Katy, bar the door. Lock up the good silverware, too. I have a feeling we Penguins fans are in for a wild ride this season. A fun one, too.
My gut tells me Thursday night’s season-opening 7-6 overtime barn-burner of a win over Washington before a packed house at PPG Paints Arena perfectly set the tone for the upcoming campaign. Or imperfectly, depending on your perspective.
To sum up…lots and lots (and lots) of offense fireworks. And defensive gems? Cue the crickets…
A couple of weeks ago I opined that the Penguins’ defense was good enough. Ahem. Despite last night’s glut of goals against, I’ll stick with my original assessment. (Never said I was smart.)
Team defense? That’s a whole other matter.
Indeed, the team’s structure (or appalling lack of) had all the makings of a kindergarten fire-drill gone awry. The locals gave a virtual clinic on coughing up the puck (a whopping 16 giveaways).
Wanna’ talk east-west passes? Drop passes to no one in particular high in the offensive zone? Blind passes off the boards? Check, check and check.
Paragons of prudent puck management they weren’t.
Nor was Matt Murray a pillar of strength between the pipes. After the Pens snatched a 1-0 lead on a blast by Jamie Oleksiak, the Capitals countered for a pair of quick-strike tallies that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
For a while, it appeared the defending Cup champs would score on every shot attempt before Murray mercifully stiffened through the middle portion of the contest. Only to leak for two bang-bang goals by nemesis T.J. Oshie a mere 21 seconds apart at a critical juncture late in the game.
Let’s just say the kid didn’t exactly flash his Cup-winning form and leave it at that.
As the Pens are currently constructed, look for more of the same. With GM Jim Rutherford obviously placing a premium on skill and speed, there’s precious little size and muscle on the wing to do the necessary dirty work in the corners and along the boards, particularly in the defensive zone.
This group reminds me a lot of another post-Cup team from an earlier era. Despite Mario Lemieux’s absence due to anemia, the 1994-95 squad was loaded with top-drawer offensive talent. Scoring champ Jaromir Jagr and Hall-of-Fame sidekicks Ron Francis, Joey Mullen and Luc Robitaille, not to mention former 100-point men John Cullen and Kevin Stevens and abrasive Tomas Sandstrom produced a veritable blizzard of goals.
However, despite the presence of blue-line stalwarts Larry Murphy and the Samuelssons, Ulf and Kjell, and Selke winners Francis and Troy Murray up front, the team couldn’t play ‘d.’ In fact, watching those guys try to defend was a lot like watching water pour through a sieve. A fatal flaw that caught up with them in the postseason.
While it’s early, our present Pens appear to fit the same mold. Thanks to big guns like Evgeni Malkin (three points), Jake Guentzel (two goals) and Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel (two assists apiece), the Pens outlasted the rubbery-legged Caps. They needed a boost from Kris Letang, who notched a pair of goals and a helper, including the overtime-winner.
Offense we got. But I’d give my kingdom for a gritty grinder or two who combine own-zone sensibilities with a modicum of talent. I’m told they exist…somewhere.
It’s not like the Pens’ coaches are a bunch of schlubs when it comes to teaching the finer points of defensive hockey. Head man Mike Sullivan was a crackerjack checker and penalty killer during his NHL career. Sergei Gonchar…an all-world defenseman. Venerable Jacques Martin is as crafty a defensive whiz as there is. But you gotta have the horses.
At least for now, the Pens are a few cart horses short of a full stable.
Expect a lot of track meets.
Hey Rick,
Excellent, well written, thought out article!
I am an unabashed Murray fan, but you are right, Murray was certainly not a wall in the opener, or even a shooter-tutor. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a sieve though. Despite Letang’s faux pas bank pass into Orpik’s wheelhouse, that was a very stoppable shot. So was Carson’s blast over his shoulder.
I do give Murray passes on the opening goal for now, at least until he learns the boards – the rebound off of the boards popped back in front really quickly. Furthermore the initial shot should never have been ceded, not from between the circles. Ovie should never have been alone in front of Murray for his tap in. Malkin’s give away to Oshie in the slot may have been stoppable too but Sprong gets demoted to 4th line when he makes bad decisions like that. And as I mentioned elsewhere, Oshie’s 2nd goal was entirely poor D. Had Dumoulin and Letang communicated better they actually may have had a clean break out, but certainly one of them should have tied up Oshie’s stick to prevent him from redirected that shot. In the end better goaltending may have prevented 2 – 3 goals, but better D would have certainly prevented all 6 of the initial shots. To steal a phrase from Mike Lange, MAF has to be smiling like a butchers dog, now that he plays behind a much, much better D.
