Back in the days of metal typesetting, newspapers and printers were loath to revise content unless they absolutely had to.
Well, our Penguins would’ve been a typesetter’s dream. The basic storylines never change. Indeed, the Pens’ 6-3 matinee loss to the Jets in Winnipeg was pretty much a case of the same old, same old.
- Pens take lead;
- Pens blow lead;
- Pens kill themselves with mistakes;
- Pens d-zone coverage is a shambles;
- Pens goalie is left to fend for himself.
The fact that these same tendencies keep repeating over and over and over again truly makes me wonder what the coaching staff is stressing to these guys. I’m sure there’s a lot of read-and-react inherent in Mike Sullivan’s system. But we keep reading and reacting the wrong way.
Heck, even in those rare instances when we make the right play, things go wrong. Just prior to the Jets’ second goal, Ryan Graves uncharacteristically flattened Mark Scheifele near the net before turning his back on the big forward. Scheifele promptly clambered to his skates, pounced on a loose puck and beat Alex Nedeljkovic from point-blank range.
“I think it starts with just the right mindset,” Sullivan noted in his post-game comments. “We’re quick to try and jump on offense (but) we don’t have the puck. And we end up putting ourselves and our teammates in a tough spot.”
It certainly sounds like the right take. Whether Sully and his staff can fix what’s broke remains to be seen. Especially given the dearth of practice time.
Yesterday he settled for shuffling the lineup…with mixed results. On the plus side, he moved Drew O’Connor to Sidney Crosby’s line and bumped Anthony Beauvillier to the third line with Lars Eller and Cody Glass.
Eller was terrific, scoring two goals (Kevin Hayes notched the other). Lars and his linemates each finished with pluses, the only Pens to do so.
Sully’s other moves didn’t seem to take as well. Jesse Puljujärvi joined Evgeni Malkin and Rickard Rakell on the second line, with negligible results. Valtteri Puustinen was inserted in place of healthy scratch/scapegoat Michael Bunting. While it was nice to see Puusti get a chance to play, it pushed Noel Acciari to center where he’s less effective.
If your team’s struggling to play with structure, I’d think you’d opt for continuity rather than sweeping changes, but what do I know.
Nedeljkovic got his first start of the season in goal and made 31 saves, many of the sparkling variety. But there’s only so much a goalie can do. Hockey’s a team sport.
Right now, we’re not a very good team.
Yup, and more blown leads in Calgary too….
Hey Rick, All,
I read this morning where our brilliant head coach got irate at yesterday’s practice to the point of stopping practice several times during both the PP and 5-on-5 situations. It seems our commanding general was taking exception to the number of times the players passed up opportunities to go low to high in the offensive zone.
Fact check, looking at the stats the black-and-gold are 14th in the league scoring, not great, like in the past, but all things considering, respectable. Flip the coin and we find that the team is 3rd worst in the league in GA. Yet our commander-n-chief is posterior hurt over players not going low-to-high in the offensive zone at yesterday’s practice.
Hey Mike, did you practice defense yesterday? That is what is killing this team. Do you not know how to identify the critical weakness? If not Mr. Sullivan, look above, Defense is what this team needs to practice.
More importantly, Coach Mike, this team is giving up break away s and odd man break after odd man break which has led to its abysmal showing in terms of GA. Get a grip, it is your low-to-high game that is killing your team.
The biggest problem on this team is the Head Coach!!!!
Hey all,
A quickie follow-up. I was listening to Phil Bourque’s post-game comments on the radio yesterday. I like listening to Bourquie because he calls it like he sees it.
He basically came out and said the Penguins’ defensemen don’t know how to play defense. As a group, they don’t play physically, don’t know how to tie opponents’ sticks up and box out.
Pretty much what we’re seeing.
I have no clue how we fix this unless we switch to a defense-first system with wingers coming back, etc. Hard to imagine us doing that.
It’s beginning to look like it’s going to be a long (and unsuccessful) season.
Rick
Rick
I always love listening to the Old 29er – he gets so frustrated with our lack of physicality and hates when
we allow teams to take liberties with our Goaltenders. He constantly talks about our need for a player
that will deter some of these shenanigans.
When talking about our “D” particular our Defenseman is it me or instead of moving an opponent out of
the crease we instead stand where we end up screening our own goaltender. Letang is famous for this
manuever.
One other thing – Matt Grzelcyk I don’t dislike him and think he’s played pretty well, but seriously he
along with Letang is our top Defensive pairing – He couldn’t crack the Bruins lineup and IMO at best
he’s a 3rd pairing defenseman. I really think this is at least part of the problem – we have him on the
# 1 unit and Shea who in my opinion should be in WBS.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Hey Mike,
I’m in total agreement on Ryan Shea. While he’s okay in a pinch and generally makes the safe play, there’s a reason he didn’t reach the NHL until he was 26 and it’s not that he was a diamond in the rough. Sully really seems to love him (see safe play above) but to me Shea’s about as plain as vanilla can get, and totally unphysical to boot.
I much prefer Jack St. Ivany.
Regarding Grzelcyk, I probably have a bias against him because of his size. He seems pretty much as advertised, a good passer and good in transition, but slower than you’d think for a guy his small stature. On ‘d’ he sticks his nose in and tries to do what’s necessary, but that’s where his lack of size hurts him.
IMHO, kind of a pocket (and less effective) version of Olli Maatta.
Rick