As Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Chewbacca lit out from Mos Eisley spaceport in the Millennium Falcon during the original Star Wars saga, they were tailed by Imperial Star Destroyers.
However, when Han tried to evade his pursuers by shifting into light speed, the Falcon’s hyperdrive malfunctioned.
Feels a little like our Penguins these days, doesn’t it?
Following a crucial four-game winning streak that lifted us from the mire of the Metro basement, we’ve gone 2-2-1. Nothing terribly wrong with that. Heck, it’s a lot better than losing five in a row. We’re just not making hay, as the old saying goes. Or winning the “tweeners” for that matter. Games that could go either way.
Last night’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Senators before a packed house at the Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa was a prime example. Mind you, sluggish start aside, we didn’t play a bad game. We even hung tough when the Sens grabbed a pair of one-goal leads and battled back to push the game to OT. We just couldn’t get a proverbial leg up on our hosts.
In hockey parlance, we chased the game.
Had we secured the second point? We would’ve evened our record at .500 and moved into a playoff spot. Instead, we remain a step behind. Pretty much where we’ve been lodged for the past two seasons and change.
Speaking of hyperdrives in need of fixin’? In our past 16 games, Sidney Crosby (two), Evgeni Malkin (one) and Erik Karlsson (zero) have combined for three goals! (Sounds like a countdown to oblivion…)
That almost doesn’t seem possible. Unfortunately, the stats—hard and cold as an iced-over lake in the Yukon—don’t lie.
Thank the Lord for Kris Letang, who’s enjoying a rather remarkable resurgence. Tanger knotted the score at 2-2 at 12:42 of the third period with a terrific solo effort. He has seven goals on the season, one less than Sid and one more than Geno. Five in his last seven games.
I knew the dark times would eventually come when the wheels fell off Sid and Geno’s wagons. After all, both are in their late 30s. Even legends succumb to the ravages of age and Father Time. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon…or abruptly. Especially with Sid fresh off arguably one of his finest seasons.
As for Karlsson? PP colleague Caleb DiNatale and I often compare notes during games. Last night I questioned how Karlsson could’ve possibly scored 25 goals for San Jose only a couple seasons back. He barely gets his shot through to the net these days, let alone score.
The burdens of an $11-million man.
Speaking of the goal cage, while I’m not as down on Tristan Jarry as some, I truly can’t remember the last time he stole a game for us. Yes, he made a number of key saves against the Sens, including a critical stop on a Ridley Greig breakaway attempt. And maybe I’m being a tad harsh or hyper-critical. But, honestly, I thought all three Ottawa goals were stoppable.
IMHO? As he’s done of late, on most nights Tristan tends goal well enough to keep us competitive. But his nagging tendency to allow the goal you don’t want to give up remains.
Such is the way of things for our Penguies these days.
Lizzo for President
Blake Lizotte continues his impactful ways, incredibly so. Last night he scored our first goal at 2:40 of the third period on a typically greasy play around the net. That gives him seven (in only 16 games), tying his mark with the Kings last season.
Lizotte’s continued production is all the more remarkable since he’s recently been tasked with reviving a heretofore stinky fourth line. Yet he’s proving that even linemates of questionable pedigree can’t slow him down. Like the Energizer Bunny, Lizzo keeps going and going and going…
While we can’t reasonably expect him to sustain his astronomical 38.9 shooting percentage, there’s always hope he’ll follow in the skate tracks of “Scorin” Warren Young, who banged home 40 goals and led the league with a 30.5 shooting percentage as a 29-year-old rookie in 1984-85.
Petey Out?
The Pens played the final two periods and change without Marcus Pettersson, who hobbled off the ice after crashing awkwardly into the boards.
If Petey’s out for any length of time? Given the abject lack of quality defensemen in the organization, we’d be in deep doo-doo. Translation…we just might qualify for a lottery pick in the draft after all.
