Penguins Make Their First Cuts: More S.O.P.

I could have called it. Our Pittsburgh Penguins made their first cuts. If you had paid even the most fleeting attention to our Coach and his staff, you could have easily made book on Mike Sullivan’s moves.

Six prospects were banished to the Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) Penguins, three were sent back to their Juniors’ teams, one was released from his Professional Tryout Contract (PTO) and one was moved to the injured list.

Forwards Matt Filipe, Dillon Hamaliuk, Sam Houde, Jagger Joshua, and Evan Vierling were sent to WBS, along with Goaltender Taylor Gauthier.

Defenseman Andre Anania, Forward Matthew Soto, and Goaltender Michael Simpson were sent down to the Junior teams, the Sudbury Wolves, Kingston Frontenacs, and Peterborough Petes, of the OHL, respectively.

Forward Peter Abbandonato was released from his PTO.

And Defenseman Mark Pysyk was placed on the injured list with no details given as to the nature of the injure.

Some of these cuts were warranted, Anania Filipe, Houde, Soto, Simpson, and Vierling did nothing to distinguish themselves either in the Prospect Challenge or most particularly in their Preseason Games. Our Penguins were taken to a Shoot Out in Game 1 and they lost in Game 2, with most of our favorite flightless fowl underwater, many nearing the Marianna’s Trench, they were so deep, when it came to Corsi, Fenwick, and Shot Differential.

However, many of the players still on the training camp roster were deeper than those banished. As I wrote in my last post, there are no roster spot battles, the coaching staff has pre decided everything. The pabulum being lapped up by all of the sycophant “journalists” and other alleged independent, non-biased media outlets is nothing more than lip-service to obfuscate the reality of S.O.P.

Player	Po	GP	TOI	CF	CA	CF%	FF	FA	FF%	SF	SA	SF%	GF	GA	GF%	xGF	xGA	xGF%
Matt Nieto	L	1	13.18	7	23	23.33	4	16	20	4	12	25	0	0	–	0.27	1.46	15.48
Matt Filipe	L	1	12.65	6	18	25	3	12	20	2	7	22.22	0	0	–	0.03	1.26	2.27
Austin Wagner	L	1	9.58	6	17	26.09	6	11	35.29	5	8	38.46	1	1	50	0.51	0.39	56.82
Joona Koppanen	L	1	12.05	7	19	26.92	6	13	31.58	5	11	31.25	1	1	50	0.51	0.58	46.64
Xavier Ouellet	D	1	13.52	8	20	28.57	6	12	33.33	6	10	37.5	1	1	50	0.39	0.48	44.68
Andreas Johnsson	L	1	12.50	7	17	29.17	4	13	23.53	4	10	28.57	0	1	0	0.27	0.73	26.74
Evan Vierling	C	1	10.85	5	12	29.41	2	8	20	1	4	20	0	0	–	0.01	0.41	3.49
Samuel Houde	C	1	10.97	5	11	31.25	4	8	33.33	3	6	33.33	0	0	–	0.07	0.39	14.76
Peter Abbandonato	C	1	11.62	6	13	31.58	5	10	33.33	4	7	36.36	1	0	100	0.37	0.55	39.84
Austin Rueschhoff	R	1	11.12	8	17	32	7	12	36.84	6	9	40	1	1	50	0.63	0.62	50.69
Jonathan Gruden	C	1	7.63	5	10	33.33	3	6	33.33	2	5	28.57	1	1	50	0.5	0.26	65.58
Marc Johnstone	R	1	9.95	5	10	33.33	3	8	27.27	2	6	25	0	0	–	0.05	0.39	11.97
Jack St. Ivany	D	1	13.85	9	17	34.62	8	9	47.06	8	8	50	1	0	100	0.67	0.34	66.34
Corey Andonovski	R	1	8.90	6	11	35.29	4	6	40	3	6	33.33	1	1	50	0.53	0.27	65.93
Libor Hajek	D	1	15.32	11	20	35.48	8	14	36.36	5	10	33.33	0	0	–	0.32	0.98	24.62
Jagger Joshua	L	1	7.62	5	9	35.71	3	6	33.33	2	5	28.57	1	1	50	0.5	0.26	65.89
Brayden Yager	C	1	14.17	11	19	36.67	6	12	33.33	5	9	35.71	0	0	–	0.32	0.65	32.77
Chad Ruhwedel	D	1	18.93	11	19	36.67	5	16	23.81	5	10	33.33	1	1	50	0.22	1.15	16.34
Pierre-Olivier Joseph	D	1	18.95	11	18	37.93	7	15	31.82	6	10	37.5	1	0	100	0.29	1.28	18.24
Dmitri Samorukov	D	1	14.42	13	20	39.39	11	12	47.83	7	7	50	1	1	50	0.83	0.71	53.81
Dillon Hamaliuk	L	1	10.57	6	9	40	3	6	33.33	2	3	40	0	0	–	0.03	0.24	10.77
Isaac Belliveau	D	1	14.80	13	17	43.33	10	11	47.62	7	7	50	1	0	100	0.67	0.59	53.17
Mark Pysyk	D	1	14.70	16	19	45.71	14	16	46.67	10	11	47.62	1	1	50	0.92	0.78	54.12
Colin White	C	1	11.88	6	7	46.15	5	6	45.45	4	4	50	0	0	–	0.08	0.17	31.92
Ryan Shea	D	1	17.82	14	15	48.28	9	9	50	6	8	42.86	1	1	50	0.6	0.53	53.07
Ty Smith	D	1	16.78	19	20	48.72	17	16	51.52	12	13	48	1	1	50	1.22	0.83	59.53
Rem Pitlick	C	1	17.72	22	22	50	17	15	53.13	13	13	50	1	0	100	1.09	0.93	54.01
Taylor Fedun	D	1	15.07	13	13	50	9	8	52.94	6	6	50	1	0	100	0.6	0.41	59.55
Sam Poulin	R	1	14.97	20	18	52.63	17	10	62.96	12	8	60	1	0	100	1.11	0.66	62.76
Mark Friedman	D	1	13.70	15	12	55.56	10	8	55.56	7	6	53.85	0	0	–	0.52	0.59	47.13
Valtteri Puustinen	R	1	11.67	8	6	57.14	7	5	58.33	4	3	57.14	0	0	–	0.12	0.16	42.97
Avery Hayes	R	1	11.68	18	13	58.06	14	9	60.87	11	7	61.11	1	0	100	0.92	0.51	64.3
Vinnie Hinostroza	C	1	13.28	10	7	58.82	8	6	57.14	5	5	50	0	0	–	0.13	0.23	35.71
Drew O’Connor	L	1	12.83	17	11	60.71	14	9	60.87	9	5	64.29	1	1	50	0.8	0.96	45.39
Radim Zohorna	L	1	12.18	16	8	66.67	14	7	66.67	10	4	71.43	2	1	66.67	1.06	0.63	62.68
Alex Nylander	L	1	14.43	20	8	71.43	17	5	77.27	12	2	85.71	2	0	100	1.18	0.27	81.38

