Post-Game Talk: Blue Jackets 2, Pens 1 (OT) - ****

[mpp9]

Half of what you listed has nothing to do with line combinations.

Hawks won three Cups with very different lines. Theres more than one group of lines to use. PH doesnt have to be with Sid. Guentzel might be best off on RW. Maybe Sid is better off with a speed element on RW to disrupt a defense like KCD.

The fact Maatta-Daley sucks and we dont have much of a third line isnt on the coach.

 

[Asuna]

it took columbus beating us in overtime, on a back to back, at home, with us missing 4 key players.

not worried at all. glad to get a point

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

Half of what you listed has nothing to do with line combinations.

Hawks won three Cups with very different lines. Theres more than one group of lines to use. PH doesnt have to be with Sid. Guentzel might be best off on RW. Maybe Sid is better off with a speed element on RW to disrupt a defense like KCD.

The fact Maatta-Daley sucks and we dont have much of a third line isnt on the coach.

Hornqvist is a top 6 forward and works much better with Crosby than with Malkin. And you may recall that K-C-D was garbage against tight checking. S-C-H has always looked better than S-C-R. Rust on Crosby's wing would be a disaster in the playoffs.

You proved my point. You have to have had your head buried in the sand if you thought S-C-R looked good when it was together.

 

[Lomez]

Meh. Good game, enjoyable to watch. Columbus is clearly a good team. As has been noted, getting a point on the road on the second of a back to back missing a few key guys is fine.

Weird lines in the OT though, bunch of guys looking as if they're playing for the first time together.

 

[Clare2904]

Reading the first few posts I am glad my recording of the game stopped with 4 minutes left in regulation.

 

[End of Line]

Other than that rat ******* scoring the GW goal, I'm fine with everything.

+ Murray is putting the league on notice right now he was ****ing phenomenal last night
+ Hags

-------- Kunitz is straight ass right now

 

[Shrimper]

I'm happy to come out of that game with a point, we had two D missing for christ sake.

Going forward I want to see the following tried;

Guentzel - Crosby - Kessel
Hagelin - Malkin - Hornqvist
Kunitz - Bonino - Wilson
Kuhnhackl - Cullen - Rowney

 

[AjaxTelamon]

I'm very encouraged by the game. Good fight by the team, great effort. All they need up front is Sheary back to push players down the lineup and we'll take a big step forward.

 

[Crosbyfan]

I'm happy to come out of that game with a point, we had two D missing for christ sake.

Going forward I want to see the following tried;

Guentzel - Crosby - Kessel
Hagelin - Malkin - Hornqvist
Kunitz - Bonino - Wilson
Kuhnhackl - Cullen - Rowney

It is not really that hard to see that that looks better offensively and should hold up defensively just as well. What Sully did by spreading things out produced one goal. It may have been back to back games but he knew that going in...he weakened the lines enough to make them struggle.

Also having Kunitz out at the end of a period with a faceoff in the O zone after an icing...how many minor league coaches are unable think of any better ideas than leaving both Malkin and Kessel on the bench to watch? It is not like they won't be ready to resume in their own lines 20 minutes later.

 

[WayneSid9987]

I'm very encouraged by the game. Good fight by the team, great effort. All they need up front is Sheary back to push players down the lineup and we'll take a big step forward.

While this is true, even without Sheary theres better lines to make.

59-87-72
62-71-81
14/23-13-45(Archy)
14/23-7-34/16

I don't know why they don't use Archy more to supplement some of the loss of speed in Sheary/Rust. He's a very useful player that isn't a slouch offensively.
Like i said, he's basically another Rust.

I'd also like to see them rest the Bones' and Cullen's down the stretch here and there and just let Rowney/Fehr cover @ C.

 

[Killahpunk]

Murray now only trails Dubnyk in SV Pct.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

Murray now only trails Dubnyk in SV Pct.

Tied with Darling. And he's tied with Vasilevskiy and Rask for the most points.

6th for GAA, tied in 10th for SOs with a handful of goalies and no penalties yet. He's boring and miserable but so good.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I'm starting to think Sid ain't winning the Ross.

Not if Kunitz is there regularly.

The hysteria about the team being destroyed by poor line combos and bad coaching is nauseating.

Yeah it's gettin a bit ridiculous. This board way overestimates the impact line combinations has on a game. Especially when those same lines win us other games.

The team is too good to be destroyed by poor line combos.

It's not too good to be impeded by bad line combos. That is what's happening right now.

