Post-Game Talk: Cole's Plus/Minus: "Deja Vu All Over Again"

[ronduguayshair]

Zucker was garbage in August last night. Completely terrible. Hasn't been good since game 1.

 

[Tom Hanks]

Zucker was garbage in August last night. Completely terrible. Hasn't been good since game 1.

Zucker was good in the first few games

 

[Tom Hanks]

 

[JTG]

I was at a bar so I had a rough time following this one, but I'm glad to hear POJ had a good game. From everything I have read, he is lean, but he's really strong for his size. Hopefully he can make someone expendable and we can land a pick or some further help in the top 6.

One thing that did stick out was Zucker was atrocious.

 

[Icarium]

I have no idea how we allowed only three goals - and you could even say that Jarry could have saved the last two. So many defensive breakdowns, two on ones, breakaways, etc. allowed. At least Malkin and Rust came alive offensively, though they seemed to play a lot against JJ/De Angelo, that's playing on easy mode and they only got one goal despite all the chances created. Sully keeping ERod on Line 1 despite Sid having zero 5 on 5 points is something that even Bylsma wouldn't have done.

And despite all that we showed resilience and got two points. But sooner or later playing with fire is going to bite us in the ass. It's interesting how everyone is hustling like crazy in OT and creating chances but in the 60 minutes before that we keep taking breaks and allowing goals in bunches because of that. I am not ready to write off the season, maybe we will get a wake up call and start actually playing defense at some point. Maybe after an injury crisis as happened in both previous seasons. The point is we can't keep playing like that, even with much younger Sid and Geno it would have been a tall order to have a good season with this kind of defense.

 

[Flying Dego]

I hope people can now understand my outrage in 2018 when Blue was called up and Sully didn't even dress him for one f***ing game.

To build on this discussion...

This year his OZone starts are still around 31% and his DZone are 69%

His Corsi is at 57.4%...his TOI is at a pathetic 11 minutes/game.

The way he's playing that needs bumped up. Give him any semblance of wing talent and maybe a few more offensive assignments and he's scoring a lot more points.

 

[Tom Hanks]

To build on this discussion...

This year his OZone starts are still around 31% and his DZone are 69%

His Corsi is at 57.4%...his TOI is at a pathetic 11 minutes/game.

The way he's playing that needs bumped up. Give him any semblance of wing talent and maybe a few more offensive assignments and he's scoring a lot more points.

Yeah until some of our big names figure it out I’d certainly be giving more minutes to those that are actually helping us win and are playing consistently. Take 1-2 minutes off the other lines.

 

[vodeni]

as Madden, Kingerski and other PGH hockey media would say, the fans are stupid they don't know nything about hockey, JJ is the least of their (as it was Penguins) problem...

 

[vodeni]

To build on this discussion...

This year his OZone starts are still around 31% and his DZone are 69%

His Corsi is at 57.4%...his TOI is at a pathetic 11 minutes/game.

The way he's playing that needs bumped up. Give him any semblance of wing talent and maybe a few more offensive assignments and he's scoring a lot more points.

don't worry...it will happen sooner rater than later, we will find out that Jank is every bit of a player Flames fans told us about, (he was invisible last night) Blueger will take over as a true 3rd line center

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

 

[The Old Master]

don't worry...it will happen sooner rater than later, we will find out that Jank is every bit of a player Flames fans told us about, (he was invisible last night) Blueger will take over as a true 3rd line center

we have seen this fish before and just think how long we had to put up with jj

 

[ColePens]

I watched DeAngelo and Johnson very very very close and had a post ready to discuss them but I held off because a few posters almost went down a road I would have to remove them from conversation. So i'm going to post my thoughts and then a warning. And the warning is needed because of what I saw earlier and posts deleted in the last 3 days. So let's discuss their hockey.

I watched these two players closely and I can actually say DeAngelo deserved benching before JJ. But these two players together is the ultimate holy crap wow terrible. DeAngelo is soooo irresponsible on the ice and doesn't outweigh the bad with good offensive skills (yet). He needs to work on that. JJ is the opposite. He does nothing and his attempt at being responsible is equally worse. JJ was less noticeable because he had 14 or so minutes.

But man.. putting these two together is AWFUL. I would wonder if they could even be a pairing at the AHL level. I think JJ would be a fine/fair #7 at an NHL level. I think DeAngelo needs as much cushion as Schultz got when he came here in 2016. Playing him 17 mins a night is going to get you hurt. That team has a lot of growing pains.


