It was a long November for Ruslan Fedotenko. In 14 games he amassed 1 goal and a whopping 3 assists. The amazing part of his ignoble point total in November is he accomplished it while on Sidney Crosby’s or Evgeni Malkin’s line. For 3 games he was on a line with both Crosby and Malkin, and he saw substantial powerplay time. He is not just bringing himself down, he’s bringing down his line mates. Somehow while playing on a line with the two best players on earth, he ended up with a plus/minus of -4 for the month.
Fedotenko has never put up big numbers. In his best season in the NHL he had 26 goals and 15 assists for a total of 41 points. That was the only season he had 20 or more goals. He has averaged 34 points a season in the 8 seasons he has played. These numbers do not qualify him to be on the top two lines.
Tonight’s lineup has Fedotenko penciled in along side Malkin. Malkin needs a winger who can get the puck to him to let him do his magic and Fedotenko is not that guy. When you look at Fedotenko’s best season the thing that stands out is that he almost had twice as many goals as assists, a trend that is usually found in goal scorers and his average of 17 goals a season are not goal scorers numbers. In Fedotenko’s breakout playoff year with Tampa he had 12 goals and only 2 assists. These are not the numbers of a passer. Malkin needs and deserves better.
The Fedotenko experiment was a failure. Kunitz is not near ready to return to the lineup. Place Tyler Kennedy on Malkin’s line and drop Fedotenko down to Staal’s line so he can get his mojo back.
So, one thing I didn’t know, Fedotenko is leading the team in +/-….unfortunately, this is for the Ryan Whitney award in the opposite direction, with a -5. Now here’s the funny thing, he plays exclusively on the line with Malkin, who happens to be a +11.
So here’s my thoughts, If Malkin averages 21 minutes a game and Fedotenko averages 16 minutes a game…we’re looking at about 5 minutes of ice time where the two are not on the ice together. Figure that neither really PK, I would like to believe that we get 3 to 4 power plays per game, were Malkin’s on the ice for 4 to 5 minutes without Fedotenko…but +/- doesn’t mean anything on the PP (much less, we don’t score on the PP anyway). So, 29 games into the season, a couple of minutes per game, we’re talking a 16 goal differential between these two players. Okay, I understand that we had a slide while Malkin was out…but we didn’t have 16 goals scored on us while this was going on.
My opinion, sit him…2 games minimum. He’s hurting the team more than I thought.
Rusty Fedotenko must have got insired by this article, eh? Fedotenko, when he shoots the puck plays well. When he doesn’t he could just as well mail his game in. Last night he had 4 SOG and 3 missed shots one of them smacked the post. But, rumor is Fedotenko plus a player in WB/S to the Stars for Fabian Brunnstrom.
Boom-Boom-Boom…. 20 wins top the NHL.
There is a rumor out there that the Pens are shopping Feds – if it true and
they are only looking for a draft pick they obviously think that he’s not playing well: NHL- Penguins shopping Ruslan Fedotenko-
Why play him on the first two lines?