GDT: Penguins @ Canadiens (Quebec City)

[Gurglesons]

Again, the issue isn't Pouliot isn't NHL ready. OFD usually need more time to develop and such. The issue is that Pouliot looks absolutely dreadful in the preseason, to the point where he has regressed. It has nothing to do with him playing 20 minutes a night being unrealistic. He has taken a step back and looks like a pile of ****. That's where the concern is.

Who on our defense outside of Letang and Maatta has looked any better?

Our defense has looked terrible since Johnston took over to be honest. Much like fans of Portland told us it would.

Reilly,Dumba and Trouba all are miles ahead of Pouliot.

Trouba and Dumba have yet to prove anything. Much like Pouliot.

 

[Gurglesons]

This isn't a contentious question... I'm actually curious. Does anyone know how much of a "reach" Pouliot was considered to be? Like... where was he expected to be taken, originally? Would he have possibly fallen to where the Penguins picked Maatta?

Yeah, basically Maatta should've been taken where Pouliot was and Pouliot was more in the realm of 15 - 20.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Who on our defense outside of Letang and Maatta has looked any better?

Our defense has looked terrible since Johnston took over to be honest. Much like fans of Portland told us it would.

Cole and Dumoulin have looked MILES ahead of Pouliot. Pouliot's playing on par with Scuderi during this preseason.

Trouba and Dumba have yet to prove anything. Much like Pouliot.

Lol this is just blatantly false. Take off the homer glasses. To suggest Trouba hasn't proven anything yet...laughable.

Also on Pouliot, Buffalo was going to draft him with the pick that they drafted Grigorenko with (I think it was 12th), so it wasn't THAT much of a reach. Still not a good pick.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

It's not about "fair" when talking about Pouliot being relied upon to play top-4 minutes and handle the responsibility that comes with it. The kid was taken 8th overall 3 years ago. Like it or not, fair or not, the expectations of the kid are huge.

And again, for better or worse, this team put a ******** of stock into Pouliot, by letting d-men go in FA, and trading others, they're essentially saying "Pouliot's our guy, we believe he's ready and capable."

That seems to be backfiring pretty heavily right now.

 

[Gurglesons]

Lol this is just blatantly false. Take off the homer glasses. To suggest Trouba hasn't proven anything yet...laughable.

I always confuse Dumba and Trouba. You're completely right.

 

[Gurglesons]

And again, for better or worse, this team put a ******** of stock into Pouliot, by letting d-men go in FA, and trading others, they're essentially saying "Pouliot's our guy, we believe he's ready and capable."

That seems to be backfiring pretty heavily right now.

Like pretty much everything this management and the previous has done?

 

[billybudd]

Pouliot's brutal right now and would go minus 50 if he was allowed to play like this and make the team (which is to say, that cannot happen), but the pendulum's already swinging way too far against him. For all the infinite (and often inexplicable...one page back there's someone complaining that Bennett doesn't play over a better defensive player that scores at triple his rate) faith this board shows in a "USA pride" pick like Bennett, it wants to flush a 20 year old D with 30 games under his belt.

Pouliot is two years away from it making sense to be "worried about his future." If you'd asked me last fall when he'd be on the Penguins, judging by how he looked in the WJCs and the stray Hawks playoff game on the NHLnet, I'd have guessed 2017 at the earliest.

He's not off schedule if the Pens hadn't jumped to the conclusion that he was ready to play 20 minutes a night for the forseeable future at 21 on the basis of nothing more than two or three strong weeks.

Yeah, we are totally going to miss Chorney. Pouliot is AHL fodder and the guy who is 28 and has yet to crack the NHL would be the perfect pairing for us.

I agree completely.

Chorney got a 1 year deal at 700k. Pouliot's Penguin property for another 3-6 years. Nobody's suggesting waiving a 21 year old D to sign a ten year deal with a 27 year old rookie who finally put it all together.

It just would have been nice, in the near term, if we had a cheap, competent guy with known chemistry with another guy who was, necessarily, a mortal lock for this year's roster. This outcome was forseeable. I saw an issue with letting him go and so did Mtl.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Yeah, basically Maatta should've been taken where Pouliot was and Pouliot was more in the realm of 15 - 20.

Ah. Thank you.

Would you say, especially knowing what we know about Ray Shero and his drafting "ability," that it's at least possible that ol' Ray just sort of punted on that pick? Like... they target their guy (Pouliot) at their original 22nd draft slot. The Staal trade wrapped up quickly (within 20 minutes in Shero's office after weeks of chit-chat, from what I gather) which garnered the Pens that 8th overall. Shero, in his typical arrogant, tunnel-vision, half-lazy fashion, simply takes the guy at 8 that he wanted to begin with and doesn't bother re-assessing with his scouts.

I don't know that this has anything to do with anything. It's just a long-standing pet theory. Though I've also heard it plenty, elsewhere. It works nicely for me because I think Shero is a utter yutz that half-wrecked this team.

 

[Gurglesons]

Ah. Thank you.

