Trap Jesus
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- Feb 13, 2012
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Why is Pittsburgh's PK Always So Good?
- Thread starter Trap Jesus
- Start date
Beauner
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Craig ****ing Adams.
Just kidding, he still sucks. But part of it is Fleury, he's great on the pk. Then they generally just have good structure and don't over-commit. They do a good job of getting in lanes and blocking shots (one thing Adams is good at)
Just kidding, he still sucks. But part of it is Fleury, he's great on the pk. Then they generally just have good structure and don't over-commit. They do a good job of getting in lanes and blocking shots (one thing Adams is good at)
The Pens have always had strong defensive forwards and D. The idea that they're weak defensively is a pure myth because of 1 playoff series against the Flyers where defense was optional.
Trap Jesus
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They're almost always outside the top 10 in GA though. It's not to say they're poor defensively, or even not good. Just not elite like their PK is.
After finishing 20th in 09-10, Shero made it a priority to fix the Pens defense. That's the summer he let go of Gonchar, tried to sign Hamhuis and ended up with Martin and Michalek. Since then, the Pens D has finished 7th, 17th (this was the year of the Pens-Flyers series, where Martin and Michalek were absolutely horrendous), 12th, 10th and 9th. While those numbers aren't exactly good, they're not bad at all, especially considering the HF idea that they're bad defensively. They're an above average defensive team.
The Pens have always had strong defensive forwards (Staal, Sutter, Goc, Spaling, Talbot, Dupuis, Cooke, Comeau) along with defensively strong D (Martin, Michalek, Scuderi, Maatta, Orpik, Murray, Letang specifically this year), and that's the biggest reason they've had an elite PK. The reason that their defensive numbers aren't as good as their PK numbers is that Bylsma ran an absolutely stupid system at ES. The Pens have never been a good ES team. Just look at this year, the Pens goals per game is worse than their goals against per game.
That's not true. Adams somehow has a reputation of being a great shot blocker, but he's really not.
Adams has 20 blocks this season, that's #13 on the Pens. Sidney Crosby has 21.
Ragamuffin Gunner
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DearDiary
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Craig Adams. He's just a workhorse out there, doing everything he can to keep the puck out of his net. He isn't fast or quick, but he's smart. He can figure out what the other team is planning and break up their powerplay hopes. All the Pens on the ice just look at him and want to work just as hard.
trick9
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...?
East has 8 of the top-11 PP units, and they've had top-3 PP units for 2 seasons in a row.
Stjonnypopo
Rgesitreed Uesr
Russian Factor
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Interesting thread. Every once in a while I'll ask myself this too. Pretty consistent through the years (unlike the power play). Special teams is a facet of the game that typically fluctuates a good bit so the Pens staying good on the PK year in year out is significant.
As for why, I think it's because they really do have a good number of PK specialists. It hurts 5 v 5 which is how most of the game is played so it's not really that smart to do (dress so many scrubs that are good PKers but bad at 5v5) but yeah
As for why, I think it's because they really do have a good number of PK specialists. It hurts 5 v 5 which is how most of the game is played so it's not really that smart to do (dress so many scrubs that are good PKers but bad at 5v5) but yeah
Dan Bylsma
Give the guy some credit, it was his passion as a player and it translated to the players he coached. He knows how to PK
Give the guy some credit, it was his passion as a player and it translated to the players he coached. He knows how to PK