Do you think that our top 3 lines actually look in sync, and best exploit the talent available?

 

[Zirakzigil]

We were missing some important players due to injury and had played the night before. That said they still played well and took the game to overtime. This isn't a game to freak out over.

 

[mpp9]

Not if Kunitz is there regularly.





The team is too good to be destroyed by poor line combos.

It's not too good to be impeded by bad line combos. That is what's happening right now.

Do you think that our top 3 lines actually look in sync, and best exploit the talent available?

The issue is Kessel ain't producing on his own line. Rearrange Sid and Malkin's lines all you want, but this team goes nowhere until that's fixed.

 

[Ogrezilla]

unless we get a new 3C or Bones takes a massive step forward, Kessel should be with Sid or Geno. I get the idea of three lines, but it just isn't working. At least make the lines that do work better.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

The issue is Kessel ain't producing on his own line. Rearrange Sid and Malkin's lines all you want, but this team goes nowhere until that's fixed.

That's one part of it. The other issue right now is that Sully's committed to a) keeping Kunitz on L1 for the duration of Sheary's injury, and b) keeping Hornqvist and Crosby apart. The number of plays dying on account of these combos are too many to list.

These decisions are needlessly currently costing us points and better playoff seeding. That alone is enough to be frustrated about. We just have to hope that he gets his head out of his ass by the time the games really matter.

 

[MrBrightside]

The hysteria about the team being destroyed by poor line combos and bad coaching is nauseating.

Do other fanbases obsess over line combinations 10% as much as ours (or at least those on this board)? It's truly unreal. They could win 10-0 and 73% of the posts would be *****ing about line combos, Chris Kunitz, and the line combinations involving Chris Kunitz.

 

[mpp9]

Crosby and Malkin apparently never have off games either. Or can't adjust to new linemates.

Coaching is like 5% line combos. They have other things to worry about.

 

[Crosbyfan]

You need overwhelming reasons not to put the best finishers and playmakers together. Sully found those reasons last year. He really hasn't this year so far.

 

[MtlPenFan]

I'm not going to respond to individual quotes, but to a couple of them in general.

First: Enough "burying your head in the sand" stuff from different posters. It's like media coordination and it's annoying.

Second: The pens won the first two rounds last year with Fehr and Kunitz with Geno, lest we forget. Then we won the next two rounds with Geno centering Kunitz and Rust. Dumb ****, but it worked, because the team's best players were their best players, we caught some breaks, and the stars aligned.

In a cap league, there are are a thousand variables that go into a championship run. I can find way more reasons why we should have been eliminated last spring than come up with reasons why we actually won. Same goes for every Chicago run.

Two of our most important support players at forward are on the shelf. That's going to mess with the lines regardless, and like it or not, Sid has carte blanche on choosing linemates, or at least making it known what kind of players he enjoys playing with *wink wink*

And I suppose it's worth repeating for the slow learners: Kessel on one the top two lines makes us just another top heavy team. Advantage gone. The team that already leads the NHL in goals per game will not suddenly add a half a goal per game more because Phil is playing with Sid or Geno. That's not how any of this works.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Do other fanbases obsess over line combinations 10% as much as ours (or at least those on this board)? It's truly unreal. They could win 10-0 and 73% of the posts would be *****ing about line combos, Chris Kunitz, and the line combinations involving Chris Kunitz.

Try reading other teams' game day threads. I regularly read (and sometimes post) on the Isles, Leafs, Flames, and some other forums and see them "complain" about their line combinations just as much, if not more, than we do when their coaches put together idiotic combinations.

Pointing out flawed line combinations isn't exclusive to us Pens fans. When lines aren't working and it's holding a team back, fans -- all fans -- will go on about it because that's what post game discussions are for; discussing what went well/what went wrong in the game.

It's also a fallacy for you to say we'd complain about lines even "after a 10-0 win". When this team was scoring like crazy, people weren't complaining about the lines. Why? BECAUSE THE LINES MADE SENSE. Crosby and Hornqvist were together, Kessel and Hagelin were flanking Geno, etc. Now that the team isn't playing at that same level, in large part because of ineffective line combinations, it's being commented on.

So this nonsense that people will complain even when the team is scoring is BS. It's only when the team struggles to score, or is playing below what it is capable of, that the criticism shows up.

