Penguins Stormy Night in Carolina

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.”

Sorry, but after watching the latest meltdown in a season long series of implosions I just couldn’t get this old TV Sit-Com out of my mind. Perhaps, the fact that our favorite flightless fowl (or is it becoming flightless foul) were playing a team named after a storm that starts out on the sea that my mind wandered off course to that classic ditty. I guess the whys do not really matter, only the fact that my thoughts drifted away as befuddled as the characters of the Minnow and our local lost boys.

“The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure”

The Penguins‘ “skipper”, captain Sidney Crosby certainly has been brave and sure. He has tried very hard to guide this foundering ship through the stormy 2018-2019 season. He started the season off with 6 goals on 30 shots with 8 assists and was +9 in the 10 games of October and has been rock steady all season. He picked up another assist on 2 shots and was a +1 last night, bringing him up to 33 goals on 201 shots with 60 assists and a +19.

Crosby‘s assist last night came on a typical Crosbyesque hard play. Chasing down a dump in, Crosby got to the puck first, spun away from a Hurricane check to find Jake Guentzel between the circles just seconds after the Canes grabbed a 1 – 0 lead to pull the teams even.

The “mate”, assistant captain Kris Letang is not a perfect fit for Gilligan, but he is pretty close. Like Gilligan, he is well meaning and tries really hard but more often than not he makes the game harder than it has to be for all those around him. His defensive lapses and temperament have lead to a landslide of giveaways, breakaways and other grade A scoring chances for opposing skaters.

Unlike Gilligan, Letang does have some high end skill. He is an offensive talent and would be the prototype for the old Rover position in hockey had that position not faded into Hockey lore back in the 1920s.

Last night both sides of the Jekyll/Hyde skill set/lack there of were on full display last night. Late in the 3rd period (15:23) in pretty tic-tac-toe passing play, Guentael fed Bryan Rust alone 2 on 0 in the Carolina slot. In the maddening typical Penguin style, Rust deferred, he passed up a high percentage shot to pass back across to Letang at the bottom of the Right Wing (RW) circle for a good but lesser percentage shot. Fortunately, the opportunity was still a good one and Letang is highly skilled that close, he lifted the puck up over Canes Goalie Petr Mrazek’s shoulder.

Unfortunately, Letang played his Gilligan card at 2:56 of the overtime (OT) period. Not only did he take a slashing penalty, he compounded it with a misconduct penalty as well. Letang‘s slashing penalty effectively ended any chance of the Penguins winning the game in OT, burdening his teammates with having to kill off a second penalty in the extra frame. The misconduct penalty kept Letang from being able to participate in the Shoot Out (SO).

“Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.”

So, who are the 5 passengers?

Wow, there are many candidates to fill those roles; some have already left (Derick Bressard and Riley Sheahan come to mind), but since they are gone let’s let them rest in peace, and some are still here.

It grieves me to start with Matt Cullen, but I must. Cullen is the Mr Howe of this team he was once rich in talent but now, not so much.

I really wanted Cullen on this team last year for his last hurrah but now, not so much. The “Wheel in the Sky has kept Turning” and left him behind. With all due respect to what Cullen has accomplished over his illustrious career, this year is a significant low light. To date, the venerable Penguins’ Center has only managed 5 goals and 12 assists in 63 games a major factor in the lack of secondary scoring plaguing the Penguins. Last night he was a -2.

At the beginning of the season I mentioned that if Cullen played more than 40 games and averaged over 10 minutes of ice time it would mean that this team was hurting. He has played an average of 11:31 in 63 games and the team is clinging to its playoff hopes by a thread. Only through the courtesy of the Islanders and Blue Jackets losing yesterday is there still a pulse, not weak but certainly not strong and irregular.

Dominik Simon he is Ginger. He is flashy but useless. He has been another empty sweater on this team. He only has 8 goals and 18 assists in 63 games. That which may be worse is the fact that Simon has, on more than one occasion, found himself on the ice with talents like Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and still only has 8 goals to show for his 13:13 of ice time per game. In conversations I have had with Rick Buker, although at a loss for why Simon is so far less than effective, he keeps assuring me that he has heard that Simon totally wows coaches and team mates alike in practice. I am sorry Rick, but this all sounds like in baseball when all the scouts keep assuring the manager that a kid has a great swing but the kid still hits below the “Mendoza Line”. Practices do not count in the standings. When a player has only 8 goals to his name after having played top 9 all season it is time to move on.

Finally I offer up Mike Sullivan as the Professor. Just like the Professor in the show he always says the right things to the camera. He has many people convinced that he is knowledgeable (at least here in Pittsburgh) but he can’t fix the boat. He can’t fix the boat because he really is a fraud. Professor Sullivan’s only solution to the Penguins’ problems is to shuffle the lines and hope that the players will work something out themselves. That may have been the norm at one time in Hockey but it hardly constitutes coaching. It is more like a glorified baby sitter.

“The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost.”

If it wasn’t for Crosby and his fearless crew of Malkin, Phil Kessel, Guentzel and Matt Murray, the Penguins would be lost and Sullivan would be in the unemployment line.

Malkin is on the shelf again and may be there for the rest of the season. That is seriously bad news for the team. Our sphenisciform seabirds didn’t fair well at all last time he was out. They were 1-3-1 at the beginning of February when the big Center was out.

Kessel didn’t do much last night but he has still been a regular contributor to this team with 24 goals and 49 assists for 0.99 points per game (Pnts/G). However, I must note that Phil the Thrill had 14 of those 26 goals and 22 of those assists in the 34 games before Dupuis Gate.

Guentzel on the other hand was flying again last night, reaching the 70 point mark with a goal and an assist. Kudos to the Penguins young gun! Unfortunately, like Crosby and Kessel he failed to score in the SO, so the team only managed 1 point for their nights labor.

Finally, the unsung, Murray despite a very shaky start to the season has been a fort from which the Penguins have hid since December 1st. Only, Dallas’ Ben Bishop has had a significantly better Save Percentage (Sv%) among starting goalies than Murray (0.938 to 0.929). A couple of goalies are a point or two higher but only Bishop has any real distance.

Last night was no different than the rest of the season. Back on December 22, Murray weathered a 39 shot storm from these same Hurricanes to post a shutout. Last night, Carolina subjected him to another 39 shot deluge. Murray earned 2nd star honors but ,unfortunately, when you play with fire, you will eventually get burned. This time the Canes managed to get 2 of the 39 shots behind him.

Adding players like Jared McCann and Nick Bjugstad give the Penguins a fair probability of still making the playoffs but my greatest fear is that our Penguins are pretenders not contenders. I fear that even if they do get in to the playoffs, it will be a 1 and done playoff year.

It certainly is an uphill climb. I just hope Penguins aren’t stranded castaways.