“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight.”
Herb Brooks spoke those inspirational words to the 1980 US Olympic team in the locker room in the moments leading up to their Miracle on Ice conquest of the mighty Soviets. But he may well have been speaking to our Penguins prior to their key Metro tilt with the Rangers last night at Madison Square Garden.
And indeed, they had an opportunity. Several in fact. Opportunities to:
- Take advantage of a shaky Rangers team in the midst of a 1-6 freefall and likely in distress following the trade of captain Jacob Trouba only hours earlier;
- Avenge their sorry season-opening loss to their bitter division rival;
- Move into a playoff spot with a win;
- Make a statement that they’re a team to be reckoned with;
- Extend what had far and away been their finest stretch of hockey this season.
Instead, they:
- Crawled out of the starting blocks and allowed their struggling hosts to dictate play and thus gather momentum and confidence;
- Promptly yielded game-tying and go-ahead goals to the Rangers after being fortunate to score not once but twice on Igor Shesterkin;
- Allowed Artemi Panarin to score with a ½ second left in the second period;
- Allowed Reilly Smith to score…period;
- Allowed odd-man breaks and high-danger scoring opportunities with the frequency of gumballs spewing from a dispenser at a Chuck E. Cheese;
- Let a foe in disarray off the hook.
With the notable exceptions of Blake Lizotte, who hustled like mad and staked us to a lead we didn’t deserve, Alex Nedeljkovic, who stood on his head to keep us in the game, and newcomer Philip Tomasino, who scored a gem of a goal to knot the score at 2-2 however briefly, hardly anyone else sporting a Penguin logo was noticeable.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Matt Grzelcyk stood out for his abject inability to play anything resembling effective defense. (He wasn’t alone in that regard.) Somewhere…anywhere…in the organization there must be a better option. (Just not Ryan Graves.)
Could the first power-play unit be any worse? Is there a more poorly matched set of high-risk point men in the hockey universe than Erik Karlsson and Evgeni Malkin? Could our “great” coach Mike Sullivan possibly resist making meaningful changes just a little while longer? After all, the unit’s only been an abject failure for a season and a half.
Yeah…let’s keep ‘em together. That’s the ticket.
What’s truly frustrating? The Pens were actually playing some really good hockey during that four-game winning streak. Really good. In particular, I thought they were outstanding against the Bruins. They were skating with discipline, patience and structure and finally seemed to have figured out how to play at least reasonably sound team defense.
Then, when they have a real opportunity to step up, they poop the bed.
You don’t get rewarded for finishing 20th. This team needs to make up its mind. If it’s going to be bad like it most certainly during last night’s 4-2 loss, be bad. The better to snag a lottery pick.
If it’s going to be good? Then it better get its collective butt in gear. Because “efforts” like these, and I use that term loosely, won’t cut it.
Puckpourri
The Pens activated Cody Glass from IR and inserted him into the lineup. He saw 10:54 of ice time and assisted on Lizotte’s goal.
Matt Nieto (nine games, zero points, minus-6) was a healthy scratch, along with Jesse Puljujärvi and Graves.
To make room, cap-wise, defenseman Jack St. Ivany was sent to the Baby Pens.
Can we clone Lizotte? I’d like to have maybe 10 more guys who play with his sizzle ‘n’ spirit.
Rick and Mike,
Another thing to consider about the PP, it is so anemic that other teams can afford to really put pressure on the points, They know the forwards will not drive the net nor really impede the Goalies vision and only Crosby is a threat to score. Putting high pressure on the points is a low risk high reward maneuver against Sullivan’s Penguins.
Rick & The Other Rick
Comments on last nights game.
1) Remove Malkin from the PP – Problem is we don’t have another legit Point man.
2) We have two players that will consistently battle to screen the goalie – Bunting & O’Connor.
Neither is a true goal scorer.
3) “WHAT THE HELL” was Grzelcyk thinking about – I thought I was watching #58. Zero hockey IQ.
4) Please send Shea to WBS. Physically he can’t get the job done and why in the world would he
get caught pinching again on the Trocheck goal?? SMH – he was a ( -3 ) for the game in 14min.
5) Pickering has shown he belongs in the Pen’s top 6.
