For The Penguins; Defense, What’s That? An Afterthought At Best!

It has only been two games, but eleven goals against is bad. No, I am serious, it is really bad! Those eleven goals, they were all soft goals against. Not all were soft goals against with respect to the Goalie but they were all soft goals against with respect to team defense and most especially; soft goals against the Defensemen.

Last night, Brendan Gallagher opened up the scoring against our home town favorites. Evgeni Malkin lofted the puck out of his own zone to a breaking Jack Johnson and then lazily drifted to the bench for a line change. Right Wing (RW) Phil Kessel followed his pivot man with a leisurely stroll to the bench. The big problem was twofold, although the puck was now out of the zone, it was by no means safe. Johnson was too far forward for a Defenseman. When Malkin lifted the puck to get it out of the zone, Johnson was well ahead of all Penguins’ skaters and he was well covered. Dominik Simon did race to get ahead of Johnson (taking himself out of the play) as the off-season acquisition tried to settle the airborne pass down, but the Defenseman was the lead attacker at the beginning of the play.

Compounding this error in judgement was the lack of urgency in the line change. Not only did Malkin and Kessel exit the ice as if it were a Sunday afternoon in August rather than a Saturday night, game night in October, their replacements, Derick Bressard and Bryan Rust came on to the ice in the same ambling manner. Defenseman Olli Maatta was left alone to face a two on one. (And the hit parade of odd man breaks from last year keeps on coming)

Maatta tried staying between Tomas Tatar and Gallagher for most of the play but shifted over to play shot as the Montreal Winger started to shoot. Despite the number of players that now try to bounce passes off of goalies pads to back side attackers and the liveliness of the new PPG Paints Arena boards, Maatta opted to leave Gallagher free.

The unfortunate Penguins’ Goalie was now helpless when puck luck intervened and deposited the biscuit onto Gallagher’s stick after Maatta successfully blocked Tatar’s shot with the shaft of his stick. Gallagher now had the whole net to work with since Matt Murray also had to play shot and the Canadians’ Forward easily found the back of the Penguins’ net to open up the scoring.

I know that it is the current paradigm in hockey to try and block shots rather than trust your Goalie to do what he gets paid to do and given the home opener performance of the Penguins’ back-stopper, I could almost excuse overzealous attempts to block shots. However, as a former Goalie myself (although never Goaltending in anything close to real hockey) I never wanted anyone blocking shots for me, particularly when the Defenseman was exposing me to a higher percentage shot while only taking away a low percentage shot.

On the second goal against, Johnson cleared the puck out of his own zone with a pass to John Cullen. Cullen (again) lazily redirected the pass farther up ice, rather than skating with it. Jeff Petry jumped on the puck ceded by Cullen and quickly returned the Canadians to the attack with a sharp pass to Arturri Lehkonen. Lehkonen one-touched the puck to Paul Byron. Byron easily got behind the slow turning and even more plodding skating Maatta and was in on Murray with a break away (what was it I said before about the hit parade of odd man breaks?)

Goal against number three; enter Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin to abet the young, hungry Canadians. The play started with a soft dump in behind the Penguins’ goal. Max Domi out raced the aforementioned Penguins’ Defensemen, even though the Penguins’ pylons had a good 10 feet of ice lead on the speedy Montreal forward. Yes, Domi is fast but like on the first goal of the game, laziness infected the Black and Gold skaters and they nonchalantly turned and glided back toward the puck, both players heading behind the net – a common theme for these two Penguins’ defenders. Getting to the puck first, Domi, and with both Penguins’ Defenseman drawn like a moth to the flame behind the net (to be fair Dumoulin was trying to stop himself from joining Letang behind the net but was not effectively in the play), Domi found Lehkonen all alone in front of the net on Murray’s glove side. With nothing really to shoot at, since Murray was in good position and Dumoulin taking up space trying to turn around, Lehkonen whipped a quick pass to the other side of the net and up to the bottom of the face-off circle to the wide open Byron. Murray, like Murray of old, Murray of Stanley Cup lore, flat out robbed Byron on the initial shot, sliding across the crease, kicking out his leg pad for the save.

Unfortunately the rebound went straight to Domi again and he returned it to Byron, who was still wide opened, despite the lapse of time. Byron would not be denied on his second crack at the Penguins’ net going back across Murray and up, not quite high enough to call it the opposite corner of the net. Montreal was now up 3 – 0.