I do want to throw this out to you as well. Would the team be better off with a couple of bigger, heavier wingers, or a couple of more defensively responsible D men.
Don’t get me wrong, on the surface, I like all of the Penguins D-men. I actually even like Letang. If you look back to MJ era, when Letang was pretty much the only threat from the blue line, I was a Letang backer, if for nothing else than his ability to score during the shoot out (as anemic as the entire O was winning in SOs was essential).
Despite liking each defenseman individually, I do not like the make-up of the D-Corps as a whole. If I were coach, Letang wouldn’t be the only D-man to go. Some teams and units work synergistically together so that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. This D has good players that always seem to working against each other, not complimenting each other.
Hopefully, since Sullivan never seems to listen to me, this D does start to mesh with one another. I doubt Penguins management will make any real changes in personnel.
Thanks, Other Rick, for your kind words. I try … 🙂
Aside from Letang’s decision-making and Olli Maatta’s heavy feet, which he does a decent job of mitigating, I don’t have a lot of issues with our blue-liners.
Again, my issue is more with the way the team’s constructed and the approach (or lack of) to team defense. I know it’s only one game. But we appear to have embraced an “all offense, all the time” mentality.
Maybe it’s just me, but our guys looked like they had no idea where they were supposed to be in the defensive zone. It’s as if they’d never backchecked before in their life. Total chaos at times.
As you so aptly noted, the extra-lively boards certainly contributed to the fire-drill feel. And the Caps didn’t win a Cup by accident….they have incredible quick-strike capability and can make anyone look foolish…especially if you hand them the puck.
Again, I contend that our mix up front…with offensive-oriented kids like Dominik Simon and Daniel Sprong occupying what are traditionally more defensive slots has contributed to the sense of imbalance.
I’m not suggesting we fill those slots with sluggo types or pure defensive players who can’t score. Lord knows, we got enough of that last season with Tom Kuhnhackl and Carter Rowney. However, I think we miss guys like Chris Kunitz and Scott Wilson…players who had some sand and could check, but also score on occasion.
Kind of the Phil Bourque, Bob Errey, Troy Loney types of yore. Guys you win Cups with.
Rick
Hey Rick,
I would love to get a Bourque or Errey, or Loney on this team, but I don’t think that the forwards will be the limiting factor on this team. Even if the team had a couple of modern versions of those guys, I really do not think these D men work well together. Isolate them and I can give you many arguments for each and every one of them, but put them on the ice together and they lose something. It really is still too early to really tell. Somehow, we may find a couple of workable combinations but so far one seems to be pushing while his partner is pulling and they get nowhere fast.
Why I am very concerned about this is that the same was true last year for the most part and Johnson is the only appreciable change. The only combinations that worked together last year was Cole-Schultz and Oleksiak-Schultz.
Nobody has been able to baby sit Letang, defensively, since Paul Martin.
The team didn’t bring in a RD to pair with Dumoulin to see if he can finally blossom.
My gut tells me that the best way to get over the defensive circus is to get another Ian Cole type back for D. I won’t argue that another lunch pail fwd may be needed come playoff time to fight through the obstruction penalties in the offensive zone, but outside of Malkin’s give away, the other 6 goals were exclusively defensemen/goalie miscues.
Goal 1 – no D should permitted a shot from between the circles
Goal 2 – Maybe the boards played a part in how hard Letang’s clear bounced into the middle of the ice but why does it always seem to happen to him. (This shot was very stoppable even though Letang gave the puck away)
Goal 3 – Letang plays shooter rather than pass.
Goal 4 – D picks the wrong time to Pinch, when no one was in a position to cycle back and although Carlson is good he is no Suter or Iafrate, his shot was stoppable.
Goal 5 – The only goal I put on the Fwds, Malkin
Goal 6 – Letang and Dumoulin both go behind the net and neither get to Oshie to take his stick away.
Sorry, that is how I see it.
Hey Other Rick,
You obviously put on your coach’s hat and broke down some video…excellent job. And based on last night’s hideous 5-1 home-ice loss to the Canadiens, I may have to swallow my pride…along with my sunny assessment of our ‘d.’
Newcomer Jack Johnson looked bad on the first two Montreal goals…especially the second one. Caught exiting the zone, he showed little interest (and made precious little effort) in getting back into the play. Veteran or not, if JJ can’t put out more than that, Sully needs to sit his 227-pound fanny in favor of Riikola.
Fortunately, we’ve got 80 more games to work out the kinks.
I still feel our blend of forwards is off, and that we need a couple of Kunitz-Wilson types on the wing. Rust aside, we don’t have any spark plugs or energy guys up front.
Rick