How quickly things can change. Only a few days before our Penguins were riding high on the crest of a six-game winning streak…and climbing the MassMutual East ladder.
Now, crippled by a sudden rash of injuries to key personnel, we’ve lost two in a row and are sliding back into the pack. Watching our game but undermanned boys struggle to keep pace during a 3-2 loss to the Devils last night only confirmed my worst fears.
Might be a while before we win another game.
It certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort. We fired a season-high 42 shots at Devils goalie Scott Wedgewood (great name for a hybrid golf club), a late substitution between the pipes.
After yielding the first three goals of the game, two on long-range shots through traffic, we battled back. While working on a power play, Jake Guentzel tipped home a Kris Letang blast from center point in the waning seconds of the second period, capping an active 20 minutes (22 shots on goal) for the black and gold. Bryan Rust followed suit, scoring a pretty goal off a faceoff…alas only five seconds before the final horn.
An ‘A’ for effort. But in the end, we just couldn’t get ‘er done.
I confess I had flashbacks to our pre-Sid Pens of the early 2000s. I remember tuning in and quickly being bored to tears watching the likes of Matt Bradley, Shean Donovan and Mike Eastwood mangle the puck. This game had a similar vibe, only the names have changed…Mark Jankowski, Colton Sceviour and Frederick Gaudreau, who actually didn’t look out of place in his black-and-gold debut.
Perfectly understandable for our guys to struggle. After all, four of our top nine forwards are on the shelf. No team can lose that much top-end talent and expect to remain as potent. Still, the game wasn’t exactly a delight to the eyes.
An observation. For all of our shot activity, precious few came from the prime scoring areas. Fewer still were of the high-danger variety.
Now more than ever, we need to eschew pretty and jam the front of the net. We need the puck to bounce in off an Anthony Angello or a Zach Aston-Reese or a Sam Lafferty. We need ugly.
Hopefully, we’ll see a little more of that in our return match with the Devils on Saturday.
Puckpourri
The Pens outshot their hosts, 42-35, and won 53 percent of the faceoffs. We outhit the Devils, 27-19, including a team-high five by sparkplug Brandon Tanev. Wish we had more guys like him. He’s a special player.
Letang collected assists on both goals. He topped us in ice time (24:25), followed closely by Guentzel (23:27).
Evan Rodrigues centered the second line between Tanev and Kasperi Kapanen. Both wingers collected an assist. The reconstructed third line featured Aston-Reese, Jankowski and Lafferty. Gaudreau anchored the fourth line between Angello and Sceviour.
John Marino (minus-one) returned to the lineup following a four-game absence. Tristan Jarry made 32 saves for a .914 save percentage, but wasn’t airtight.
Evgeni Malkin was placed on IR, retroactive to Tuesday’s game. He’s expected to miss at least three games. Jared McCann and Mark Friedman appear to be close to returning.
The Pens presently hold a one-point edge (37-36) over Boston in the battle for third place in the MassMutual East. However, the Bruins have a better points percentage.
Twenty-four hours after absorbing a 9-0 shellacking by the Rangers, the fifth-place Flyers bounced back to beat the Islanders, 4-3. Philly has 33 points with two games in hand.
Hi Rick,
Their record against New Jersey for the past four years, including the two games this year, is 5-8, though they always struggle against them. (Or maybe it’s just no name goalies trying to make their bones in the bigs.) It’s a puzzle. In any case, it’s imperative they get the best of New Jersey and Buffalo because none of the other teams in the division are going away. Every point this year is critical.
With the current rash of injuries — now Tanev may be out, too — I think it’s time for someone in management to take a wild guess as to why this team is always, and I mean always, hobbled by injuries. Every year seems to be the same story. Yes, hockey is a rough sport, but come on, if it was just that at some point you’d think they’d catch a break.
Could it be conditioning? Coaching? Bad luck? Or maybe that opposing teams take liberties because they know there will be little to no consequences? Little to no push back? It’s as plausible a reason as any other, and likely more true than not. You know the Caps know it. So do the Bruins, the Isles and the Flyers, and they all exploit it. And, if my memory isn’t failing me, when Reaves was here Malkin and Crosby were pretty much unmolested. There was a potential price to pay. There has to be a cost.
I don’t know if Tanev’s hit on Tinordi was retaliatory, but I hope it was because it’s about time. I expect(ed) more of that from guys like Lafferty, Angelo, and O’Conner when he was up, too. They should be throwing it around a bit more — passing out checks like it was payday, to borrow from Mike Lange.
They need a little nasty. The remaining games aren’t going to get easier.
— 55
Hey 55,
Just throwing this out there, but back in 2017-2018 when Ryan Reaves, and Jamie Oleksiak were part of the team Phil Kessel, Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel, and Olli Maatta all played 82 Games, Carl Hagelin 81, Brian Dumoulin, 80, Kris Letang and Conor Sheary 79, and Evgeni Malkin 78. That team also had other grit guys like Ian Cole, Patrick Hornqvist and Tom Kuhnhackl. Nine players either played the full season or within 4 GP of a full season. You think grit has anything to do with it?
Amen!
