At the end of my last article, I noted our Penguins have been playing bipolar hockey. When we play on our toes we’re a force to be reckoned with. And when we don’t…
Our inability to play a full 60 minutes of hockey was prominently on display during last night’s 4-1 loss to the Flames. Hampered by an early penalty to Chad Ruhwedel, the black and gold once again crawled out of the starting gate to the tune of a 15-1 deficit in shots on goal (20-6 by the end of the opening period). Marquee addition Nazem Kadri scored twice to stake the Flames to a 2-0 lead.
The bad guys made it 3-0 early in the second period on a power-play tally by Jonathan Huberdeau, who shot the puck through a veritable chorus line of traffic.
To the Pens’ credit, they quickly countered at 4:32, thanks in no small part to a high-sticking call assessed to Kadri. Following a big save by Casey DeSmith on a 2-on-1, Evgeni Malkin scooped up the loose puck and headmanned it to rookie Sam Poulin. Playing in his first NHL game, Poulin placed the puck on a table for Jeff Carter zooming down the slot. The big guy ripped off a hard shot that ricocheted off Jacob Markstrom’s pad and into Malkin’s wheelhouse in the right circle. Leading to a slam-dunk goal by Geno.
Down 3-1 but gathering momentum with each shift (the Pens would pile up a 21-4 edge in second-period shots on goal), it appeared we might pull off a reverse-Edmonton and rally for a point or two. However, Michael Stone beat DeSmith with a seeing-eye blast through traffic at 11:20 while Jeff Petry battled Kevin Rooney in the slot.
That was pretty much all she wrote. Despite a couple of power-play opportunities, fatigue appeared to set in during the final 20 minutes as our Pens wilted like a field of wildflowers exposed to an early frost.
Puckpourri
The Flames outshot the Pens, 36-33, and dominated the faceoff circle, winning a whopping 64 percent of the draws.
While it’s hard to fault DeSmith (32 saves) on three of the goals, it wasn’t his finest hour between the pipes.
Poulin dressed in place of Jason Zucker, injured the night before courtesy of a cross-check in Edmonton. Sam’s debut was a mixed bag. His turnover at the offensive blue line led directly to the Flames second goal and his slashing penalty in the second period set the stage for Huberdeau’s marker. But overall he was solid.
Forced to shuffle his lines, Mike Sullivan elevated Bryan Rust to top-line duty and shifted Carter to Malkin’s right flank (with Danton Heinen on left wing). Poulin slotted in as third-line center between Brock McGinn and Kasperi Kapanen.
Geno’s line was our most effective, possession-wise, with a Corsi of 60.61.
I sure hope Zucker’s injury isn’t serious (he’s listed as day-to-day). He’s been a real sparkplug thus far and perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the young season.
A move I didn’t especially care for? Subbing in Ruhwedel on the left side of defense in place of Pierre Olivier-Joseph and next to Jan Rutta. Some guys can play their off-side and some guys can’t. Count Chad among the latter group.
By contrast Mark Friedman is very effective on his off-side. If Sully isn’t going to go with one of the kids (Joseph or Ty Smith), Friedman’s far and away the better choice as the third left-side defenseman. Because of his versatility and feistiness, a better choice than Ruhwedel as our No. 7 d-man as well.
Sully’s System (?)
I’m sure Sullivan has a system. Most coaches do. Ours seems to be predicated on a strong forecheck and playing the majority of time in the other team’s zone. The “best defense is a good offense” sort of thing. Given the firepower we possess, it makes sense.
However, there doesn’t appear to be any contingency plan for when we’re not dictating play.
Along those lines, our forwards aren’t backchecking diligently enough. And our defense, likely encouraged by Sully and associate coach Todd Reirden to push the attack, are taking too many risks.
The result? We’re playing fire-wagon, kill or be killed hockey through the early going. Certainly not the type of shinny that can be sustained over an 82-game schedule, let alone lead to playoff success.
A worrisome thread that must be addressed.
