Warning, I was thinking about our favorite hockey team this morning and my thoughts prompted me to put somethings down in writing. Read at your own risk.
A Quick Look at Tonight’s Game
There is some good news and some bad news about tonight’s game. First the good news, our Pittsburgh Penguins’ opponent, the Winnipeg Jets, played last night. They beat the Buffalo Sabres. And possibly even more importantly, their number 1 Goalie Connor Hellebuyck faced 41 shots. The boys from Buffalo did us a huge favor, they made the Jets’ Goalie work hard for the win.
The bad news, unless Rick Bowness, the Coach of Winnipeg, tries to play Hellebuyck tonight as well, that would seem to mean that he feels Buffalo is the tougher opponent.
Of course, should our boys of winter find a way to lose….well let’s not think about that.
Also, with Winnipeg being on the back end of a back-to-back and their 3rd game in 4 nights, how many Penguins fans will crow should we win tonight, ignoring the fatigue factor Winnipeg should be feeling. Then should we lose against the Anaheim Ducks, Monday night make all kind of excuses over our 3rd game in 4 nights?
Shout outs to Some Penguins Prospects
Down on the farm (thank you Bob Evans’ marketing team) Lukáš Švejkovský and Raivis Ansons scored their first professional Goals (G) this past Wednesday (1/11/23) as our Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) Penguins beat the Hershey Bears 4 to 3 in Overtime (OT).
Speaking of our AHL affiliate, guess which goalie has the best W-L record. With Dustin Tokarski being called up to back up Casey DeSmith and Filip Lindberg injured, last season’s undrafted Free Agent (FA) Taylor Gauthier has posted a 4 – 1 record at the AHL level.
I must confess, I do feel all three of these kids have what it takes to make it to the NHL level, so I am really excited to see them hit these milestones. However, I won’t hold my breath to see them wear a Penguins’ sweater during this current incarnation of the Penguins. Švejkovský and Ansons play a little too hard for our coaching staff. As for Gauthier, even down in WBS, there is an Archaeology mind set. Even J.D. Forrest (WBS’ GM) prefers to play fossils over prospects, as evidenced by the disproportional starts handed to Tokarski vs Lindberg even before Lindberg was injured.
Speaking of Archaeologists
Coach Mike Sullivan send Mark Freidman back down to WBS while recalling 34-year-old Taylor Fedun. His excuse, “We’re reluctant to have anyone on the sidelines for any length of time… We’re trying to get them game action. We all feel that’s an important aspect of continuing to develop and keeping everyone’s game where it needs to be so that they can help us when they go into the lineup.”
If you have been keeping up with the Baby Penguins like I have or at least been following my updates you will note that in terms of merit, Xavier Ouellet leads all Baby Penguins in Points (Pnts) with 17 and is a +9 in 29 Games Played (GP). Only Jon Lizotte has a better +/- than Ouellet. Ouellet is also a Left-Handed Defenseman (LHD) who can also play the right side. Right-Handed Defenseman (RHD) Jack St. Ivany has 4 Pts and is +1 in 24 GP. And RHD Colin Swoyer has 3 Pts and is +3 in 11 GP.
Of course, St. Ivany is only 23, Swoyer is only 24, and Ouellet, he is only 29, so we have to call up 34-year-old Fedun who only has 2 Pnts and is +3 in 30 GP. It is far more important to reward a 34-year-old having something below an unremarkable season than give a kid or even a slightly younger veteran who are all having better seasons an opportunity to be part of the big club for a game or two, even is just means practicing with big club and sitting in the press box afterwards.
Granted, WBS won’t miss Fedun at all.
Hey Coach,
Read at my own Peril..Thanks for the warning my friend.
All I can say is ” I feel your pain”.
As you have often said, correctly I might add, “It did not have to end like this !!! .”
The 4-1 loss last night was just a symptom of a much bigger problem… “Poor choices “!
I am not going to rant on as i have in the past just to say “THE BEST ORGANIZATION WON LAST
NIGHT” . We need major changes before we can rightfully call us a Cup Contender.
I noticed Crosby was not on the score sheet last night..????
Lets see how we fare against the Canes tonight. The last few matches have not gone our way
and this might be the preview of Round 1 of the play offs for us.
Reality of the situation is not good. Missing our starting Goalie. Missing half of our defense corps and we
still can not play a full 60 minute hockey game against half the teams in the league. Our age really shows.
Thanks for your thoughts above …..
