Post-Game Talk: 0-2 in the Mulligan era

[Will Hunting]

I would like to see a LW Perron with Sid. Perron on RW is just bleh all around.

Fixed it for you. Perron shouldn´t be on the 1st line. He shouldn´t be on the 1st PP unit. As for expected questions like "who else if not Perron?".. well pretty much everyone else, but not him and Kunitz. I´ve said it a couple times now. I would like to see Kessel back with Sid now. Let´s say Plotnikov-Sid-Kessel, or maybe even something random like Bonino-Sid-Kessel but Perron got enough chances already and did absolutely NOTHING with them.

 

[IronLore]

Malkin - Crosby - Kessel
Plotnikov - Bonino - Sprong
Perron - Fehr - Hornqvist
Kunitz - Cullen - WBS

Load the top until goals start coming. No one is scoring anyway. Let's Plots and Sprong, who have played well, have a chance to succeed with TOI.

 

[Hossa die Waldfee]

I would explore

Perron-Sid-Hornqvist
Kunitz(if he HAS to be in the top 6)-Malkin-Kessel

wah imo Kunitz and Kessel on a line was a catastrophe with Sid. Kunitz just floats way to much theese days. He is playing like a sniper but is missing the shot to do it effectively. He lays a "big" hit from game to game but all around he is not playing very physical. His net front presence has no battle in it and his boardwork is challenging Kessel's in terms of dedication. Also he looses the puck way too much and with Kessels art of "clearing" the zone I think they would spend the most time in their own.

Agree with the first line though. Wanted to see this from the start of the season. The first few games after the perron trade this was a line and they were pretty good iirc.
Would also like to see Sid double shifted with our 4th line wingers- Plots and Spong had a 12 second shift with him against Boston and they directly created a scoring chance. If Sid is in Danger of too much toi give his pk time to Geno. Geno was great on the pk this season.

ps: Change the #1 powerplay immediately. Geno on the point in the diamond is totally useless. He is playing way too far away from the net and the first to defend the pks rush. Not working.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

This season can't be a wash though. If you think it takes time to learn and adjust to a new coach, which is correct, this team can't miss the playoffs this year. If they do, guess what happens? That's right, another new coach. Then it's rinse and repeat all over again.

So be it. We don't have the blueline to do anything significant if we make the playoffs, which is a pretty big if, and the forward corps still needs some work to boot. I doubt we fire Sullivan this summer, especially if no marquee coaches are available. Even if we do, we'll have an entire off-season to set into place the new coach's system and direction.

I don't know. In my opinion, this season's a wash regardless. The team's just not built properly, and I'd much rather bite the bullet and miss this year to come back stronger in the future than to go out and trade assets for guys like Winnik, Lovejoy, Morrow and Murray to make a vain attempt at getting out of the first round.

Sure the roster has holes and they need another top 4 dman, but do you actually think one player upgrade is going to fix this mess? The coach and the players in that locker room need to figure it out. They aren't this bad of a roster IMO.

Eh, I disagree. Our blueline is wholly unacceptable. Cole's proven that he's incapable of anything above a bottom pairing role, and he's not even good there. Lovejoy's embarrassingly bad, despite what fancy metrics and graphs say because of Dumo's ability to shelter him. Maatta's looked pretty damn bad when you compare him to how he looked early in his rookie season. Letang's injured, surprise, but he's been nowhere near the caliber of player we've seen in the past--on either side of the puck. Then you have a bunch of AHL nobodies who shouldn't be skating regular shifts on an NHL team with playoff, let alone Cup aspirations; Warsofsky, Clendening, etc.

I've said repeatedly that there's no one or two player fix to this team. I still don't think we're getting out of the East even if we land a 1st/2nd pairing d-man and someone like Boedker. We still need to jettison Kunitz, Lovejoy and Cole. We still need to fire Tocchet and fix the PP. We still need to get Sid, Geno and Kessel going at the level they're all capable of.

It's not a complicated list of things we have to do, but it's by no means gonna be quick or easy.

