Who's To Blame For Penguins Debacle?

[Shwag33]

Pens are following in the footsteps of CHI and LAK...

They had a crapload of OT loser points this season; without them they would've been a wild card team.

It wouldn't surprise if they struggle to make the playoffs or even miss altogether next season.

This is a pretty stupid take... They had a crapload of loser points because they were terrible in 3v3 and shootouts. If there were ties the penguins would actually be closer to the top of the standings than the other way around.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Falls on Crosby

 

[chethejet]

I was surprised the Pens were swept. Pens have been up and down this year but became a team that did the minimum far to many times to win. Never played a complete game basically all year. But Pens still have nice assets to retool and be one of the cup favorites again. The question is will they do that.

 

[Coffey]

Falls on Crosby

I don't see how not.
Great players are supposed to pick up what their team leaves behind.
If he had 7 pts in 4 games, then we can at least say he tried.

 

[Gnashville]

The Gorton’s Fisherman

 

[al secord]

Did anyone say The Islanders yet?

 

[Le Magnifique 66]

As much as JR has done great things in the past few years, IMO it all started after winning the B2B Cup

at the draft, the horrible pathetic trade for Reaves for a 1st and Sundqvist
Signing of Hunwick which he was brutal and needed to trade but had to include Sheary in order for a team to take him on
Trade for Brassard
Had to flip him within a few months and originally got screwed
Hagelin for Pearson when Hags was a key piece here
Signing of JJ to a 5 year deal

I mean I like JR, I really do, he has brought back this team into a top contender for a few years and was able to accomplish a B2B Cup which is remarkable nowadays, but he has been really bad in the past 2 years. Time to fix things up for good once and for all this off season.

 

[4thTierSport]

Who cleared out the resources to get them out of this?

 

[golgoXIII]

60 turnovers for Penguins in 4 games and in the same time CLB make 12 turnovers in 4 games

 

[Matty Sundin]

They cant be good forever. I'm sure they dont lose sleep at night

 

[JPE123]

Rutherford all the way, with trading Hagelin and signing Johnson being the biggest mistakes.

Malkin was over the past three seasons a 2.99 P/60 5v5 player with Hagelin and a 2.27 P/60 5v5 player without him, an almost 25% lower scoring rate. While Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel was a great unit, X-Malkin-Kessel was not and Hagelin-Malkin-X almost as good as with Kessel.

While Hagelin's own scoring ability has declined his ability to drive possession has not and he was the perfect linemate for Malkin in that regard. Despite Hagelin's scoring issues this season for the Penguins, Malkin actually had a higher P/60 with him in 2018-19 (3.60) than the three year average.

Always thought Hagelin was underrated

 

[LateSleeper]

Father time and past success.

Almost every great team, semi-dynasty or dynasty, goes thru this. You either get rid of all your good soldiers before they start sucking and you'll be consequently labeled cynical, ruthless, spineless, ungrateful and whatnot, or you stick with them till the end, which in the end means watching their sad and inevitable decline.

Pens fans had their glory days. They went to the moooon, and now they're on the dark side of it.

 

[Icarium]

Letang has been washed for a while. Malkin and kessel only did well on the third line when bonino was taking 2nd line duties. 17 pens were one of the weakest/luckiest winners, the decline had already begun

Nonsense, Malkin and Kessel were far better than Bonino in 2017, their line was just fine, it utterly destroyed Columbus who were a top 4 team in the regular season. 2017 was a flawed team who rode some incredible goaltending by both MAF and Murray, sure, but Malkin and Kessel actually had more combined points than Guentzel and Crosby (though, of course, Gunetzel did not play on PP1). Bonino was a ghost for most of the playoffs, nowhere near 2016 Bonino.

SC/EM/PK are not enough anymore to just power a series,, plus guentzel has nothing left to play for,, he got paid and THEN IT turns out ,,,,,,,,,he got terribly under paid as a 40g PPg player. 6m per LOLZ

Guentzel has incredible playoff numbers even after these 4 bad games, he will be just fine and is underpaid big time. He got his new contract months ago, not a week ago, remember? If he had waited till the end of the regular season he could have easily gotten a million more a year.