What a disgrace, a comedy of errors our Pittsburgh Penguins have become under the Mike Sullivan – Kyle Dubas Regime. Last night’s debacle in Seattle against the Kraken encapsulated all that we can expect under this Laurel and Hardy leadership.
Barely two minutes and eight seconds into the second period Kris Letang fumbled the puck. Chandler Stephenson scooped up the biscuit that was too hot for Letang to handle and off to the races he went three Kraken strong toward our Penguins’ rookie Goalie, Joel Blomqvist.
Marcus Pettersson had sent a pass to Letang and had drifted from center point toward right point as Letang who had been in deep (below the top of the Left-Wing Face Off Circle) and was circling back up to his natural point. Letang then changed his mind and started to move back down along the Left Wing (LW) boards when he coughed up the puck to Stephenson. This left Pettersson way out of position, on the wrong side of the three Kraken Forwards.
To his credit, Pettersson did race back to get in between Stephenson and Oliver Bjorkstrand to try and cut down passing lanes, while his partner, Letang was laboring to get back into the play. Unfortunately, as he is wont to do, the Penguins’ Defenseman left his skates, belly first, to slide to block any ice level pass to Bjorkstrand. The problem with Pettersson’s desperation tactic was that there were three Kraken coming back on his Goalie, Andre Burakovsky had stayed high in the slot and Letang had also come back too far to block Stephenson’s pass up between the circles. Our poor rookie Goalie had to shift from the top of his crease on his glove side, then track the puck to the high slot, then do the splits to his stick side to try and stop the Bjorkstrand’s super quick one-time shot from the goal line, as he was drifting in on his off wing.
Ig you ever want to learn how not to defend against a 3 – on – 1 ½, that play was a clinic on the wrong way, rife with desperation and over commitment by the Penguins’ defenders, putting their Goalie in the worst possibly position to defend.
Captain Sidney Crosby did get the team back to even with a lot of hard work from him, Rickard Rakell, and Letang. Sid and Rakell overpowered three Kraken defenders on the fore-check after a dump in. The captain wrapped the loose puck up the Right Wing (RW) boards to Letang, opening up a little space behind the net for Rakell as the Kraken started to follow the puck. Sid then quietly slipped out and up into the low slot. Letang fed the puck back down to the open Rakell who fed Crosby in front in a Tic-Tac-Toe play of passing skill. Number 87 wasted no time in potting the biscuit tying the game up about two minutes after the Kraken had taken the lead.
Our favorite flightless fowl squandered Sid and Rakell’s hard work, or more precisely, Cody Glass and Letang squandered that lead. Glass took a slashing penalty at 15:55 of that second frame, then Letang took a cross-check penalty 40 seconds later. While on that 5-on-3 Power Play (PP) Vince Dunn of Seattle put our Penguins’ behind on the scoreboard again.
Stephenson passed the puck through the Penguins’ triangle of Matt Nieto and Noel Acciari. Former Penguin Jared McCann hammered the puck on Goal with a really quick one-time shot off that pass but Blomqvist, tracking the puck really well, was equal to the task. However, the shot was so hard and quick, the young Finn couldn’t really control the rebound and McCann got to it before any of the outnumbered Penguins’ defenders could. He slipped the puck back to center point and Dunn fired it home.
From what I saw, it was hard to tell if the puck was tipped (passing through two Penguins’ defenders and a Kraken who was between the Penguins’ defenders and our Goalie, AGAIN) or how badly any or all of those players may have screened the Penguins’ back-stop but the puck sailed over his glove side shoulder into the net. If he saw it and it wasn’t tipped, that shot could have been stopped.
Eeli Tolvanen built on the lead Dunn gave the Kraken. Philip Tomasino chose the wrong time to request a line change. The Kraken were breaking out in force from their own zone. The former after thought from the equally bad Nashville Predators for which Dubas swapped a 4th round draft pick tried to get to the bench, got bumped and delayed going to the bench and then only drifted the rest of the way, opening up the weak side of the Penguins’ defense.
The Kraken that bumped Tomasino, McCann raced into the Penguins zone, lost from the defensive coverage. Shane Wright found McCann with a weak pass that McCann had to track down.
However, the bad pass worked in the Kraken’s favor as all three Penguins’ defenders systematically scattered from the front of their own net. Matt Grzelcyk chased Wright behind the net while Michael Bunting and Erik Karlsson both chased the puck. The mass exodus of Penguins defenders from in front of their net left two Kraken, including Tolvanen wide open in front of Blomqvist. Tolvanen fired a quick one-time shot from his off wing face off circle past our helpless Goalie.
Finally, Matty Beniers closed out the scoring on a seriously bad decision from Karlsson. The multi-Norris trophy winner took command of the puck in his own zone and then raced up ice on a one man break out. The bad news, he then tried a rink wide backhand pass that was easily picked off and the Kraken were on the attack again.
Kaapo Kakko scooped up the weak backhand and drove back into the Penguins’ zone with Berniers. Kakko swung wide but in this instance Grzelcyk tried to keep a good position. He didn’t spawl on the ice like Pettersson had done earlier in the game, taking himself out of the play. Unfortunately for Blomqvist, Grzelcyk isn’t that skilled of a defenseman and Berniers was left wide open on the weak side (another off wing one time shot, set up and executed perfectly – thanks to weak Penguins’ Defense).
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The Other Rick
All good points. After watching the game last night in San Jose I came to a couple of what I
would call obvious conclusions.
1) How is Sullivan still the HC of the Pen's? The team played with a no care attitude.
2) I would waive Nieto, and Shea as quick as I could get to a phone. They bring nothing to t/table.
3) Without sounding like a repeating rifle Dubas better move quick with trading Pettersson.
4) I'm starting to prepare my draft list.
Mike,
* Great question, how is Sullivan still HC? He has his team of CORSI darlings and they aren't getting it done.
* Nieto is Caleb's pet peeve. He is constantly wondering why Sullivan is enamored of him. Sullivan may be the only one who likes either player - and that is just one more thing to add to the laundry list of things I find problematic with this HC.
* I was hoping a deal could be made with JR and Van, but that ship may have sailed and Pettersson's stock is dropping .rapidly under this Coach.
* Right now, with our Pts% we would have the 6th pick in the draft. Last I saw Schaefer was rated no. 1. Radim Mrtka was rated 6th among NA players last I looked - I haven't scouted him yet. A player I did get an opportunity to watch was Porter Martone, a 6'-3", 208lb RW. He is rated no. 4 among NA players. I liked a lot of what I saw in the 2 games I watched. However, I think he still needs time. He tended to try and do too much himself, and didn't use his teammates as much as he could have. I also watched some video of Anton Frondell. Off the top of my head I can't remember anything about that video so I guess I wasn't all that impressed.