Up Next
The Pens (4-2-1) have two days off, most welcome I’m sure, before resuming play. We take on the floundering Canucks Friday night in Vancouver, then travel to Seattle to square off with the Kraken on Saturday night. In the process, we’ll be visiting plenty of old friends, such as Jim Rutherford, Patrik Allvin, Jared McCann, Jamie Oleksiak, Tanner Pearson, Justin Schultz, Daniel Sprong and Brandon Tanev.
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Hey Rick, Great article my friend.
Watching these last 2 games I noticed a few glaring issues. If I may elaborate a bit.
1. Face Offs. In both games we were dominated by the opposition.Their centers are younger,faster and we simply could not contain them.Crosby,Malkin and Carter are not McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent Hopkins.
2. Turnovers and give a ways. Simply not acceptable for a Cup contender.
3. Our team looked like the oldest team in the NHL,which it is, and this will be a problem moving forward.
4.Team speed ??? Really. That is not what I saw. In the Edmonton game in the third period, the Oilers took their foot off the gas and coasted to the lop sided win. Mc David and company have nothing to fear from our Pens.
5. Lack of Size. In both games we registered lots of hits but as Coach says SIZE MATTERS. Smurf City does not count it in today's NHL.
6. Finally Goal Tending. I am concerned. In the second period the Flames had only 4 shots on net, but they scored 2 Goals. That should not happen Rick.
Finally we have to realize that there are 10 or 12 teams now in the league that have size,speed skill and depth on their roster. We are going to wake up some April and realize," wow where did all this new talent come from ". People were upset when Malkin was ranked 50th in the league this summer but when you stop and look at the entire league, there many new super stars. It is a good sign for the NHL but bad for us.
Sorry to be such a downer Rick but I am giving you my honest assessment..
Lets Go Pens.
Cheers
JIM
Hello Jim. So good to hear from you, my friend, and to read your comments.
I confess to getting stars in my eyes after the first handful of games. Aging though it may be, we still possess a lot of star power...and fire power...when we're running on all cylinders. Problem is, we only seem to be able to do that in fits and starts...perhaps one period at a time.
I guess it was unreasonable to expect us to keep up our dazzling early pace.
I have two observations/concerns...carryovers from last season. We handle the middle-of-the-road and lower echelon teams just fine. But we seem to struggle against legit Cup contenders.
Too, we still haven't learned how to play with a lead. We're almost forced to keep pouring it on, because once the pace slows or the other team takes the initiative, we don't seem to know to play shutdown hockey.
Mike Sullivan employed a trap against the Rangers last spring and it led to a victory. But that was the only instance when he used it. During the other games it was run-and-gun and try to outscore the Rangers.
Rick
Hey Rick, Great 2nd Point !!
I could agree more on your second point. We are not a defensive hockey club in the old fashioned sense and as such we do not know how to play with a 1 goal lead. We do not win to many 2-1 or 3-2 hockey games as you say.
I blame the Coach for that Rick. All great teams need to be able to play both ways.
Remember the Montreal Teams of the 60's and 70's or the New York islanders of the 80's. They both knew how to play defensive hockey when they needed to. Get the lead and then smother you. The New Jersey teams of old were another. As you correctly noted we can not because I believe we do not train that way.
Cheers
JIM
Hey Jim,
Great assessment! And you aren't being a downer, only honest, as you say.
You have warned of this day coming for quite a while, the day when our lack of farm talent would bite us in the back of our front. The biggest reason for our Cap dilemma is our lack of finding and developing young ELC talent. If we wanted to keep our core together, we needed to trade away peripheral talent when their stock was their highest at the trade dead line to keep the flow of young talent high. It isn't like we were drafting high, ewven if we had kept our Draft Picks. We were penny-wise and dollar dumb, when it comes to talent. Rather than accepting a retool season we just kept throwing away what little future we had, now we have all old men and pretty much little to no in-house young talent.
I wonder how our Pens would be looking had they held off on that Reaves trade. kept Sundqvist and their 1st round pick (either Klim like you wanted or Hague like I wanted) and then signed Mikheyev, Kaski, and Reideborn. But no, we have nothing left in the system from the Reaves trade and we signed Oula Palve and Emil Larmi who are back in Europe toiling in mediocrity.
It is early yet, the boys may still come around. (Okay the not boys but fossils). And it really has only been 7 games but when confronted by good teams we wilted.