I honestly have no clue what you think should take place in a post game thread. All the usual subjects get touched upon in equal measures (defensive zone coverage, goaltending, poor PP, certain players not playing well, etc.). But as soon as someone dares harp on bad line combinations, "OMG THIS PLACE IS UNREADABLE!".

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I'm not going to respond to individual quotes, but to a couple of them in general.

First: Enough "burying your head in the sand" stuff from different posters. It's like media coordination and it's annoying.

Second: The pens won the first two rounds last year with Fehr and Kunitz with Geno, lest we forget. Then we won the next two rounds with Geno centering Kunitz and Rust. Dumb ****, but it worked, because the team's best players were their best players, we caught some breaks, and the stars aligned.

In a cap league, there are are a thousand variables that go into a championship run. I can find way more reasons why we should have been eliminated last spring than come up with reasons why we actually won. Same goes for every Chicago run.

Two of our most important support players at forward are on the shelf. That's going to mess with the lines regardless, and like it or not, Sid has carte blanche on choosing linemates, or at least making it known what kind of players he enjoys playing with *wink wink*

And I suppose it's worth repeating for the slow learners: Kessel on one the top two lines makes us just another top heavy team. Advantage gone. The team that already leads the NHL in goals per game will not suddenly add a half a goal per game more because Phil is playing with Sid or Geno. That's not how any of this works.

Abridged version: Sheary is out; Bones needs to play much better.

 

[Rocket of Russia]

Try reading other teams' game day threads. I regularly read (and sometimes post) on the Isles, Leafs, Flames, and some other forums and see them "complain" about their line combinations just as much, if not more, than we do when their coaches put together idiotic combinations.

Pointing out flawed line combinations isn't exclusive to us Pens fans. When lines aren't working and it's holding a team back, fans -- all fans -- will go on about it because that's what post game discussions are for; discussing what went well/what went wrong in the game.

It's also a fallacy for you to say we'd complain about lines even "after a 10-0 win". When this team was scoring like crazy, people weren't complaining about the lines. Why? BECAUSE THE LINES MADE SENSE. Crosby and Hornqvist were together, Kessel and Hagelin were flanking Geno, etc. Now that the team isn't playing at that same level, in large part because of ineffective line combinations, it's being commented on.

So this nonsense that people will complain even when the team is scoring is BS. It's only when the team struggles to score, or is playing below what it is capable of, that the criticism shows up.

I honestly have no clue what you think should take place in a post game thread. All the usual subjects get touched upon in equal measures (defensive zone coverage, goaltending, poor PP, certain players not playing well, etc.). But as soon as someone dares harp on bad line combinations, "OMG THIS PLACE IS UNREADABLE!".

I love this. Honestly, I see more "glad we got a point with this tired/injured team" than anything.

The next most common post is the always helpful and pleasant, "nothing to freak out about here - you guys are unbearable!" posts....when pretty much nobody at all is freaking out; just discussing the rights and wrongs of a specific game, and potentially extrapolating that out into common themes over the course of a week, month, or season.

 

[CertifiedLurker]

I'm not going to respond to individual quotes, but to a couple of them in general.

First: Enough "burying your head in the sand" stuff from different posters. It's like media coordination and it's annoying.

Second: The pens won the first two rounds last year with Fehr and Kunitz with Geno, lest we forget. Then we won the next two rounds with Geno centering Kunitz and Rust. Dumb ****, but it worked, because the team's best players were their best players, we caught some breaks, and the stars aligned.

In a cap league, there are are a thousand variables that go into a championship run. I can find way more reasons why we should have been eliminated last spring than come up with reasons why we actually won. Same goes for every Chicago run.

Two of our most important support players at forward are on the shelf. That's going to mess with the lines regardless, and like it or not, Sid has carte blanche on choosing linemates, or at least making it known what kind of players he enjoys playing with *wink wink*

And I suppose it's worth repeating for the slow learners: Kessel on one the top two lines makes us just another top heavy team. Advantage gone. The team that already leads the NHL in goals per game will not suddenly add a half a goal per game more because Phil is playing with Sid or Geno. That's not how any of this works.

I suppose this is worth repeating since you seem to be totally missing the point. There is no advantage. That's it. It's not rocket science. The third line blows by every metric, almost every point Kessel has recorded even-strength has nothing to do with Bonino and rarely is he even on the ice when Kessel produces a point. Kessel absolutely murdering teams on the PP masks some of the 5v5 production issues with the third line.

So to say "advantage gone" is a bit silly when the advantage wasn't there for the past 57 games.