Post-Game Talk: Blue Jackets 7, Penguins 1: The Pens get crushed

[MtlPenFan]

It's just November...
It's just December...
It's only January...
Huh...February now..
Oh **** it is March and we need to win 12 of 15 games to have a shot at wildcard


Why are 'early' games pointless again? 2 points now is as important as 2 points in March.

This only applies to teams that that are floundering and can't find their footing. Is this the situation here?

 

[ColePens]

I also don't buy into that whole peaking thing. I think it's nice because in 09 and 16 we did peak and it was quite obvious, but we also were a great team last year under Sully. I think all the pieces were there. We peaked in 13 and ran into a freaking wall. So it doesn't always work.

Bottom line, you just have to be good. There is no magical run. A team has to be good and play the way they are supposed to. I would say healthy >>>> peak.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Sid had a great post-game interview. He wasn't passive. He wasn't letting it kill him. He was in the pocket for the right mindset. He said they have to move on but at the same time remember it next time they play CBJ. I loved that comment. He didn't shrug it off, a la DB teams did, but he also wasn't going to let it create negativity.

Really liked where they were on the post game quotes.

I wish that I could give credit to one guy for that. Oh wait, I can.

Did you see him working the linesmen with 18 seconds left for a missed offsides call?

Sully is the main reason that I am not really worried about the team getting too full of themselves after a game like the Rangers' game, or blowing this one out of proportion the other way. And why I am not especially worried going into the playoffs. That may change, but for now, on the one year anniversary of his first win as a Pens' coach, you have to trust what he is doing.

 

[MtlPenFan]

Caps beat themselves honestly. If it wasn't for that B.S. Oshie goal in game 1, the series wouldn't have even been hard. In no instance was that Washington arena last year as hostile as a regular season CBJ game was tonight. Murray played great, and is our goalie going forward, but not really a fair comparison to the level of intensity from Flyers series we've seen in the past.

You're bad at this.

 

[KIRK]

It isn't even the peaking early thing. Merely not to overreact to a stinker. I doubt that anyone seriously believes that this team will miss the playoffs, and in fact should be almost certainly a top three in the east points team.

Sully has earned the benefit of the doubt regarding having this team ready when the games count in April.

Will they win the cup? Doubtful. It is not called the hardest trophy to win in all of sports for a reason. But they have as good a chance as any team in the NHL. Tonight changed none of that.

The individual games don't concern me. I haven't seen much of a sustained sign that it's crystallizing like last year up front. THAT concerns me.

By extension, the Kunitz **** concerns me, because Kunitz with Geno (or in the top nine really) means it is less likely that things will crystallize. And, Bonino concerns me, because if he doesn't get his **** together, then there is no HBK.

There's no magic formula for a GM here. Best a GM can do is put pieces into place that give the Pens their best chance to repeat. It's the same thing I say about a coach . . . the good ones put their players in the best possible position to make plays by accentuating their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, but that only makes winning more likely. From there, anything can happen, especially in the playoffs.

I hope JR is willing to be proactive here if things are as hit and miss up front in 4-6 weeks as they have been until now.

I also don't buy into that whole peaking thing. I think it's nice because in 09 and 16 we did peak and it was quite obvious, but we also were a great team last year under Sully. I think all the pieces were there. We peaked in 13 and ran into a freaking wall. So it doesn't always work.

Bottom line, you just have to be good. There is no magical run. A team has to be good and play the way they are supposed to. I would say healthy >>>> peak.

I prefer crystallizing to the word peaking. End of the day, I think whether it crystallizes boils down to Kunitz and Bonino.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

One more thought about Sullivan.

The players know that he has their backs. It is kind of like having that rock solid goalie back there so that you know that you can just do your job and not have to worry about what he is doing, or not doing back there.

I have not seen this team act dumb once in the past year. Like tonight when the score got out of hand, in past years the Pens would have lost their minds. Even with what Dubinsky did to Sid, the Pens ignored any idea of payback, took their lumps, and moved on professionally. I think that knowing that Sully will give the officials hell and has their backs is a part of that. Trusting what he is selling is the other part.

 

[NotWendell]

One game, two points. It means as much as the Pens 7-2 beatdown of the Rags. These two clubs are going to be battling all season and probably sometime in the postseason.

 

[ColePens]

Yeah, I agree Jaded. The main thing I'm watching is how Sully coaches when things aren't going well. Every coach can coach when the team is buying in and clicking. DB looked like a genius in 09. Sully did a lot more in 16 by changing the whole culture. But how can they coach when the team questions themselves and starts to doubt. That's when real coaching comes into play. DB met that task with epic failure. He's a great coach when it's rolling, but when up against a wall, he failed big time.

Sully has insane experience and a wealth of knowledge. He also commands respect and the culture of the team is 2 million times better than it ever was under DB. I trust him, but i'm going to choose to critique as we go.

 

[EightyOne]

Ill back away from the ledge. These games happen, it just sucks. Just looked at some of the scores from the 91-92 Pens. Plenty of horrible losses there. Outcome of that year was good.

