Thank God for Tristan Jarry. Seriously.
I wish there was a way to quantify how many wins a goaltender steals for his team. If there were, Jarry would nab the Vezina Trophy, hands-down.
It’s fair to say the Penguins missed their wakeup call for yesterday afternoon’s matinee clash with Winnipeg at PPG Paints Arena, their third game in four days. (Makes you wonder what the NHL schedule-makers are smoking, doesn’t it?) While our guys basically waddled around the ice for the first 30 minutes or so like their Antarctic name sake, the Jets countered with a plethora of 2-on-1s and odd-man breaks. About a month’s worth, by my estimation. With very little help from his lagging teammates, Jarry nearly stopped em’ all.
It reminded me of the days when the Pens routinely left Marc-Andre Fleury to fend for himself, trusting that he’d make the big saves. But I digress.
Adding injury to insult, Teddy Blueger left the game bleeding midway through the first period after having his head crunched into the glass courtesy of old friend Brendan Dillon’s shoulder. Deciding once was not enough, Jets defenseman Nathan Beaulieu performed a similar demo job on Brock McGinn in the final minute of the period. Brian Boyle answered the bell and he got hurt, appearing to injure his shoulder in the scrap.
Sheesh.
Whether the Jets shifted into autopilot or the Pens finally woke up after Kyle Connor struck on the power play midway through the second period to make it 2-0 for the visitors is a matter of conjecture. But the good guys finally started to pick up the pace.
Still, Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, no slouch himself, held firm until 6:55 of the third period. That’s when Evgeni Malkin flicked off a shot from the top of the left circle that grazed the left skate of Kasperi Kapanen and slipped in, reinforcing the notion that good things happen when you shoot the puck.
Never let it be said that the Pens don’t possess quick-strike ability. Like a shark sniffing out a bleeding mackerel, we tied the game at 2-2 just nine seconds later when Hellebuyck misplayed a dump-in and bounced a perfect feed off the end boards and onto the waiting stick of Jeff Carter. Doing his best Mario Lemieux imitation, the big guy wired the puck in off Hellebuyck’s right skate from a sharp angle for his 12th goal of the season.
In what proved to be a thrilling overtime, each team had a plethora of Grade-A chances. Jarry made five saves in all, including a brilliant stop on Blake Wheeler with 31 seconds remaining. At the opposite end of the ice Hellebuyck was equally tough, making ten-bell saves on Kris Letang, Mike Matheson and Malkin.
On to the shootout. Sidney Crosby struck for the game winner in the second round, calmly outwaiting Hellebuyck before firing the rubber over the frozen netminder’s glove. Pierre-Luc Dubois missed the net on the Jets’ final attempt, drawing a standing O from the Pens’ partisans and touching off an emotional victory celebration.
Puckpourri
The Pens outshot the Jets, 38-29. The visitors won 57 percent of the faceoffs and outhit us by a whopping 47-19 margin.
Malkin has a four-game point streak. Geno’s tallied points in five of seven games since his return. With eight points in his past nine games (2 goals + 6 assists), Kapanen’s quietly picked up his pace.
Letang’s point streak was snapped at 10 games. The quicksilver defender logged a game-high 28 minutes of ice time and registered four shots on goal. Following an extended hot streak, Evan Rodrigues has fallen into a funk. He’s gone eight games without a point.
The Pens (26-10-5, 57 points) have won five games in a row. Starting with a 4-1 victory over Vancouver on December 4, we’ve gone a scorching hot 16-2. With the win, the black and gold leapfrogged past Carolina (three games in hand) and into second place in the Metro, a single point behind the front-running Rangers. Next up…Phil Kessel and the Coyotes visit the Paint Can on Tuesday night.
Bad Moon Risin’
Zach Aston-Reese sat out yesterday’s game. He’s listed as day-to-day. Goalie Louis Domingue is listed as week-to-week with a foot injury. Which means we’ll need to turn to struggling Casey DeSmith between the pipes at some point. Uh boy.
Hey all.
Seth Rorabaugh posted his first-half grades for the Pens on the Tribune Review. Interesting read.
Rick
Thanks Rick,
I already read his thoughts. Without a deeper look, I agreed with some not others. I would never have graded anyone with less than 180 minutes TOI (1 Standard Deviation from the Mean for Forwards)
Yes I was looking to do my own grades, but I don’t have the time to be objective.
