Again, not to beat a dead horse, but it's never gonna be a better time to see what we have with Riikola than now. If he makes Maatta expendable, that's so unbelievably fortunate for us for a number of reasons.
Phil's Phil. He's gonna look like shit until that one shift where he streaks down the wing and rips a snapshot at lightspeed to blow it by the goalie. You gotta take the bad with the good. That being said, I do think this is his last season with the Pens. Another year of Phil and Sully having to deal with each other is just gonna be too much. He won't be on this team next October, I feel pretty strongly about that.
I don't think Pens fans realize (yet) how freaking embarrassing it is that we have Brassard as our 3C.
Yeah, for as much of a stink was made about his playoffs I think he was perfectly fine during the Flyers series before injuries caught up to him against Washington. A pre-season under his belt to learn this system perfectly and now that he's settled in with this team and teammates, he's going to be exceptional I think. He's the best 3C we've had since Staal's heyday, and he's probably even better than that in a player v. player vacuum.