Post-Game Talk: Blackhawks 6, Bryan Rust 3, Penguins 0 - At Least It Wasn't 10-2

[cygnus47]

Because firing a coach a year and a half after winning back to back cups is incredibly stupid, and no coach would want to coach your team with such bad job security. The entire purpose of firing him is having a bad 10 game stretch in November, that's why you'd be firing him. Outside of those 10 games, the team has been really good this year.

The stars aren't playing like they want the coach gone, only Malkin is playing bad right now. You don't fire your coach because one of your 4 elite core pieces is struggling for a month.

I love that we posted right after each other haha.

 

[Icarium]

That 4th goal against where Sid was just puck watching and Geno just circled away told the whole story.

Exactly. The team is nowhere good enough to allow our players to get away with this sort of lack of effort. I don't expect them to play Selke level defence, don't get me wrong, but they should at least make the opponents work hard for their goals. Especially with this PP which seemingly relies almost entirely on pure talent rather than plans and schemes. The intensity is sorely lacking, we need Horny back in the worst way.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Look at what happened to the Hawks when they fired Quenneville, they went from "kind of mediocre, not doing all that great but not terrible" to "holy ****, this team is an absolute mess". With Colliton as the head coach, the Hawks are 4-12-2. The problem with that team was never Quenneville, it was always the build of the roster. Firing a great coach just made a mediocre team horrendous. Why do people think the Penguins would have any different of a result?

Teams very rarely benefited from firing a Sullivan caliber coach during the season, the Penguins winning a cup after firing Therrien in 2009 makes Penguins fans have a warped view on firing coaches. The Oilers are the only team who benefited from a coaching change, and that's because Hitchcock made sweeping changes that specifically fit the Oilers. The Blues, Hawks and Kings have all gotten dramatically worse or stayed just as bad from their coaching moves.

 

[BHD]

Why do people think the Penguins would have any different of a result?

Because some people lack perspective, and desperately want to see this team win another Cup - as they should.

Also, I agree with @ColePens. Sullivan isn't helping the situation at all, but firing him isn't going to make certain issues go away. The bottom is lacking in the skill department and the defense sucks.

 

[Crosbyfan]

++ the result you would expect if you knew Rust would get a hattrick
-- the result we got

 

[SUBdrewgANS]

I can't even remember the last time the penguins beat the blackhawks. They always seem to have the penguins number.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Because some people lack perspective, and desperately want to see this team win another Cup - as they should.

Also, I agree with @ColePens. Sullivan isn't helping the situation at all, but firing him isn't going to make certain issues go away. The bottom is lacking in the skill department and the defense sucks.

Honestly, I don't think those are the issues with this team. If Rust and Sheahan gets their groove back, which they have shown signs of recently (Rust hat-trick last night, Sheahan has 3 goals in his last 8 games), the bottom-6 is really good. Sure, you may have to find a better fit for the 3C spot than Brassard, but that's not a problem of Brassard being bad or lacking skill in the bottom-6. He's just ill-suited for the defensive role the Penguins need out of their 3rd line.

The Penguins need to get a strong skating PMD and might need a better fit for the 3C spot, but that's really about the extent of their problems. If Schultz was healthy and Brassard was meshing well in a 3C role here, their roster would have basically no flaws on it. The Penguins are small tweaks away from having a really damn good roster, if guys like Murray, Rust, Sheahan and Brassard get back to the levels they should be at.

 

[EightyOne]

Look at what happened to the Hawks when they fired Quenneville, they went from "kind of mediocre, not doing all that great but not terrible" to "holy ****, this team is an absolute mess". With Colliton as the head coach, the Hawks are 4-12-2. The problem with that team was never Quenneville, it was always the build of the roster. Firing a great coach just made a mediocre team horrendous. Why do people think the Penguins would have any different of a result?

You kinda answered your own question. Imagine if the Hawks went from Colliton to Quenneville? They'd go from hot garbage to mediocre.

Who's fault is it that the Blackhawks hired a guy with less than 4 years of coaching experience total, and nothing in NHL prior? *edit: ah he coached for 4 years in Sweden. BIG EFFING WHOOP.

I mean. Damn, dude, you just made a great point about how much a coach matters, if anything.

 

[Empoleon8771]

You kinda answered your own question. Imagine if the Hawks went from Colliton to Quenneville? They'd go from hot garbage to mediocre.

Who's fault is it that the Blackhawks hired a guy with less than 4 years of coaching experience total, and nothing in NHL prior? *edit: ah he coached for 4 years in Sweden. BIG EFFING WHOOP.

I mean. Damn, dude, you just made a great point about how much a coach matters, if anything.

Yes, coaching matters a lot. You're very unlikely to find a better coach than Sullivan, because Sullivan is a great coach. If the Penguins had a **** coach, you'd have a valid point, but they don't. The upgrade from Sullivan to Quenneville is marginal, and anyone else you can get right now would be a downgrade. There isn't a dramatically better coach than Sullivan available, hell, I don't know if there is a dramatically better coach than Sullivan period.