Sully really does need to figure out some lines. JR needs some personnel movement too.

 

[I am Canadian]

Pretty off-topic delete if you want mods, but I had Fluery dripped in my fantasy league and I want to know the chances that he recovers the starting position? Anyone have any input?

 

[Mattpilf]

That's too easy. I even missed the 6-2 Minnesota away game where we were also consummately outplayed, so five of our six regulation losses away have been blowouts. And that's in 16 away games in total, meaning that almost one in three games we've just laid down - getting ass****ed to a merry 29-5 tune.
The remaining regulation loss was 5-3 at Long Island where it was 3-3 with seconds to go, but in that game we were also complete ass for 40 minutes.

You get a few bad beatings in a season, sure, but we are not even half way through, and the above is about compete and pride.

Honestly this team just seems to have consistency issues all around. It's not Fleury or Murray or home or away, it's just the Pens being super inconsistent.


The team only has one period where they score more goals than the let in, that's the 3rd period. They don't bring it every night, they definitely don't bring it the whole 60 minutes, I'm talking about the Pens really only look like the Pens for often 20 minutes at a time, the rest is just treading water to miserable.

When thing spiral out it's really bad fast when things go wrong. It's not individual players fault. Maybe three games this season i remember a solid 60 minute game, one was the Kings game we lost recently.

Something confusing going on. Luckily I know Sullivan isn't happy about it even when they win.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

I don't think that anyone thinks that this team does not have issues to fix between now and April Kirk. Some of which you set out in your post. The nice thing is that they have time to address them, and as I said Sullivan and JR deserve some rope that they earned to be trusted to recognize the issues, and to fix them. Or at least make a good attempt at it.

 

[ColePens]

Pretty off-topic delete if you want mods, but I had Fluery dripped in my fantasy league and I want to know the chances that he recovers the starting position? Anyone have any input?

Nope and the Murray vs. Fleury thread would be more apropos.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Pretty off-topic delete if you want mods, but I had Fluery dripped in my fantasy league and I want to know the chances that he recovers the starting position? Anyone have any input?

Fluery dripped in my fantasy league

Fleury dripped in his NHL games this year too.

 

[ColePens]

Honestly this team just seems to have consistency issues all around. It's not Fleury or Murray or home or away, it's just the Pens being super inconsistent.


The team only has one period where they score more goals than the let in, that's the 3rd period. They don't bring it every night, they definitely don't bring it the whole 60 minutes, I'm talking about the Pens really only look like the Pens for often 20 minutes at a time, the rest is just treading water to miserable.

When thing spiral out it's really bad fast when things go wrong. It's not individual players fault. Maybe three games this season i remember a solid 60 minute game, one was the Kings game we lost recently.

Something confusing going on

How is it not? It's a 1-0 game and the following things happen. Dumo makes a terrible decision to go slide down and leave back door wide open. He even slams his stick because he knows he ****ed up. Then DP went full on idiot mode and doesn't cover his man right in the slot and then gets burned easily. Those are not team issues. Those are individual **** ups.

And then let's go further. Why are we not flying back into the game? Bonino was utter **** tonight and has been bad for the majority of the season. It's probably the only reason HBK isn't clicking. He can't do anything out there that doesn't look sloppy. He was like this last year, too, then turned into the Bonino we all know when it matters. We have to hope he can click that button again because we need him for what Sully wants (running 4 lines). I almost want them to promote Cully to 3rd line w/ Hags/Kessel and see what happens.

But the point is, it's individual play. Through and through. I don't see how it isn't.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Caps beat themselves honestly. If it wasn't for that B.S. Oshie goal in game 1, the series wouldn't have even been hard. In no instance was that Washington arena last year as hostile as a regular season CBJ game was tonight. Murray played great, and is our goalie going forward, but not really a fair comparison to the level of intensity from Flyers series we've seen in the past.

well that's just ridiculous. They were the 2nd best team in the league behind us. At worst 3rd behind us and Tampa.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

well that's just ridiculous. They were the 2nd best team in the league behind us. At worst 3rd behind us and Tampa.

That series actually was all about what a few of us harped on before that series started. That their top six could keep up with ours, but that their bottom six would have major issues.

That series, and really you can look at every series we were in, was all about not being able to match the speed up and down the lineup and depth.

Could the Pens have lost that series, or especially the TB one? Yes, of course they could have. Some bounces the other way and the Pens would have lost despite the above. But going into the series I thought that the Caps would struggle with our bottom six and overall speed, leaving the series I thought that we won because of that mismatch.

 

[Mattpilf]

How is it not? It's a 1-0 game and the following things happen. Dumo makes a terrible decision to go slide down and leave back door wide open. He even slams his stick because he knows he ****ed up. Then DP went full on idiot mode and doesn't cover his man right in the slot and then gets burned easily. Those are not team issues. Those are individual **** ups.