Just look how far below Joshua and Hamaliuk players like Matt Nieto, Austin Wagner, Joona Koppanen, and Andreas Johnsson. And make no mistake, the numbers these players put up reflect the eye-test, Nieto was absolutely invisible on the ice. Wagner may have scored a Goal (G), but that G was a complete fluke. He worked hard and threw the puck at the net on a backhand attempt, but it was more of question of puck-luck and weak Goaltending that the biscuit found its way up and over the Goalie and across the goal line. Yet Nieto and Wagner are still on the roster and Joshua and Hamaliuk aren’t.

Look also at the Time On the Ice (TOI), Nieto, despite doing nothing with his TOI was given almost twice as much TOI than Joshua and about 2 1/2 minutes more than Hamaliuk. Ice time isn’t earned, it is simply given to the Coaches’ pets.

The evidence is even more pronounced when looking at the Goalies. I would not begrudge Joel Blomqvist a longer look, his Save Percentage Sv% was rather low but the eye test wasn’t horrible, however, of the four Goalies, even though Alex Nedeljkovic’s numbers look better, Taylor Gauthier’s numbers would have equaled Nedeljkovic’s numbers if he was given some kind of support. Gauthier also pretty much faced the Columbus Blue Jackets’ “A” team in the 2^nd Game while Nedeljkovic faced the Jackets’ also rans. Yet Gauthier was banished to WBS while Magnus Hellberg is still on the Training Camp roster.

Player	GP	TOI	SA	Sv	GA	SV%	GAA	xG A	HDSA	HDSv	HDGA	HDSV%
Magnus Hellberg	1	39.97	19	16	3	0.842	4.5	1.69	6	3	3	0.5
Joel Blomqvist	1	35.03	17	15	2	0.882	3.43	1.73	4	3	1	0.75
Taylor Gauthier	1	22.78	17	16	1	0.941	2.63	0.68	2	2	0	1
Alex Nedeljkovic	1	29.97	18	18	0	1	0	1.76	7	7	0	1

Other players who got prime TOI, yet whose play was less than stellar were Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Ty Smith. Smith got burned so often that he look like he had been to the beach without sunscreen, not on the ice in a hockey game. Joseph, did play a little better than last season, in front of his own net, but when chasing down loose pucks with forecheckers bearing down on him, he reverted to his panicking and throwing the pucks away blindly rather than take hits.

Joseph may have scored a G on a deflection off a defenders skates, but his Corsi was so far underwater, for a vaunted mobile defenseman that he needed scuba gear.

Make no mistake, the Coaches and/or their apologists will still try some verbal legerdemain to veil their lack of objectivity. However, for me, I have seen these reruns to often to listen to their blather.