I don’t like Matheson, but I won’t give him a bad grade because I don’t like him, but I also don’t want to give him a good grade just because he has been getting time and space that should soon be disappearing. Before grading him, I would want to evaluate how his sheltered 3rd pairing minutes have affected his game thru With-or-Without for both Teammates and Opponents.
Hey all,
Just when we seem to get everyone healthy…another injury. Teddy Blueger will be out six-to-eight weeks with a broken jaw, courtesy of the hit by Dillon.
This one hurts…literally. Blueger’s done a really nice job in a 3rd/4th line center role (8 goals, 17 points in 40 games). Excellent on defense and the pk, and he’s dramatically improved on faceoffs to boot (a strong 54.8 percent).
I don’t know if anything could’ve been done to prevent the hit…probably not. Stuff happens in hockey. But I do wish we had a deterrent. Someone…anyone…who could actually throw a few punches with authority and keep other teams honest. I give Boyle high marks for stepping into that role, but it really isn’t who he is as a player and he’s not an especially accomplished fighter.
I keep hoping we might add a physical, right-side defenseman, although I have no clue who that might be. And again…given Mike Sullivan’s preferences…would such a player get any ice time? Probably not.
Anyway…we’ll miss Blueger. A shred of light through the gloom…perhaps this provides an opportunity for Radim Zohorna.
Rick
Hey Rick,
The boys won another one.. That was good to see !
However there were a few alarm bells that I noticed.
At one point of the game the Jets out Hit the Pens 40 to 11 . For fun i clicked on the Jets players Bio’s when the lines changed and one thing you noticed…The JETS are a much larger team and they are as fast or faster than er are.
Key point.Size and speed. Play off hockey .
Speaking of hits….Reviewing the NHL game Log you notice that the 4 top players for the Pens in hits in the game…..This will blow your mind Rick… Malkin 3 hits, E-Rod had 3 hits, Crosby had 2 hits and Letang had 2 hits.That is 10 of the 19 hits in total !!! If this trend continues come play off time all your STAR players will be worn out. None of these 4 players are overly physical type players and 3 of them have major previous health concerns. They should not be leading the hit parade.!!
The Jets by contrast had 11 players with at least 2 hits. Of those, 1 had 9 hits, 1 had 7, 3 had 5, 1 had 4, 3 had 3 and the rest 2 hits. (.10 players on their Roster are 6’2″ to 6’6″ in height and 205 # to 230# ) .
Second point is that we gave the puck away 12 times to the Jets 4. I wonder why ????
So when I see this type of game where by 1 of our goals was a mistake by the opposition and in my books it was really at best a 3-2 win,yet we certainly had our hands full for the first 2 periods.What happened to the power play ???
These are warning bells for me Rick… I really don’t care if we finish first in our Division or not. The last few years has not worked out so well.. But we need to all realize this regular season Hockey is NOT PLAY OFF HOCKEY.
But at least we are moving up and Pen.s fans seem to be happy.
Cheers Buddy
Hello Jim,
Good to hear from you always! Yeah, we’re winning. But it’s been a while since we really put together a full 60-minute effort. Horse mentioned it in his comment but it bears repeating. I don’t know what it is about Evgeni Malkin’s presence that seems to upset the team’s structure, but we really haven’t played very good team defense since he returned to the lineup.
Even if Geno is coloring outside the lines so to speak, he’s only one guy. It’s weird. Anyway…I digress.
I hear ya about the size thing. Actually, the Pens could add some if they found spots for Zohorna and Anthony Angello, but it’s pretty obvious they take a back seat to Dominik Simon in Sullivan’s scheme. I’m not a Simon hater…what he does (drive possession) he does well. But…yeah…wish we had more functional size.
Anyway, my friend, hope all is well north of the border … 🙂
Rick
The Penguins seem to have forgotten how to play defensively. It has been that way since Malkin returned to the lineup. I am not blaming 71. I just wonder how his presence makes everyone else forget how to play. It’s hard to say anything bad about the Pens with the run that they are on. But we all know this brand of hockey will not succeed come playoff time.
I hear ya Horse.
Even if Geno’s coloring outside the lines, he’s only one guy. Well…since he’s not an island…I guess it would have a domino effect on whoever’s on the ice with him. But still, it shouldn’t blow up the whole team’s structure as you say.
Hopefully we can get back to playing with a bit more attention to detail, although losing Blueger really hurts in that regard. He’s such a solid two-way center.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Go back and take a look at Natural Stat Trick. None of the 3 lines he was on surrendered a G and all had pretty good CORSI to excellent CORSI and they did score one of the 5 on 5 Goals for the Pens. And if Malkin was such a problem, why was he a +1 and Sid a -1 in the game?