Would you say, especially knowing what we know about Ray Shero and his drafting "ability," that it's at least possible that ol' Ray just sort of punted on that pick? Like... they target their guy (Pouliot) at their original 22nd draft slot. The Staal trade wrapped up quickly (within 20 minutes in Shero's office after weeks of chit-chat, from what I gather) which garnered the Pens that 8th overall. Shero, in his typical arrogant, tunnel-vision, half-lazy fashion, simply takes the guy at 8 that he wanted to begin with and doesn't bother re-assessing with his scouts.

I don't know that this has anything to do with anything. It's just a long-standing pet theory. Though I've also heard it plenty, elsewhere. It works nicely for me because I think Shero is a utter yutz that half-wrecked this team.

I guarantee that Pouliot will be eventually be a solid top four option for this team.

He was one of the few bright points in our season last year. Expectations can do a lot to people, especially a kid that is 21 years old and I guarantee that has a lot to do with his play right now. Physically he looks fine, skill wise fine, he just looks like he is forcing the play too much.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

It's way more than that, though.

Yes, the Pens are idiots for choosing Dumoulin and Pouliot over Despres. Yes, they are idiots for thinking they had too many young guys or couldn't afford them or whatever.

But over the last 16 months they have lost Orpik (okay), Niskanen (overpaid but certain a huge improvement over our bottom-4), Ehrhoff (okay, but still would be better than half our D), and Martin.

While I fully endorsed and agreed with all of those moves, it's clear the Pens didn't have a legitimate plan for replacing their minutes.

Part of that is holding on to those four players too long and not allowing despres, dumo, etc... To get NHL time sooner. Too many vets brought in, etc... Same convo we've had 100 times. But once they made that mistake, they couldn't then count on dumo and poo to make up for it.

I hope someone steps up and leads the 2nd pair, but right now it looks like Maatta/Letang and a bunch for 6s (at best). Despres would help, obviously, but he would probably wind up being blamed for this group's deficiencies.

If Cole and Dumo don't work out, then they will have to split Letang and Maatta.

Letang-Cole
Maatta-Dumo

I don't think it's the end of the world to have those two on different pairings TBTH.

Not only do we only have 2 legit NHL defensemen apparently.

Letang hasn't had a season where he enters the playoffs, in the lineup, and approaching 100% in years.

Maatta's only season that he played the whole way through resulted in major injury.

Yet, we are banking on those two playing HUGE minutes and shouldering the bulk of our defensive load. Yea, that'll work out...

I love all the moves that JR has made, other then being strong armed into trading Despres of course. Pouilet looking like hot garbage, and dumo looking like an AHL guy really screws the team. I mean we needed both to take the next step in their development, but it appears both have regressed.

It's especially troubling with Dumolin, as he has already played significant time in the AHL and played in the playoffs for us. So if anyone should be prepared between those two to take on NHL minutes it's him.

How has Dumo regressed? He has played stellar for the Baby Pens and played well this past postseason for the big club.

Not sure where you got that impression.

 

[WheresRamziAbid]

Long term Pouliot will be fine. His issues are between the ears right now. He looked good last year and should continue to grow into the position.

If Chorney is the answer, the question is flawed. He's the definition of replacement level.

 

[Pancakes]

I personally wasn't looking for Pouliot to suddenly turn into a second pairing defenseman. Though obviously that would have been a nice unexpected surprise. I simply wanted him to carve out a spot on the third pairing and continue to make his case as the year went on. I always knew that the second pairing was going to have at least one big hole going into the season that nobody currently under contract had a chance at filling.

Trouba is much better than you are seemingly giving him credit for. He won't be anchoring the entire defense. But he's already a guy that the Jets know they can count on to help carry a big portion of the load.

This isn't a contentious question... I'm actually curious. Does anyone know how much of a "reach" Pouliot was considered to be? Like... where was he expected to be taken, originally? Would he have possibly fallen to where the Penguins picked Maatta?

IIRC Pouliot was ranked around 20th or 21st by ISS/CSS

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I don't know how you can guarantee something like that. Especially with a guy that is decidedly a project. But I at least appreciate your optimism. And I agree that he had some flashes of intriguing play last season.

IIRC Pouliot was ranked around 20th or 21st by ISS/CSS

Thanks. Seems like maybe I'm not totally out to lunch, then?

 

[Gurglesons]

I don't know how you can guarantee something like that. Especially with a guy that is decidedly a project. But I at least appreciate your optimism. And I agree that he had some flashes of intriguing play last season.

He looks exactly like Letang did when large expectations were thrown on him.

The issue with Pouliot right now is our management made it a sink or swim situation with him and our defense this year.

 

[Pancakes]

At the end of the day we were all clamoring for the Pens to be built around Sid and Geno. Well, JR finally is taking the right steps to do that, and at least in the short term until we cut all the dead weight that necessarily means sacrifices in other areas of the team - namely defense.

I'll take this team with its awesome forwards over watching the Pens be a great defensive team but unable to do jack **** when it counts because teams can key on Sid and Geno.

 

[The Greatest 101]

I always confuse Dumba and Trouba. You're completely right.

Both of them are ready for top4 minutes though.

 

[drpepper]

I am actually surprised by how decent (and by that I mean relatively) Dumoulin has looked in preseason games.