 

[Turin]

You kinda answered your own question. Imagine if the Hawks went from Colliton to Quenneville? They'd go from hot garbage to mediocre.

Who's fault is it that the Blackhawks hired a guy with less than 4 years of coaching experience total, and nothing in NHL prior? *edit: ah he coached for 4 years in Sweden. BIG EFFING WHOOP.

I mean. Damn, dude, you just made a great point about how much a coach matters, if anything.

You think Sully is the Colliton in this situation? Really? Sullivan won back-to-back Cups 17 months ago.

 

[EightyOne]

Just saying the road goes both ways.

You cant honestly sit there and say "coaches can change a team, dont change Sullivan though, he has no effect on why the players f***ing suck out there!"

I could care less who the coach is as long as they don't appear to be drowning. Sullivan can leave or stay, but the team better not be shit.

 

[Old Gregg]

+ Petterson
+ was
+ LIGHTS OUT!!

 

[PensPlz]

Isn't this the third game we've lost where someone on our team had a hat trick?

Kind of speaks volumes about this team. People show up and the rest of the team just doesn't care.

I would imagine stuff like this is very discouraging. Like Rust should be super happy he got his hat trick but the team lost... Lost bad... So he's probably thinking "why bother?"

 

[Angrrus]

What needs to done?

People should defend him even more from any criticism, screaming "Look how many points he has on the season!!!!1111111"

He needs to feel zero pressure. This will definitely wake him up and give him sense of urgency.

 

[Angrrus]

there is an easy fix to that.... wait 4 months

And then what? Early offseason start?

 

[Angrrus]

I don't see the guy who checked out, I really don't. He was second best player in NHL in October, his body language is not I don't care, at 2:2 he was flying , but then things just don't go his way, he just needs one or two lucky breaks..

For 10 mln/year he must make his own breaks.

 

[Don'tcry4mejanhrdina]

Hopefully this at least gets Rust going. They need the role players playing well in the worst way.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Isn't this the third game we've lost where someone on our team had a hat trick?

Kind of speaks volumes about this team. People show up and the rest of the team just doesn't care.

I would imagine stuff like this is very discouraging. Like Rust should be super happy he got his hat trick but the team lost... Lost bad... So he's probably thinking "why bother?"

Malkin is the only guy I see that I’d say looks like he’s coasting.

Crosby, Kessel, Letang, Dumo and Guentzel are playing hard. Brass always looks way better when he plays up with skill, how people want to interpret that, whatever, but he doesn’t look like he doesn’t care.

Hornqvist is always the hardest worker out there and he’s out, so that hurts.

The rest of the players are various degrees of suck and vanilla, but at least Rust came out of hibernation while a guy like Pearson is ghosting it.

I really don’t see a roster of guys that don’t care, just a top heavy roster and a bunch of AHL talent in the bottom six to go along with a bottom four defense that’s barely mediocre.

Just hard to get consistent energy from your team when 9-10 guys are so vanilla and can’t do much of anything with the puck. Pearson, ZAR, Grant, Dea, Cullen, Sheahan, JJ, Maatta, Oleksiak, even Pettersson.... meh.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I have a problem with people giving Kessel a pass while heavily criticizing Malkin. People are aware that Kessel has 5 goals in the same stretch that people are criticizing Malkin's production? Kessel has 2 ES goals in his last 21 games, Sheahan, Pearson (in only 14 games) and Rust has more ES goals than him over this stretch and ZAR (in only 17 games) has just as many. Those "vanilla guys" are actually doing their jobs, they're actually the bright spot on this team recently.

I just can't understand why people are still criticizing the depth players instead of the top players. I just can't, no matter how vanilla these guys are, they're doing their jobs. The bottom-6 is producing really well, the PK has been fantastic recently (which consists of mostly depth players) and the team has been much stronger defensively. It's like people are ignoring the fantastic result they're giving to try and deviate blame away from the top players, who actually deserve criticism.

 

[Pancakes]

I have a problem with people giving Kessel a pass while heavily criticizing Malkin. People are aware that Kessel has 5 goals in the same stretch that people are criticizing Malkin's production? Kessel has 2 ES goals in his last 21 games, Sheahan, Pearson (in only 14 games) and Rust has more ES goals than him over this stretch and ZAR (in only 17 games) has just as many. Those "vanilla guys" are actually doing their jobs, they're actually the bright spot on this team recently.

I just can't understand why people are still criticizing the depth players instead of the top players. I just can't, no matter how vanilla these guys are, they're doing their jobs. The bottom-6 is producing really well, the PK has been fantastic recently (which consists of mostly depth players) and the team has been much stronger defensively. It's like people are ignoring the fantastic result they're giving to try and deviate blame away from the top players, who actually deserve criticism.