Hey Other Rick,
I’m not casting aspersions at Malkin. I’m merely echoing an observation that so many others have made and seems to have some validity. That, for some reason, the team’s structure does seem to suffer with Geno in the lineup. Again…not blaming him. But just stating that this seems to happen. Not the first time, either.
He’s a brilliant talent, and of course you’re going to live with his freelancing (and foibles)…and gladly…because there’s such a prolific upside.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Over the last 3 seasons Malkin’s Tk to Gv ratio is a +9. In fact all but 2 Penguins are on the plus side of that ledger. The only 2 Penguins that Give the puck away more than than they Take it away are Bryan Rust (-21) and Sidney Crosby (-10). This isn’t a subjective, influenced by biases observation but an objective looking at facts.
Malkin is also a +13 in Goal Differential as well. That +13 represents a 54.42%. Sidney Crosby, who everyone (and I agree he is a solid 2-way center) is not even 2 points higher at 56.21%. That isn’t much different. Again, these aren’t subjective, biased based comments but facts.
Watching Malkin in the defensive zone, you can see he really doesn’t know how to tie up an opponents stick or some of the subtleties of playing defense but he IS back there, trying to play a 200 foot game and it shows in his 5-on-5 Goal differential; it isn’t all that much different than Sid’s. Furthermore, he is not paid to play defense but to play offense.
As for his Gv, again not disparaging Sid, but he too makes too many cute little plays just inside the blue line that get picked off and go the other way but Geno is on the plus side of the Tk – Gv away equation and Sid isn’t.
Just saying Rick, there isn’t much evidence to support the Geno rap. If he was as bad as the “Malkin haters” claim, there would be evidence – but there ain’t. They just bluster very loudly to create an illusion and try and shout others down.
Sorry, I forgot to note that, as usual, the numbers I quoted are 5 on 5 numbers
Hey Rick,
If your Jarry praise is over the top gushing about how well Jarry played yesterday, amen. How many odd man breaks did the Pens yield? Without Jarry, the Pens lose to a Winnipeg team that is 150 points lower than them in Pnts% and who played Boston at 3pm on Sat and was asked to play again Sun at 1pm, significantly shorter than 24 hrs rest. The Boston game ran 2 hrs and 22 min; that means they had to play on 19 2/3 hrs rest. (And don’t try and defend that pathetic excuse of an effort by saying they played 3 games in 4 days, the Jets were playing on 19 2/3 hours rest – the Jets had it far worse)
This certainly wasn’t a game to brag about. It wasn’t so much as Tortoise and Hare as it was pure exhaustion from a ridiculous scheduling guffaw. Yet the Jets out hit our Smurfs 47 – 19; PATHETIC!
Boyle crushes a Senator and the Senators immediately step up and show Boyle you don’t hit our boys, Blueger gets destroyed and what… (birds chirping)… nothing! Oh, Boyle does have a dance with Beaulieu after another Penguin gets injured from a hit – and Boyle proceeds to get injured in himself. (head shaking)
It also didn’t hurt the Pens that the Jets were only given 1 PP while our boys in B&G failed on 4 PP of their own including 1 that should have been a diving call on Crosby rather than a holding call on Dupois.
No, this was just another in a laundry list of games where we don’t brag but steal quietly away, counting our blessings.
Hey Coach,,
See my comment above regarding hits. When your 3 highest paid,oldest, and arguably best star players of your team are leading your team in hits against a much larger, much tougher team like the Jets…Something is not quite right here.
Give it a month Coach and at least one of them will be on the disabled list. Come play off time maybe more…
Not a good plan long term..
Your thoughts ?
Jim
Amen Jim,
We are closing in on the stretch run and games will all be like the Winnipeg game. Time and space will come at a premium and hits will fall like rain during a monsoon season. When that happens, you are right, the Pens training room will look like the 4077th’s O.R. And everyone will be crying, its not our fault, all these guys are injured; its not Sullivan’s fault. WELL, who do you think put the Smurfs on Ice Ice-Capades together?
This is why I would rather see this team drop from the playoff picture and get several 1st round picks this year to start rebuilding young top end talent – or at least try. The sad part of this is they do have a good chance of getting into the Playoffs. In that scenario they will win the battle and lose the war; the battle getting into the playoffs, the war being getting dusted in the 1st round, AGAIN, a poor draft position, AGAIN, and having this same conversation, the same conversation we had last summer, the summer before that, and the summer before that, AGAIN!!!