He doesn't seem to be a great camp player & has struggled in preseason each of the previous two or three seasons even though he looks decent at the NHL level when called up (that is he makes mistakes that rookie NHL players make & occasionally struggles but overall has good foundational tools to build on).

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I'm not sure where this "Pouliot will be fine in a few years" stuff is coming from. It really just comes across as wishful thinking. I agree, I hope Pouliot will be fine in a few years, but right now? The guy looks like a 7th rounder who has no business being on NHL ice. That's a big issue, especially when a lot of his peers are miiiiles ahead of him. The problem is magnified when you take into account how poorly the Pens have handled the blueline situation over the past 15 months.

Pouliot sucking like this wouldn't be the end of the world if we didn't put ourselves in the position to rely so heavily on him. Yes, it'd be a shame that he is unquestionably behind guys like Trouba, Lindholm, and Dumba, but we'd still be able to bring him along slowly and let him develop at his own pace.

A ****** situation, partly due to the fact that Pouliot hasn't progressed much since being drafted (may have gone back a step or two), and partly due to the fact that this team has ****ed itself over on the blueline.

 

[Gurglesons]

I'm not sure where this "Pouliot will be fine in a few years" stuff is coming from. It really just comes across as wishful thinking. I agree, I hope Pouliot will be fine in a few years, but right now? The guy looks like a 7th rounder who has no business being on NHL ice.

He really does not look like a 7th rounder at all. If you want to take the ultimate negative view on him he looks a lot like Tim Erixon did when he was 21.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

He looks exactly like Letang did when large expectations were thrown on him.

The issue with Pouliot right now is our management made it a sink or swim situation with him and our defense this year.

Letang, and especially Goligoski, looked brutal far too often and made many bone headed mistakes for a couple of years when they first came up.

That is part of the maturation process, and you can not grow entirely in the minors. At some point a team needs to live with some of the errors. I am not saying that point is now, but when he eventually does make the team I hope that people do not expect him to be without errors out of the gate.

And thank God the Pens finally seem to be willing to deal with that maturation process. The opposite got us Scuds and the Lovejoy trade.

As for drafting DP, no doubt if JR were here at that time Forsberg would be a Pen right now. I am not 100 percent sure of that, but pretty close. That said, Maatta likely would not, for a number of reasons.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

At the end of the day we were all clamoring for the Pens to be built around Sid and Geno. Well, JR finally is taking the right steps to do that, and at least in the short term until we cut all the dead weight that necessarily means sacrifices in other areas of the team - namely defense.

I'll take this team with its awesome forwards over watching the Pens be a great defensive team but unable to do jack **** when it counts because teams can key on Sid and Geno.

Agree on the forwards. Gotta give credit where it's due with JR bringing in guys like Kessel, Hornqvist, Perron and depth like Bonino, Plotnikov, Fehr and Cullen. This is as deep a forward corps as we've ever seen while Sid and Geno are here. But there's gotta be a middle ground. For as good as the forwards are, the defense is probably twice as bad.

It'll be fun to watch them score a bunch, and entertain like crazy offensively. It will be torturous watching the defense get absolutely embarrassed on a near shift-by-shift basis all season long.

 

[Deutschland Dangler]

I'm not sure where this "Pouliot will be fine in a few years" stuff is coming from. It really just comes across as wishful thinking. I agree, I hope Pouliot will be fine in a few years, but right now? The guy looks like a 7th rounder who has no business being on NHL ice.

I see we've started another hyperbole contest this board is so famous for. Excellent entry!

 

[Penguinzilla*]

Has the "I wish we traded Pouliot instead of Harrington bandwagon" left? If not, I may have to jump onboard. Jets took Trouba with the 9th pick

 

[Coastal Kev]

Ah. Thank you.

Would you say, especially knowing what we know about Ray Shero and his drafting "ability," that it's at least possible that ol' Ray just sort of punted on that pick? Like... they target their guy (Pouliot) at their original 22nd draft slot. The Staal trade wrapped up quickly (within 20 minutes in Shero's office after weeks of chit-chat, from what I gather) which garnered the Pens that 8th overall. Shero, in his typical arrogant, tunnel-vision, half-lazy fashion, simply takes the guy at 8 that he wanted to begin with and doesn't bother re-assessing with his scouts.

I don't know that this has anything to do with anything. It's just a long-standing pet theory. Though I've also heard it plenty, elsewhere. It works nicely for me because I think Shero is a utter yutz that half-wrecked this team.

And then he was rewarded with a new contract, sent on vacation for a year and ends up with another GM position. Isn't life just so fair sometimes?

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I see we've started another hyperbole contest this board is so famous for. Excellent entry!

Thanks! I'm not joking though. He's looked disinterested at best, and wholly out of place/lost at worst just about every time we've seen him this summer. If you disagree, you're either not watching games, or not watching closely enough.

When your biggest ally (MJ), who was also your junior coach, is bringing the heat publicly, there's a big problem. MJ hasn't even attempted to sugarcoat Pouliot's play, he's said he's been downright awful and doesn't look like an NHLer right now.