 

[Shrimper]

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

IMO, Sid should shoot the puck and cover the front of the net. I saw Bugs Bunny play all nine positions in baseball, Sid can at least play 2.

 

[eXile59]

So be it. We don't have the blueline to do anything significant if we make the playoffs, which is a pretty big if, and the forward corps still needs some work to boot. I doubt we fire Sullivan this summer, especially if no marquee coaches are available. Even if we do, we'll have an entire off-season to set into place the new coach's system and direction.

I don't know. In my opinion, this season's a wash regardless. The team's just not built properly, and I'd much rather bite the bullet and miss this year to come back stronger in the future than to go out and trade assets for guys like Winnik, Lovejoy, Morrow and Murray to make a vain attempt at getting out of the first round.



Eh, I disagree. Our blueline is wholly unacceptable. Cole's proven that he's incapable of anything above a bottom pairing role, and he's not even good there. Lovejoy's embarrassingly bad, despite what fancy metrics and graphs say because of Dumo's ability to shelter him. Maatta's looked pretty damn bad when you compare him to how he looked early in his rookie season. Letang's injured, surprise, but he's been nowhere near the caliber of player we've seen in the past--on either side of the puck. Then you have a bunch of AHL nobodies who shouldn't be skating regular shifts on an NHL team with playoff, let alone Cup aspirations; Warsofsky, Clendening, etc.

I've said repeatedly that there's no one or two player fix to this team. I still don't think we're getting out of the East even if we land a 1st/2nd pairing d-man and someone like Boedker. We still need to jettison Kunitz, Lovejoy and Cole. We still need to fire Tocchet and fix the PP. We still need to get Sid, Geno and Kessel going at the level they're all capable of.

It's not a complicated list of things we have to do, but it's by no means gonna be quick or easy.

Dallas is the number one team in the league. That defense isn't that great. They just score goals. We could do that if we could figure out why we're not scoring goals. Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Letang, Hornqvist, Perron. The talents there.

 

[WayneSid9987]

I do like that Sullivan is working on the real weaknesses.
Clean breakouts and efficient NZ play and clean entries have been the teams largest problem for awhile now.
Gonna need to get Letang back and playing well and the D atleast have a chance of improving in those areas with the likes of Tang, Maata, Domou, Daley, Wars instead of Scuds constantly in the mix.

And to steal a phrase from Olczyk, they need to play more in the O-zone "between the dots" or the high scoring area.

When they get pucks back to the points, they need better screens and traffic.

They should absolutely try different looks in the top 6 instead of the Kunitzs and Perrons. And they have options to try. From Plots to Sprong to Bonino to Fehr to Cullen to the AHL'ers.

The PP just needs the correct player placement first and then you can work on it's movement and opening up passing/shot lanes. And the setup isn't hard to figure out.

Crosby down low. Geno the right wall one time option. Kessel on left wall and the most important...a smart offensive D that can walk the line and that can either 1)get shots on goal 2)give Kessel space to skate in his wristers 3)give nice one timer passes to G. The screen player can filter through Horny, Kunitz and Perron to see who's really best at it at the moment.

That D-Man can be Daley, Wars, Maata, Domou or if he ever grew a brain, Letang. Probably won't happen so go with one of the first 4 instead.

 

[GreatjonUmber]

Was at the game and Daley looked decent to good, but I always judge live vs on tv differently. How did you guys think he looked?

 

[Common Sense]

Was at the game and Daley looked decent to good, but I always judge live vs on tv differently. How did you guys think he looked?

Noticed him maybe once the whole game.

 

[The Old Master]

Was at the game and Daley looked decent to good, but I always judge live vs on tv differently. How did you guys think he looked?

hard for any one player to look when everyone else $#%%$#

 

[GreatjonUmber]

Noticed him maybe once the whole game.

hard for any one player to look when everyone else $#%%$#

Yeahhhh. Weird that there wasn't much effort from the team in game two with a new coach. I had Scuds in my mind when I was watching his skating and thought it was great... but yeah

 

[Hossa die Waldfee]

Was at the game and Daley looked decent to good, but I always judge live vs on tv differently. How did you guys think he looked?