Although he wouldn’t have provided immediate help due to injury, it makes passing on rangy 24-year-old, right-shot defenseman Alec Regula (available on waivers this past week) a little suspect.
Wahlstrom a Bruin
Speaking of passing, Kyle Dubas opted not to claim former Islanders first-rounder Oliver Wahlstrom, who was also available on waivers. The Bruins claimed the 24-year-old power forward instead.
Perhaps Dubas thought Wahlstrom would be redundant, since his game and style sorta kinda resembles Jesse Puljujärvi’s. But I would like to have seen Dubie roll the dice and claim the kid.
The Other Rick & Rick
I’m also not a Jarry fan. I do think he’s playing a little better but he still struggles to get through a game
without letting in a questionable goal or two. As far as Shots on goal from our Defenseman both EK, and
Letang have put 76 shot a piece on net. Among Defenseman they rank 8th & 9th in shots on goal.
I was surprised when I saw what other DMan are doing around the league when it comes to shots.
Werenski 112 shots ( 10 ) goals
Hamilton 98 shots ( 5 ) goals
Dobson 98 shots ( 4 ) goals
Montour 93 shots ( 8 ) goals
Makar 93 shots ( 9 ) goals
Hughes 93 shots ( 7 ) goals
Josi 86 shots ( 7 ) goals
Karlsson 76 shots ( 2 ) goals
Letang 76 shots ( 7 ) goals
———————————–
What I thought was interesting were some of the names & shots attempted below:
Nurse 74 shots ( 3 ) goals
Bouchard 74 shots ( 6 ) goals
McAvoy 66 shots ( 5 ) goals
Hedman 64 shots ( 4 ) goals
What I think is interesting is Nurse & Bouchard have both put up a few less shots than
Karlsson and Letang. Also, Hedman is ranked 25th with 64 shots on goal.
The Penguins as a team are ranked 6th in shots on goal.
Ranked 31st in goals against. Defense or Goaltending??
I’m not sure where I was going with all of this?? LOL. I do think our shots are in line with
the rest of the Defenseman around the league an none of them are really lighting it up
in the goals scored category. Defense & Goaltending appears to be the issue, but as bad
as I think our Defenseman are below par I feel like our forwards contribute in a major way
to our deficiencies in our own end. I’ve never seen a team struggle so badly to get the puck
out of their own end, even when the opportunity is there – to often I see the Pen’s out number
there opponents 3 to 2 and the opposition comes away with the puck. I feel like our lack of
a physical presence in a domino kind of way hurts our overall defensive play.
Hey Rick,
Quick Question,
On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate a Goalie whose SV% 0.885?
OK, the raw number may not mean too much – maybe all the Goalies in that cohort are around that number. Therefore, let’s put that Sv% in a better perspective – what if I told you that 0.885 Sv% ranked said Goalie 53rd among all Goalies who have played 1 Standard Deviation from the Mean (Total Goalies 68).
Yes, I have been super critical of Jarry and still am. I have been saying long before this season that Jarry doesn’t really steal games. Although I am glad that Blomqvist isn’t suffering under Sullivan, if that kid were in Goal, this team would be challenging for a playoff spot.
Consider this, during the doldrums of 2015 (aka Mike Johnston’s final 28 games in Pgh), our Penguins’ Captain, Sidney Crosby had a 5-on-5 GF/60 of 2.08 and Evgeni Malkin’s number was 2.38 and our two-headed monster was still in its prime. This season Crosby’s 5-on-5 GF/60 is 3.25 and Geno’s is 2.44 in their twilight. In 2015 all that was needed was to shed the previous Mike.