And then let's go further. Why are we not flying back into the game? Bonino was utter **** tonight and has been bad for the majority of the season. It's probably the only reason HBK isn't clicking. He can't do anything out there that doesn't look sloppy. He was like this last year, too, then turned into the Bonino we all know when it matters. We have to hope he can click that button again because we need him for what Sully wants (running 4 lines). I almost want them to promote Cully to 3rd line w/ Hags/Kessel and see what happens.

But the point is, it's individual play. Through and through. I don't see how it isn't.

Those were individual ****s ups after sustained pressure in their own end. It's not always Dumo, it's recently been often Pouliot, but it's not always Määttä or Daley, or Cole and Schultz. It's a different guy every night because it's not just one guy making a mistake.

Those guys making one bad play aren't the reason the Blue jackets went and completely dominatd possession and chances from 10:00-40:00. That's a team issue. Those mistakes happen when you're tires and facing high pressure. It's why every good game we have you'll have the opposing team fans talking about all the mistakes their team makes. Pressure causes mistakes, and when the ice tilts like it did for the middle of the game, focusing on the individual mistakes ignores the bigger picture in those cases.

This team is strong, has bounced back from a first goal, has bounced back by 2 goal deficits, those aren't what kill the team. The long stretches of being dominated kill the team

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Calling Pouliot the next Marc-Andre Bergeron would be an insult to Bergeron at this point. At least Bergeron was actually good offensively, even if the rest of his game was AHL level.

Great pick, Shero. Great ****ing pick.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Pretty off-topic delete if you want mods, but I had Fluery dripped in my fantasy league and I want to know the chances that he recovers the starting position? Anyone have any input?

If Fleury regains his starters job, then I'm going to cheer for another team because I refuse to cheer for a team that is monumentally stupid.

 

[PensPlz]

well that's just ridiculous. They were the 2nd best team in the league behind us. At worst 3rd behind us and Tampa.

Again, I'm not saying we can't beat good teams. We beat a lot of good teams last year, and decisively. But Rags, Caps, TB, and SJ (all VERY good teams) all played without that edge that teams like Philly, CBJ, and even Boston and Montreal play with against us. I'm saying when you add in the fact that a team can get under our skin, just a decent team is able to unravel us completely. That has been our Achilles heel since Bylsma era and doesn't seem to be fixed. At least not by this game's standard. And I pray it is addressed and not ignored because most likely all of those teams will be in the playoffs this year.

And not sure how having Letang in this game would have helped. Since... he's usually the first one overboard when things get outta hand

 

[Ogrezilla]

That series actually was all about what a few of us harped on before that series started. That their top six could keep up with ours, but that their bottom six would have major issues.

That series, and really you can look at every series we were in, was all about not being able to match the speed up and down the lineup and depth.

Could the Pens have lost that series, or especially the TB one? Yes, of course they could have. Some bounces the other way and the Pens would have lost despite the above. But going into the series I thought that the Caps would struggle with our bottom six and overall speed, leaving the series I thought that we won because of that mismatch.

but he's saying this was the first real test Murray has had in an intense building/game. Come on now, the kid just won the Cup.

Again, I'm not saying we can't beat good teams. We beat a lot of good teams last year, and decisively. But Rags, Caps, TB, and SJ (all VERY good teams) all played without that edge that teams like Philly, CBJ, and even Boston and Montreal play with against us. I'm saying when you add in the fact that a team can get under our skin, just a decent team is able to unravel us completely. That has been our Achilles heel since Bylsma era and doesn't seem to be fixed. At least not by this game's standard. And I pray it is addressed and not ignored because most likely all of those teams will be in the playoffs this year.

And not sure how having Letang in this game would have helped. Since... he's usually the first one overboard when things get outta hand

Letang would help a lot because he's far and away our best d-man.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Again, I'm not saying we can't beat good teams. We beat a lot of good teams last year, and decisively. But Rags, Caps, TB, and SJ (all VERY good teams) all played without that edge that teams like the Philly, CBJ, and even Boston and Montreal play with against us. I'm saying when you add in the fact that a team can get under our skin, just a decent team is able to unravel us completely. That has been our Achilles heel since Bylsma era and doesn't seem to be fixed. At least not by this game's standard. And I pray it is addressed because most likely all of those teams will be in the playoffs this year.

And not sure how adding Letang helps. Since... he's usually the first one overboard when things get outta hand.

Did you miss or block from your memory the entirety of the Capitals series? Like, does Tom Wilson and that whole saga not ring a bell to you?

It's like you're rewriting your own history here to fit your theory.

 

[Mattpilf]

I do agree though Bonino struggling has had some big ripples. Bonino and Hags had a slow start, made the HBK terrible, and part of the reason the PK was bad too(Fehr didn't have a great start either)

Kind of odd because pre season those guys looked sharp as a razor.

With Bonino being rocky it's hard to keep that offensive pressure and things can just get caught defending and making bad plays.

Only time Bonino line looked like the best line in a night was when Rust was on it dominating and carrying them. How can you have Kessel on your line as a 3rd line and not at least look great some nights?