I think he looked a bit shaky in the d-zone but was expecting much worse from what I've heard from Stars/Chi fans.

He nicely skated along the right board twice, but there was no support or passing option at all.

Would agree that he looked decent.

 

[Son Goku]

It's not a bad thing that you don't notice him a lot. Every time Scuderi stepped on the ice you just waited for him to **** up.

 

[Gurglesons]

+ We still have yet to win a game without Letang this year, like most years our record is absolutely terrible without him. Let's trade him

+ JR's "Best Penguins Forward Roster since the '90s" continues to be at the bottom of the league in GF

+ We are pretty much in 14th place in the East.

 

[Jacob]

Was at the game and Daley looked decent to good, but I always judge live vs on tv differently. How did you guys think he looked?

I forgot we got him and for his first few shifts I was wondering why Warsofsky switched numbers.

He had a couple nice plays, like where he jumped up to be an option for Kessel on that 3-on-2 to make it a 4-on-2, which forced the D back a bit more. Flubbed a few pucks also, though. I think he'll be good for our transition and offense.

 

[StutzlesTapeJob]

I agree with moving Crosby to malkins wing until he gets going. Try them with Perron until bennet is back.

Kunitz Bonino and horny can be a kind of scrapping shutdown second line. Match then up against other top lines and play to a target neutral result.

Fehr can center sprong and kessel for a skilled third and a good matchup.

Cullen can role with the wbs and plots for a respectable 4th.

Sounds wild but can't be worse. I also think it's important that the org remember how often we used to play Crosby and malkin together in games when we needed offense. Why exactly did that stop?....

 

[MtlPenFan]

+ We still have yet to win a game without Letang this year, like most years our record is absolutely terrible without him. Let's trade him

+ JR's "Best Penguins Forward Roster since the '90s" continues to be at the bottom of the league in GF

+ We are pretty much in 14th place in the East.

How's Ray's son doing these days?

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I never noticed it was Letang in pixies avatar until just now. The blind, fanatical defending of him makes so much sense now.

 

[Jjbuck]

I agree with moving Crosby to malkins wing until he gets going. Try them with Perron until bennet is back.

Kunitz Bonino and horny can be a kind of scrapping shutdown second line. Match then up against other top lines and play to a target neutral result.

Fehr can center sprong and kessel for a skilled third and a good matchup.

Cullen can role with the wbs and plots for a respectable 4th.

Sounds wild but can't be worse. I also think it's important that the org remember how often we used to play Crosby and malkin together in games when we needed offense. Why exactly did that stop?....

because it never worked.

 

[Giskard]

The all team looks like 2012 Fleury, no confidence and always fumble the puck, maybe this team need to work more on the mental side like they did with Marc Andrè.

 

[Hossa die Waldfee]

I never noticed it was Letang in pixies avatar until just now. The blind, fanatical defending of him makes so much sense now.

Yeah maybe he likes him. But the witch hunt on this board of a top 20 Defenseman, while our Defense lies in ruins, is borderline lunatic.

But I guess the big improvement of our #1 pp since he went out justifies that

 

[Gurglesons]

I never noticed it was Letang in pixies avatar until just now. The blind, fanatical defending of him makes so much sense now.

Self admittedly will defend Kris Letang critics as we all know to points that are borderline ridiculous.

I also think he is a major catalyst of his team and the way his play has gone over the past five years is pretty much how our entire defense group goes.

 

[Will Hunting]

Letang´s hate is weird. Guy is injury-prone and not a good PP QB, but tell about him what you want, one thing is for sure. This team can´t win without him.

 

[Son Goku]

Letang´s hate is weird. Guy is injury-prone and not a good PP QB, but tell about him what you want, one thing is for sure. This team can´t win without him.

Could be due to the system itself needing a minute eating defenseman capable of carrying the puck. Letang has been awful this year.