The Penguins: A Return To October Hockey

I thought I stepped into my DeLorean and went back to October hockey last night.

Pride goeth before a fall and insisting on playing Matt Hunwick and Conor Sheary is at the very least prideful.

Winning back-to-back Stanley Cups not only takes a tremendous toll on the bodies and psyches of the players that have to endure the marathon of two regular seasons and the war that is the post-seasons, but sometimes it causes Coaches and GMs to start thinking that they can’t make mistakes. Welled with their pride they can make serious mistakes, thinking that they are infallible.

Trading Ian Cole and to a lesser extent Ryan Reaves could very well be a case of this.
I am not complaining about the addition of Derick Brassard, he actually does look good on the ice and in a Penguins uniform. He may need to suffer through some adjustments to his new team but I haven’t seen him make a bad play or really get man-handled and have the puck taken off of him, like a bully takes candy from a baby (Conor Sheary). I do love the depth the Penguins have at Center; Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Brassard, and Riley Sheahan. I can’t help but wonder what that 3rd line would look like if they now would slot in an NHL caliber Left Wing.

I am complaining about the cost of trading Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves to acquire Brassard. I seriously doubt that the current bottom falling out of the Penguins’ “D” is just coincidence. During the game last night, one of our readers posted a similar thought as the Bruins totaled up their score, noting the losses and last night’s deluge of goals against. But let’s recap more fully what has happened these last 3 games (1 game with Cole a healthy scratch in anticipation of the trade and 2 after the trade).
Over the last three games the Penguins have given up 17 goals or 5.67 goals per game. It is not surprising that the team has given up so many goals when you consider the Coleless Penalty Kill (PK) is an abysmal 4 of 9. I still remember Cole almost singlehandedly killing off a penalty last spring, playing nearly the whole 2 minutes himself. I also remember a PK this year that almost equaled that iron man performance.
It is also less than surprising to see a return to embarrassment that was October when you look at the Shots Against (SA). In the 3 games since the Penguins have chosen to play without Cole they have given up 106 shots or 35.33 per game. Even with Matt Murray in net to handle that barrage and Malkin, Crosby, and Phil Kessel to counter attack, it will be a hard sell come playoff time.

Actually, come to think of it, if this trend isn’t reversed, there still is time for the Penguins to fall out of the playoffs.

I don’t really want to lay all of the blame on Jim Rutherford. There has been a cloud hanging over  Cole all season. He has been targeted as a healthy scratch on several occasions. The rumors were rampant that Mike Sullivan didn’t really play well with the most competent defenseman on the team. Sullivan often opted to play the team’s most incompetent defenseman (Matt Hunwick) over Cole. Rutherford may have only been trying to salvage something out of a situation where certain individuals put ego over the good of the team.

The past is the past, no matter how much we fans bemoan the senseless banishment of Cole and as I said to a lesser extent Reaves, it can’t be reversed. The only thing that can be done now is to fix the current ridiculous excuse for team D. Unfortunately Sullivan now has precious few options. However, the first thing he needs to do is sit Hunwick. He is not able to get the job done. Any subjective discussion that he looked good several years ago or that he skates well, or any other non-quantifiable opinion doesn’t matter. The Win – Loss column tells the tale. If he was a viable defenseman, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
The Penguins must now pin their hopes on either calling for help from Wilkes-Barre Scranton (Andrey Pedan or Jared Tinordi?) or hope that the “Big Rig” Jamie Oleksiak can slide back to Left Defense and Chad Ruhwedel can shake the rust off and step in to help the team limp to the finish line.

Let’s face it, although the scores may get worse, the results are the same a loss is a loss and what they are doing now isn’t winning. Changes on “D” have to be made.

As for replacing Ryan Reaves, well, you can’t replace him. I know some of you may want to bring up the fact that I was against trading for him to begin with and have recently said I still think it was a bad trade. I reconcile these statements first by saying Reaves is the best at what he does but second that you don’t necessarily need the best pugilist. Boston didn’t need him last night, nor did New Jersey, or Florida before them.
What the Penguins really need is team toughness. They need to sit little gnats like Conor Sheary who, although having good offensive instincts gets tossed around like a rag doll by even average sized players and has the puck taken away from him (saw it again several times last night). I have read some people complain about players like Domink Simon and Daniel Sprong, saying that they need to develop a 200’ game, but quite frankly, I never see Sheary in the “D” zone. In the mean time I have witnessed and commented on both Simon and Sprong’s play in their own zone. If Simon and Sprong are 1 dimensional, than Sheary is in the decimal places in his dimensions. It is well past the time to bring one of them back up, at least until Zach Aston-Reese can return to the line up.

Between Sheary’s $3 mil and Hunwik’s $2 mil, that is money poorly spent, and right now I am wishing Rutherford would have talked Vegas into taking Sheary.  I would have gladly given up that draft pick to cut my losses there. Actually, I advocated letting him go RFA.

When you combine Sheary’s and Hunwick’s salaries the team could possibly still have Marc-Andre Fleury. The only way this team may be able to survive the pathetic excuse of a “D” that it currently has is by having both Murray and Fleury to back stop them, so that when they wear out one of them, the other could step up. No disrespect intended toward Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith, no rookie goalie should be faulted when veteran defense looks this bad.