6) I’m in agreement with The Other Rick that you can’t hold the players accountable until we have a
new voice behind the bench. You can’t allow Patterson or Shea to pinch unless it’s a lock that their
not contested for the loose puck.
7) Watch the Smith goal – Ned stops the initial shot – we have 4 or 5 players back in front of the net
and not one of them puts a body on a Ranger player.
8) Rick, last but not least – I like Lizotte’s tenacity, but it would be nice if he was 6’1 or 6’2 and not 5’9.
Tonight’s game is going to be rough with the Maple Leafs losing to the Caps at home last night.
Sorry Rick,
That was me. Forgot to tag it.
Hey Rick,
First off, there are always two teams on the ice. Outcomes of games sometimes are a result of one team beating the other. In other cases, one team beats itself. Just as you point out that the Penguins beat themselves last night, during that modest win streak, the Penguins were gifted wins by teams beating themselves. As I pointed out on several occasions during that “streak”, our Penguins have gotten sooooooo bad that other teams now are completely disrespecting them and trotting out their ECHL level Goalies against us so as not to risk injuring their best players. Vancouver has been without JT Miller for what seems like forever. Besides Vancouver, even the good teams we played during that “Streak” were struggling when they met us. And again, teams have so little regard for this team’s ability to play that they have tried phoning in a couple of games. Sullivan stinks as a Coach and his system is horrible, making it nigh impossible to truly evaluate the players toiling under its idiocy.
Let me point out what should be blatantly obvious, our favorite flightless fowl have the single worst Goal differential in the league. Even when this team wins, it is not because of anything they have done, it is about what the other team failed to capitalize on. It is time to put away the Kool-Aid and critically look at this team and accept what the numbers show, a sepulcher full of rotting bones. Crosby, Malkin, and Letang could all possibly still be top players in the league under a good Coach, but they can no longer cover up the sins of this leader.
Also, Isaac Belliveau is the best LHD in the system, he should have been given the call up before Pickering, so yes, the team has a better option. The port side of the defense should have been/be Pettersson, Pickering, and Belliveau with Graves as the seventh. Grelczyk and the wrong Aho should never have been signed.
Having said that, I am okay with not letting Belliveau get infected with the Sulivan disease. He has destroyed way too many prospects already. I am okay with letting this clown founder under his own hubris.
As for the PP, it stinks not because of Malkin or Karlsson, it stinks because this team has no right-handed scoring threat and no net front presence. Opponents only have to protect half of their ice and their Goalies get to see every shot cleanly (even when a Pantywaist Penguin pokes his proboscis into the paint, other teams know how to defend, body-on-body not stick waving, and they unceremoniously dump that fightless, flightless fowl on its fundament).
This team hasn’t had a good PP since Saint Sullivan ran Phil Kessel out of town on a rail; the last legitimate right-handed lethal sniper the team had. It got even worse when Patric Hornqvist was trade. JR never had an exit plan for either departure. I really liked Guentzel, but he was not a righty, so was never the right option to replace Kessel, nor was he big enough to replace Hornqvist when our ersatz Coach asked him to play that role. Moreover, as much as I liked the previous incarnation over Bryan Rust, he never was a scoring threat, elevating him to replace Kessel when Guentzel was asked to be the guy in the paint was a sign to anyone who wasn’t on recreational chemicals that Sullivan clearly had no idea how to Coach.
And no, we don’t need more Lizotte s. This team is loaded with players of his skill level. This team needs top six forwards to take the burden off Crosby and Malkin on the back ends of their storied careers. This team needs a couple of hulking forwards that don’t get knocked down easily to barge into the crease and create havoc. This team needs Defensemen who know how to play defense and are strong enough to do to other teams what they do to our forwards, knock them down. Only players of Crosby and Malkin stature can intentionally score when sitting on their wallets. This team needs Goalies that can stop more than a 90% of the shots they face on a nightly basis. Most importantly, this team needs a Coach that recognizes these needs, who doesn’t want a bunch of jack-of-all trades, master of none forwards, doesn’t want a bunch of Ruth Buzzi defenseman, who won’t banish a player for putting body-on-body, who will sit veterans for the same infractions he banishes prospects and who will let Forwards play forward and demand his Defense to play defense.
A team doesn’t end up with the worst Goal differential, accidentally. They have to be coached into it and work that coach’s game plan.