The flipside of this is Kessel/Malkin/Sid are all over a PPG. How much better can we expect them to do? Sure they're not scoring at ES, but they are scoring.

Actually the frightening thing about these Penguins is our stars are scoring, and our depth has been pretty good too. Like Guentzel and Horny have done more than you could even expect them to. Ditto Simon. The only big depth guys that have been a disappointment are Brassard and Rust. Everyone else is doing as much as you could hope for.

So the fact that most of our major offensive players are producing and we still can't win is....bad. This isn't 2014-15 where you're like man there's no way Sid can be this bad for a whole season. This is a situation where I'm like well yeah Malkin has sucked over the past however many but he also still has a good point pace on the year. Maybe this is just a statistical correction after a hot start.

Fact is we're a bad team and the only reason we even have a prayer of making the playoffs is we're lucky enough to be in a division where everyone else sucks too. We may be bad, but are we worse than the Isles? I doubt it. Worse than the Devils or Flyers or Rangers? I don't think so.

We *probably* will still make the playoffs just because of that. But it will be a short playoffs most likely, because our team is bad.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

3 cups since 09.

2 of the last 3 lol

That's the kind of thinking that leads to giving good players 10.5M contrats and holding onto coaches for 5 years too long.

 

[domaug]

Hope you realise my post was a joke!

i didn't. i got carried away. sorry

 

[SprootsMasterFlex]

+ Petterson
+ was
+ LIGHTS OUT!!

Agreed. He definitely has exceeded my expectations thus far.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The flipside of this is Kessel/Malkin/Sid are all over a PPG. How much better can we expect them to do? Sure they're not scoring at ES, but they are scoring.

Actually the frightening thing about these Penguins is our stars are scoring, and our depth has been pretty good too. Like Guentzel and Horny have done more than you could even expect them to. Ditto Simon. The only big depth guys that have been a disappointment are Brassard and Rust. Everyone else is doing as much as you could hope for.

So the fact that most of our major offensive players are producing and we still can't win is....bad. This isn't 2014-15 where you're like man there's no way Sid can be this bad for a whole season. This is a situation where I'm like well yeah Malkin has sucked over the past however many but he also still has a good point pace on the year. Maybe this is just a statistical correction after a hot start.

The problem is that they haven't been scoring at the same time. The bottom-6 has been very productive at a time when Malkin's line has really struggled and the powerplay has somewhat flat-lined. If anything, I think it's encouraging that the Penguins are 6-3-3 in their last 12 with Malkin struggling as much as he has (8 points in 12 games and a -10). With Malkin playing well, they probably would have won 10 or so of those 12 games, because 5 of those 6 losses were 1 goal losses without the ENGs (only one that wasn't was a 2 goal loss).

If Malkin gets his **** together and the bottom-6 continues to roll, this team is going to steamroll the league. It's just a matter of getting all of the pieces working at the same time. The defense, depth scoring, goaltending and PKing are all doing well or better right now. You just have to also get the top-6 and powerplay playing well at the same time. If they can do that, this team is going to win 80% or more of their games.

We *probably* will still make the playoffs just because of that. But it will be a short playoffs most likely, because our team is bad.

See, I just don't agree with this. Get this team clicking in all cylinders and it will murder any team it faces. I truly believe that. You still have areas you need to upgrade, but those upgrades are going from Brassard to a 3C who fits better or Maatta to a stronger skating PMD. They're not going from say Greg McKegg to Sheahan.

 

[Gurglesons]

The flipside of this is Kessel/Malkin/Sid are all over a PPG. How much better can we expect them to do? Sure they're not scoring at ES, but they are scoring.

Actually the frightening thing about these Penguins is our stars are scoring, and our depth has been pretty good too. Like Guentzel and Horny have done more than you could even expect them to. Ditto Simon. The only big depth guys that have been a disappointment are Brassard and Rust. Everyone else is doing as much as you could hope for.

So the fact that most of our major offensive players are producing and we still can't win is....bad. This isn't 2014-15 where you're like man there's no way Sid can be this bad for a whole season. This is a situation where I'm like well yeah Malkin has sucked over the past however many but he also still has a good point pace on the year. Maybe this is just a statistical correction after a hot start.

Fact is we're a bad team and the only reason we even have a prayer of making the playoffs is we're lucky enough to be in a division where everyone else sucks too. We may be bad, but are we worse than the Isles? I doubt it. Worse than the Devils or Flyers or Rangers? I don't think so.

We *probably* will still make the playoffs just because of that. But it will be a short playoffs most likely, because our team is bad.

Malkin and Kessel has an unreal start while Sid was having a disappearing act. Since Sid has come back they’ve been gone and Sid has been unreal.

Once again, I don’t think “production” is my main concern with our stars, it’s the fact they are actively losing us games due to lazy penalties, frightenly sloppy powerplays and general malcontent on the ice.

People say our bottom six is “vanilla” ZAR, Sheahan and Rust were the biggest battlers on our team last night.