Cheers
JIM
Hey Jim,
The sad truth here is that you are 100% right, the best team did win. Even if Jarry had played there is no guarantee that the result would have been any different. For a player in a contract year he has been rather invisible. Oh he occasionally looks like an NHL calibre Goalie, but on other nights he looks like a Dustin Tokarski.. And DeSmith has been even more volatile in his performance.
Perhaps the big key absence though is Petrie, if they had at least one more actual NHL Defenseman instead of Sully’s Ruth Buzzi Corps maybe someone could have protected the house a little better. It is a mystery to me how a well rested team can let an opponent come in on game 3 of 3 games in 4 nights and out shoot them 40 to 23. Our Pens just didn’t lose that game, they were dominated, dominated by a team that had to be playing on fumes.
Below, Jorenz mention rebuild, after this debacle, even if the team finds a way to sneak into the playoffs, due to divine intervention and other team’s misfortunes, it should be clear to anyone with eyes that yes there needs to be a rebuild, a rebuild done the right way, starting with the coaching staff. The only thing that happens when a Coach is too timid and tries to Coach not to lose is that he just doesn’t win. In 41 games, the team has only won 21 – that is just about half. You are not a good team when all you can do is win half your games; that is flip of a coin hockey.
HI TOR!
I read the article…at my own risk and I’m still in one piece! 😉
As I previously mentioned in one of Rick’s article, there is nothing to be thrilled about the AHL’s affiliate WBS. I’m thinking of Sam Poulin and Nate Legare. Poulin had a decent rookie season (16 + 21 = 37 pts). But this year, it was a little bit tougher for him (4 pts in 13 games). He left the team on December 7th for personal reasons. I would not be surprised if he questions his future not only with the Penguins but also in professional hockey. I saw Sam playing several times and in his junior days, he was physical, showed a lot of grit and the coaching staff in Sherbrooke gave him latitude. He played the style he was most comfortable with. But with the Penguins, I feel like his style of play is being denied. Sully wants speed and finesse. Poulin is not known for his speed but he can be useful to a team, as long as you put him in the right chair. The same can be said for Nathan Legare. He too loves the physical game but with the style of play promoted by the Penguins, he seems lost.
It’s hard to know how the coaching staff and hockey operations staff intend to develop young prospects. It’s like the plan is blurry, there is no clear direction. Since Sully prefers to use veterans, the young prospects don’t have much of a chance to show their talent. I don’t believe in a reset for this team. They’ve tried, time and time again, to hire players through the free agency market, but in the meantime, the prospect bank is not being replenished.
In my opinion, a rebuild would be the most logical step. The foundations of this team are not what they used to be. What’s the point of building a house if the foundation keeps crumbling? But the question that should be asked is, will Fenway be open and patient enough to undertake this rebuild?
In my opinion, Fenway thought they were doing a quick reset that would have put the team in the top 10 in the NHL. I think they underestimated the lack of depth on the team. Maybe Fenway is surfing on the success of the 2016-2017 years. We are actually seeing the end of a cycle.
And Sully persisting in preaching the “play the good way” mantra that is no longer in effect today. Sully is like a good old pair of slippers; they are too comfortable to try on new ones. Many challenges await this team. Tough decisions will have to be made.
Who will be the one to make them?
P.S.: sorry, I got carried away! But it feels good to write it!
Hey Jorenz,
No worries about getting carried away. This is a forum to get things off your chest. I for one love to hear exactly how people feel, not people writing what they think people want to hear.
I don’t think Poulin is the only player being miss coached in this organization and that is why I wrote that as much as I think Švejkovský, Ansons, and Gauthier have what it takes to eventually wear an NHL sweater, that I am not so sure that the sweater they wear will be a Penguin sweater. You mention Legare, he too is a player that the team is messing with. Had Poulin and Legare been drafted and developed by different Organizations we may have seen Poulin in more than 3 games and we would have seen a player like Legare and his shot as well.
The funny thing about Sully and his veteran preference is that he learned nothing from his own history, it was the kids that he brought up and to whom he actually gave prominent roles that were the final piece in the Cup puzzles back in 201526 and 2016-17. I heard an old saying that goes only an idiot learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. In that frame of reference I wonder what you call a man that unlearns from his own correct decisions?
Hey Other Rick,
Glad to read your post…always love to hear what you have to say.
Re: Sullivan and Friedman, I’ll buy the logic to an extent. But it’s funny…Sully’s comments about the scrappy defender generally follow the same pattern. He’ll say something nice about him and how much he likes him before providing some rationale for why he’s not playing. Sullivan does that more with Friedman than any other player.
“We like him…(but)…”
Anyway, great stuff. Love your subheads and nod to Bob Evans marketers … 🙂
Rick