Most importantly, even though Sid and Geno are themselves not scoring, their lines do still tend to score. When you put a bunch of stiffs on the ice with these two, the opposing defenders will gravitate to the greater threat, leaving the pylons open – daring them to shoot. It is a testament to these the Captain and his Assistant that they find ways of getting cast-offs from other teams looking like almost useful NHLers (only Mario in his heyday could make them look like Warren Young s or Doug Sheddan s)
As for Karlsson, he put up numbers everywhere but here. I am no Karlsson fan as any long-time reader will note I complained bitterly about that trade even when it was still only in the rumor phase. However, the preponderance of evidence condemns the system, not the player. I would rather have that cap space than #65, but I will not blind myself to the full picture and allow myself to be drawn into the Karlsson bashing. The clarity of Sullivan’s finger-print is all over this 3 time Norris Trophy winner’s downturn.
Hey Other Rick,
Funny, I was going to push back, albeit slightly, and say if you take away Jarry’s disastrous pre-conditioning assignment start to the season, he’s showing better. However, since his return from the Baby Pens his save percentage is only marginally better at .897.
Then I decided to remove his first game back when he allowed five goals to the CBJ. And his save percentage since that game is still only .901.
I will include the proviso that our team defense is atrocious, which has certainly contributed to his sub-par showing. But any way you slice it, Jarry isn’t having a stellar season.
I will push back a bit on your comments regarding Sid and Geno. Rakell and Rust aren’t the second coming of Jaromir Jagr (or even Jake Guentzel) but they’re hardly stiffs. In Geno’s case, I agree 100 percent that he gets a revolving door of leftovers and that has to affect his game.
However, last season he had Rakell on his wing for a decent chunk of the year, and the Swede went stone cold skating with Geno. He didn’t start to produce again until he moved to Sid’s wing. I believe the same held true for Rust.
Again, this isn’t meant to slam Geno (or Sid). Just to reiterate that they’re, indeed, aging and fading a bit.
Rick
PS–I need to add this on behalf of Geno. As terrific a career as he’d had, you wonder what kind of numbers he might have put up had he gotten the choicest wingers as opposed to Sid.
I still recall the 2016 playoffs when Sid got Kunitz and Hornqvist, and Kessel skated with Bonino and Hagelin. Geno was given the leftovers, Eric Fehr and I forget who else, and he still tallied 18 points in 23 games.
I guess what I’m fumbling to say is, Geno’s had a truly remarkable career when you take everything into consideration.
Rick
Rick
Regarding Geno – he may get the short end of the stick on occasion, but I also think
Crosby like Lemieux has taken below average wingers and made them look good.
Although I think Geno is a capable passer one of his downfalls is over handling with
the puck trying to create a shot for himself. He still has not made an adjustment to
his game as he ages. Crosby on the other hand plays the type of game that will
never go out of style. Also, watch Geno defensively – the guy is always gambling both
in the offensive and defensive end of the ice. He continues to do fly by”s which drive
me crazy. I’m not bashing Geno, well maybe a little, but he really needs to make
tweaks to his game as Father Time comes calling. I realize he’s a great player, but he
does have a tendency to take short cuts. I know i’ll hear back from The Other Rick. LOL
Hey Rick,
I do not like too many of our Penguins Defensemen. If I had my way, I would toss them all away except Letang (He has been here long enough and has shown grit and a ton of Loyalty, so I would put up with his Defensive lapses and get him a defensive, defense partner like he had in Martin or Dumoulin). However, I am going to play devils advocate. How much of your perceived defensive lapses are organic and how much are a result of Jarry giving up Goals on the first shot he faces. Defenses have to play different when their Goalie puts them behind the 8-ball all the time.
As for Geno, he started the season off with 14 Pts in the 1st 12 GP (While Blomqvist had played in Half of the Games and he could trust his Goalie). So I ask again, how much of Sid’s and Geno’s offensive drop-off is related to their constantly having to try and make up for pathetic Goaltending by overly exerting themselves in the defensive zone, leaving nothing in their tank to attack. To go along with that, how much of their offensive drop off is due to having to constantly play from behind; allowing other teams to prevent defense and funneling all the shots to the perimeter. Also, let’s face it, the team has no one who can hammer a shot from the point, so opponents can collapse down low and clog up the high danger areas.