Hey all,
Just saw that they’re now calling Malkin’s injury status week-to-week. Mike Sullivan indicated there was a strong possibility that Geno could return “before the end of the regular season.”
Uh oh.
Kind of reminds me of 2010-11 when we lost both Sid and Geno. We actually hung in there (106 points). However, that team was a lot deeper than this one.
It almost forces us to look for outside help (as much as I hate to write it, Eric Staal?) and/or perhaps change the way we play. Maybe switching to a trapping style such as the left wing lock would help us defend more tightly while creating more odd-man breaks going the other way.
Really a shame…we were playing so well.
Rick
No, No, No, No, No!!!!!!
Sorry Rick, but the last thing this team needs to do is trade, particularly Eric Staal!
Our Penguins have very, very little in assets to trade and Staal will never be worth the price they would have to pay. A trade for Staal will be worse than the trade for Bressard!!!
Without Geno, offensively, at worst the team will be no worse off than the Bruins.
The Sabres and the Devils trip all over themselves.
The Rangers and the Flyers are up and coming teams and may get a swagger before the season ends but they aren’t there yet.
The Caps have a serious problem in Goal.
The Isles have lost Lee for the Season but Trotz has them playing as a team.
In the end only the Isles and Caps figure to really be strong enough to have inside tracks to the playoffs. All the Pens have to do is get there foot in the door. All you have to be is the 4th team. Stupid, throw away the future trades are not necessary.
The problem is as it has always been, the Coach. Had Sullivan not wasted 17 games trying to force the square peg Zucker into the round hole Malkin’s line, the number of Wins may not be all that different, but the number of Regulation Wins surely would have been. Denying several opponents of the point the Pens ceded them would have had major impact on the standings, so that even without an additional win the team would in much better shape in the standings.
Add to that the continual playing of failures like Jankowski, Sceviour, and now Gaudreau has gone a long, long way to solidify the uselessness of the Penguins 4th line. None of those players are kids. Gaudreau, at 27, has still only played 85 NHL games at this point of this writing and has only produced 3 Goals. Even a team with a farm system as weak as the Pens is has to have a player with better up side. Jankowski and Sceviour may have a little better track record over all but they both have shown downward trajectories and their play this season would not seem to indicate any change. It is way past time to sit these guys and try some kids. At worst, they will bring as little as these 3 bring to the table, but since most of them are unknowns, there is a chance that they will represent better.
Another very serious issue that needs to be kept in mind is that this off-season will be an expansion draft. The Penguins will be losing a middling player already. Trading away assets that could fill the hole the draft will leave in order to get a player that really doesn’t appreciably increase the teams chances of winning the Cup is absolutely insane. Unless the team can find a way to get a player like Eichel (I use his name even though logic would say Buffalo would not trade, the trade mongers still offer his name up).
No logical names out there represent a serious improvement in this teams odds of winning the Cup.
Hey Other Rick,
I’m certainly not embracing Eric Staal, Lord knows. But if Malkin’s going to be out for an extended period and we still have designs on salvaging the season, we’re going to have to turn up somebody…internally or externally…who’s got at least some degree of offensive chops. Someone who, hopefully, could bump Jankowski to the press box (or taxi squad or waiver wire) when Geno and Blueger return.
Would still love to get Sam Bennett. But with the two-week COVID quarantine between Canada and the US in affect, he wouldn’t provide immediate help even if we acquired him.
As I mentioned, the other option is to alter the way we play and take a more defensive posture in an effort to grind out some 2-1 and 3-2 wins…
Rick
Hey Rick,
What I am saying is this; when the season started I was really worried about the Pens chance of making the playoffs. Sullivan makes very poor personnel decisions, is not a very good teacher (in the mold of a football coach like Buddy Parker or George Allen), and may know the game but is plodding when it comes to change.
However, as the season has started to unfold, Buffalo has shown to be as bumbling as ever, New Jersey looks like they took a step backwards (haven’t seen enough of them yet to say why), the Flyers and Rangers certainly have improved with the Flyers better than the Rangers but still needing a little more time to gel (Maybe next season for their young core to really show thru), and Boston has no offense outside of their top line.
I no longer am as worried about the Penguins missing the playoffs, as I was at the beginning of the season – even without Malkin for a protracted time frame. Not that I have any real confidence in the team per se (because of the coach and the above limitations I have noted) but because the MassMutual is not the strongest of divisions.
And as I mentioned at the onset of this thread, all it takes is to get your foot in the door – that may not be a fait accompli just yet, but even as it stands now, it is not a stretch of the imagination.
Sam Bennett may or may not really improve the Pens odds to win the Cup, but Eric Staal will not. Nor will any of the usual suspects that are being thrown out as trade candidates for Pittsburgh.
To reiterate, Gaudreau, Jankowski, and Sceviour are lame, even for the 4th line. Jankowski and Sceviour should have been waived back in January. Together they may find a way to help WBS but they are not NHL players; Gaudreau never was, Jankowski and Sceviour are not any longer. There are several other players in WBS that should have been given the opportunity to play over all of them and Legare should never have been sent back to the Jrs and Poulin should have been allowed to stick around a minute on the Taxi Squad while the Jrs were shut down.