Joe Armia staked the visitors to a 4 goal lead, late in the second period. With the Penguins on the Power Play and the lone Penguins’ defenseman Letang deep in the Left Wing (LW) corner of the attacking zone fore-checking, Petry of the Canadians dumped the puck up to Armia. Armia skated the puck out of his own zone with Byron. After getting the puck out of his own zone Armia found Byron with a pass who was now cruising into toward the Penguins’ zone with forward Phil Kessel trying to play defense on what was a little more like a 2 on 1 with a hustling Malkin pressuring to try and make it a 2 on 2. Byron flipped a pass back into the slot toward Armia, who made a good play to swat the floating puck out of the air and into the net.

Last season, the Penguins were very efficient on the Power Play, not only did they score early and often, they rarely gave up a Short Handed Goal (SHG). Opponents only managed 3 SHG all season last year. This year the Habs got a SHG against our locals in only game 2 of the season.

Riley Sheahan did stem the tide of unanswered goals before the 2nd period of the tilt was over. The Canadians tried breaking out of their own zone. The much maligned Daniel Sprong back pressured the breakout attempt forcing a turnover in the neutral zone. Sheahan jumped on the loose puck and broke into the attacking zone. The now almost forgotten Center/Wing, with all of the attention on off season free agent signings, fed Sprong who was breaking ahead of Sheahan after he created the turnover.

The right handed, RW, Sprong wheeled back to the LW boards of the attacking zone as Sheahan now continued the leap frog game and drifted ahead of Sprong toward the net. Sprong found an open Letang at the left point, who fired the puck at the net. Sheahan gathered the rebound in and potted what would be the Penguins’ lone goal.

It is still early in the season but look who has the best points per 60 minutes (P60), Mike Sullivan’s favorite whipping boy – Daniel Sprong with a P60 of 6.71. Sullivan isn’t giving the kid much ice time but he is trying.

Speaking of Sprong really trying. Unfortunately the young Winger was on the ice for the Habs final goal of the game. Charles Hudson closed out the scoring on a wraparound goal and the only goal I fault Murray; he was to slow going post to post. Sprong, once again providing back pressure, followed the play back into his own zone. The Canadians tried to feed the puck in front of Murray but Jamie Oleksiak would have none of it. The Big Rig tied up 2-Habs forwards while partner Justin Schultz jumped on the loose puck and tried to skate it out. Unfortunately, both Schultz and Sprong were headed in the same direction and almost ran into each other. Schultz managed to get the puck to the boards where both he and Sprong sparred with the invaders from Montreal. In the melee the puck bounced to Hudson who swung behind the net faster than Murray and slipped the puck in the back door.

Opponents know the Penguins’ Defense wilts when pressured and are jumping all over them. Too bad the Penguins do not realize this. Yes, it is only game 2 and there are 80 more to go. There is a lot of time to make changes. Having said that, changes have to be made. Players who consistently make defensive guffaws need to sit, regardless of how much money they are paid. Sullivan needs to get back to the Sullivan who sat Malkin in the playoffs. The Penguins are defenseless. There is no balance on the blue line. They are all the same player.

Odds and Sods

Even though the parent Penguins appear to be very soft this year, the Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) version of the Penguins are a bird of a different feather. They won in a shoot-out in their first game of the year against the Springfield Thunderbirds. Late cut Zach Aston-Reese and Anthony Angello were to big reasons why the Baby Penguins fared better than their parents last night.

Springfield jumped on the Baby Penguins with a goal at the 36 second mark of the 1st period but Ethan Prow got the Baby Penguins their 1st goal, 1 minute and 14 seconds later. After Sam Lafferty was waved out of the face-off circle, Anthony Angello stepped in and cleanly won a speed draw stick to stick to Prow who hammered the puck home.

Aston-Reese then gave the Baby Penguins the lead on an odd man break at the 8:37 mark of the 1st period. Lafferty took a head man pass from Zach Trotman in the Neutral Zone and tapped it to Zach Aston-Reese. Aston-Reese broke in with Angello. Using Angello as a decoy, Aston-Reese toe dragged the puck around the defense and flipped the puck past the Thunderbirds goalie.

The play started a minor scrum. The Thunderbirds tried to intimidate the  but neither Aston-Reese nor Angello would have any part of it. No Penalties were called on the play.

However, a few minutes later, a full blown fight did erupt; Penguins’ Zach Trotman and Springfields’ Paul Thompson had a go round. Both players got fighting majors with Trotman got an additional 2 minute and 10 minute instigator penalty.

A few more minutes later, Baby Penguins Captain Garrett Wilson had a go with Thunderbirds Joe Lowrey (fighting majors). Then former Penguin Harry Zolnierczyk danced with Aston-Reese, Zolnierchyk got a double roughing minor and Aston-Reese just a roughing call.

Thompson tied the game up in the second and that stood for the rest of the game, setting up a shoot-out heroic for Aston-Reese who scored the only goal in the shoot-out to win it for our AHL affiliate.