There are way too many confounding variable for me to blanketly toss Sid and Geno on the scrap pile. I just wish this team would do the right thing and move on from Jarry (and Sullivan).
This is nonsense. The problem is Karlsson. Period. Watch Francis Anezlones coaches Debrief E8 on youtube. He dissects Karlsson’s good and bad points with an illuminating video analysis. He also shows that despite the OP, getting shots through is one of his major assets. Mike’s numbers confirm this.
Hey Outsider,
I watched your video of FA; there was some interesting points and some flaws in his assessments, I will get back to the flaws later, first however, I have some pushback for you.
As I wrote above, I am no Karlsson fan. I didn’t want him here in the first place. I wanted that draft pick. So, I really do not like having to play Karlsson’s defender but there is nothing in that video in which FA suggests Karlsson is the Penguins biggest problem. In fact, FA points out the fallacies of a lot of Karlsson’s detractor’s complaints often showing how the faults were other players, implicating even Crosby in at least one instance.
Now to address the flaws, FA in his reductionist efforts to distill every play as if it was discreet and not part of a greater whole does ignore the forest as he focuses in on one tree. FA in his complaints of Karlsson complains that he was outside the dots on plays where opponents were trying to breakout of their D-Zone without looking at the game situation. As usual, the Pens where losing with a puck along the boards. By being outside the dots, along the boards, Karlsson would have been I a great position to cut a puck off that was being sent up the boards and keep the play alive in an effort to give his team a chance to get back in the game. It was a gamble and he lost.
This inability to analyze the whole would explain why his Coaching record was so poor, 49 – 58 – 13 during his 2-year tenure with the Aberdeen Admirals of the NAHL. And before any comment can be made about that not necessarily being bad, let me put that in a little better perspective, the season before he took over the Admirals they went 38-18-4, after his time in Aberdeen the team’s record has been,
29 – 24 – 7
39 – 16 – 5
47 – 10 – 3
34 – 11 – 6
51 – 4 – 1
31 – 24 – 5
36 – 24 – 6
31 – 24 – 5
And is currently 15 – 7 – 2 – 1 this season
In the 14 years of the Admirals existence, the Admirals have only had 4 losing seasons and FA was at the helm for 2 (his only 2 seasons) of them.
Now, that doesn’t mean I would ignore anything that he wrote or said, but I would certainly view his opinions through a very specific lens.
Now, you can hate Karlsson all you want, this is America, and I certainly wouldn’t shed a tear if he were traded – provided Dubas finally wins a trade, but Karlsson is not the biggest problem on this team. Tristan Jarry has conceded a Goal on the first shot of a game in 4 of his 13 starts, or 1/3 and he has conceded the first G of a game 8 times or nearly ¾ of the games he has played. There is a serious difference between playing with a lead vs being behind and pushing the offense to get back in the game brings about many, many break downs. Jarry needs to go first when looking at the players.
More importantly, the players are not the biggest problem, the Coach is. The Dom Perignon I have on ice is being saved for the day, if ever (and I may not live long enough to see it) Sullivan is gone.
The Other Rick
I’m on board with your assessment that the Coach is the major problem on this team. Without
sounding like a broken record until Sullivan is gone I wouldn’t hold the players accountable. It’s
we documented that players underperform under his watch – especially our 3rd and 4th lines.
It’s also well documented he refuses to play any player with toughness / grit that won’t hesitate
to drop the gloves standing up for a teammate. The Pen’s need a few players who will protect
our Core and young players in a desperate kind of way.
Hey Mike,
100% agree. Caleb and I were just talking today, musing over the call up of Clurman vs St. Ivany. I know that the “official” team statement is that St. Ivany has regressed. Our discussion centered over the what Sullivan considers regressing; was it St. Ivany standing up for his teammates? an absolute!! Sullivan no-no.