That would imply that they are using anything worthy of the word system which I find a bit hard to believe.

But yeah, the basic idea seems to be that they can outscore their problems. Only they haven't been that kind of team for years now and it doesn't work except against other teams which need a map to find the defensive zone or whose goalie has a really bad game. They should either decide to blow it up for real or try to play structured defense.

Or they could try the same thing for the millionth time and hope that this time it will work. Somehow, someway.

 

[Pancakes]

The sad thing is the start they've had isn't even that bad. 3-4-1 given the teams they've played isn't terrible on paper. The issue is how they've looked in those actual games. They look like f-ing shit. They're lucky to even have three wins.

And it's most likely about to get worse. They haven't beaten Edmonton in years and Vancouver is a back to back. It's very likely they come back to Pittsburgh 3-6-1 which already puts them in danger of digging a hole they won't be able to overcome.

 

[Pancakes]

Also...gotta say it. Sid is a slow starter so maybe that's all this is but the stuff he is doing defensively so far this season would get him into heaps of trouble with Mike Sullivan if it were Malkin playing like this instead of Sid.

His attention to detail on defense is horrific and he's making bad line changes and dogging it. Just real bad stuff.

He starts slow sometimes. Maybe that's all this is. But it's ugly

 

[BusinessGoose]

Do we even want our prospects learning to play THIS brand of hockey???

 

[Khelandros]

I feel like this is salt in the wounds.

Salim Valji system tweaks have Calgary Flames flying early | TSN

A season after missing the playoffs, Calgary has used tweaks in approach and mindset to get off to the best start in franchise history.

www.tsn.ca

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

The bright side is the team isn't good enough to stay in no man's land. They legit might be a lottery team this year. Looking forward to picking up futures at the deadline and landing a top 5 pick.

 

[Sidgeni Malkby]

This has been an issue for quite a while now. Like a blatant, glaring issue. The number of times I've watched 5 guys stare at a puck while someone slips into position behind them, is so far beyond unacceptable it's humorous at this point.

And then when the opposing team scores...everybody just looks around looking sad .

An easy solution would be, if you don't know where to go, collapse down low around the net, and block shots. I mean a lot of teams just do that.

It's always as if we're trying too hard to get the offensive breakout jump....
I mean is it because our forwards are too slow, and need that headstart?

It's possible that our team just sucks, and changing Sully won't do anything...dunno really.

 

[metalan2]

It's not even the losses, man. I don't really care if the team's winning or losing if they have zero realistic shot at a Cup. I watched the post-Jagr, pre-Sid handful of years. I've been a Bills fan my whole life--winning is cool but not a requirement.

The issue is that this team's so f***ing boring, predictable, *and* unlikable. Yet, they're somehow still so damn arrogant and full of themselves despite having essentially nothing more to show than the Sabres, Coyotes, or Sens over the past handful of years. I know people are gonna be like "bro they made the playoffs" yadda yadda. This team's been dead in the water since Mario, with his mind already set on selling the team, just shrugged after the Habs play-in. That was the nail in the coffin imo.

It's just frustrating to watch the same reruns for going on like seven years, the team on a steep and steady decline the whole way, while people laud this coach for being one of the best in the business and we constantly get failures from ownership and FO dweebs, across multiple regimes for both. And they can't even start an earnest tear down in preparation for the next chapter cuz their golden boy coach is slated to coach Team USA, and Sid's gotta hang around to get another shot at gold with MacKinnon and McDavid. So this organization's just held hostage, in suspended animation, until like 2027.

Thank you.

The team brings out nothing but disdain.

The bright side is the team isn't good enough to stay in no man's land. They legit might be a lottery team this year. Looking forward to picking up futures at the deadline and landing a top 5 pick.
View attachment 920694

The roster can compete with a competent coach.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Thank you.

The team brings out nothing but disdain.


The roster can compete with a competent coach.

If this was 2021 or 2022 I would agree. We waited too long, that ship has sailed imo. Even with a good coach this is at best what, a team that sneaks in as an 8 seed and loses first round?

 

[Devilsfan2326]

It's hard to say what's going on with Sid. He's always a slow starter but his on ice body language looks terrible. If I didn't know any better I'd say he's trying to get Sullivan fired lol

Time for a new coach

 

[cygnus47]

And then when the opposing team scores...everybody just looks around looking sad .

An easy solution would be, if you don't know where to go, collapse down low around the net, and block shots. I mean a lot of teams just do that.

It's always as if we're trying too hard to get the offensive breakout jump....
I mean is it because our forwards are too slow, and need that headstart?

It's possible that our team just sucks, and changing Sully won't do anything...dunno really.

We do do that, that's why we can't control the zone. We just don't follow-up by taking guys out of the play because dey don care.

 

[deakka]

The bright side is the team isn't good enough to stay in no man's land. They legit might be a lottery team this year. Looking forward to picking up futures at the deadline and landing a top 5 pick.
View attachment 920694

Sadly, i think we will be stuck in no mans land. I think around 8-12 from last will be where we end up. Not good enough for playoffs, bot bad enough for a good pick. Will probably stay that way until Sid retire

 

[McGroarty2]

Sadly, after 29 years (1995-2024) of watching Penguins hockey, I finally cut the cord. For the past six or seven years, I only kept cable to watch the Pens. I literally do not watch TV unless a Pens game is on with the occasional Netflix. I'll attempt to seek a cheaper alternative to perhaps catch their games but their current display of ineptitude (Sully hockey) just isn't worth the time and money. I'll still follow them/stat and highlight watch but I feel better now that I'm saving money. Hopefully the Pens put out a decent product in the future but no defense/physicality hockey isn't worth my time at the moment.

 

[Sideline]

Sadly, after 29 years (1995-2024) of watching Penguins hockey, I finally cut the cord. For the past six or seven years, I only kept cable to watch the Pens. I literally do not watch TV unless a Pens game is on with the occasional Netflix. I'll attempt to seek a cheaper alternative to perhaps catch their games but their current display of ineptitude (Sully hockey) just isn't worth the time and money. I'll still follow them/stat and highlight watch but I feel better now that I'm saving money. Hopefully the Pens put out a decent product in the future but no defense/physicality hockey isn't worth my time at the moment.

I'm getting to a similar place. TV is only for sports now. I've never been a basketball guy so it's on hockey to carry me from January to baseball season. For now I'm too lazy to plan around all the apps, but ~$100 a month for cable is making it more tempting.

 

[McGroarty2]

I'm getting to a similar place. TV is only for sports now. I've never been a basketball guy so it's on hockey to carry me from January to baseball season. For now I'm too lazy to plan around all the apps, but ~$100 a month for cable is making it more tempting.

I'm saving about $130, Comcast required an additional sports channel fee last year. I also din't like giving money to Comcast/Flyers.

 

[eXile3]

The bright side is the team isn't good enough to stay in no man's land. They legit might be a lottery team this year. Looking forward to picking up futures at the deadline and landing a top 5 pick.
View attachment 920694

We are awful defensively. As a team. So we’ve either aggregated the best collection of awful defensive players or they are very poorly coached. Well I guess it could be and/or.