Warning: These guys are human beings at the end of the day. If you hate someone, legitimately, for who they voted for or how they played on a team... you REALLY need to check your morals and values. That is disgusting stuff to me. I don't care how bad JJ was here. I wanted him off the team, but that guy does not deserve anything negative because coaches put him on the ice. He already had to watch what his parents did to him. And hating someone for different views? My goodness. Disgusting stuff. So leave that shit out of here. I've already had to delete many posts about JJ and DeAngelo and we really need to hold ourselves accountable for who we are. Let's be above that. Because the Pens have some people with history on their team (CDS) and we cheer openly for them. Let's be good humans who root for redemption of other humans and good will.

 

[Tom Hanks]

@ColePens the Rangers have too many guys that are good offensively but bad defensively (forwards & D). It’s why I don’t rate them highly. Once they figure out who they want to keep and trade to balance that out they will be a difficult team to play against.

Thankfully they haven’t balanced that out yet!

 

[Rakell67]

don't worry...it will happen sooner rater than later, we will find out that Jank is every bit of a player Flames fans told us about, (he was invisible last night) Blueger will take over as a true 3rd line center

So if we all agree Guentzel isn’t getting moved from Crosby’s wing and Blueger deserves more ice time, what about these lines...

Guentzel Crosby Rust
Zucker Malkin Tanev
McCann Blueger Kapanen
Sceviour Jankowski Rodrigues

Jankowski is noted for being great defensively and along with Sceviour, Rodrigues and Aston-Reese could duplicate last year’s 4th line success.
The top 3 RWs are interchangeable but Blueger and Kapanen have looked good together, Tanev looked good with Malkin in a short stint. Rust has to be an improvement over Rodrigues.

 

[JRS91]

When is Sullivan going to realize that Zucker doesn't work with Malkin?

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

When is Sullivan going to realize that Zucker doesn't work with Malkin?

Probably around the time he realizes E-Rod is killing the play for the top line every time the puck comes anywhere near him.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

I watched DeAngelo and Johnson very very very close and had a post ready to discuss them but I held off because a few posters almost went down a road I would have to remove them from conversation. So i'm going to post my thoughts and then a warning. And the warning is needed because of what I saw earlier and posts deleted in the last 3 days. So let's discuss their hockey.

I watched these two players closely and I can actually say DeAngelo deserved benching before JJ. But these two players together is the ultimate holy crap wow terrible. DeAngelo is soooo irresponsible on the ice and doesn't outweigh the bad with good offensive skills (yet). He needs to work on that. JJ is the opposite. He does nothing and his attempt at being responsible is equally worse. JJ was less noticeable because he had 14 or so minutes.

But man.. putting these two together is AWFUL. I would wonder if they could even be a pairing at the AHL level. I think JJ would be a fine/fair #7 at an NHL level. I think DeAngelo needs as much cushion as Schultz got when he came here in 2016. Playing him 17 mins a night is going to get you hurt. That team has a lot of growing pains.


Warning: These guys are human beings at the end of the day. If you hate someone, legitimately, for who they voted for or how they played on a team... you REALLY need to check your morals and values. That is disgusting stuff to me. I don't care how bad JJ was here. I wanted him off the team, but that guy does not deserve anything negative because coaches put him on the ice. He already had to watch what his parents did to him. And hating someone for different views? My goodness. Disgusting stuff. So leave that shit out of here. I've already had to delete many posts about JJ and DeAngelo and we really need to hold ourselves accountable for who we are. Let's be above that. Because the Pens have some people with history on their team (CDS) and we cheer openly for them. Let's be good humans who root for redemption of other humans and good will.

The thing with a pairing like that is you have to wonder if someone like DeAngelo crumbles when they’re put with someone like Johnson. They won’t make up for their deficiencies if they’re falling apart. It was the same with Schultz and sticking a struggling player returning from a serious injury with Johnson. Who knows how things would have gone if they didn’t throw the guy to the wolves over and over. You make the shortcomings worse and kill any positives by putting some players in a bad position. A 53 points in 68 games and +12 (Whitby stat, yes) defenseman does point to him previously out scoring a lot of deficiencies which he’s not going to do with Johnson. He sank Letang who is better than Schultz or Deangelo; if the partner is worse, question if they’re imploding over being paired with Johnson rather than being worse in a vacuum.

Really like with the Pens, Johnson just shouldn’t have been signed because he’s awful and doesn’t fit with the roster needs of the team in reality rather than GM fantasy land. If you have a risky all offense D who does nothing else then get a real defensive stalwart for the modern nhl to pair with him. If your coaches won’t make someone like a Johnson a 7D (lower, it’s lower) then don’t sign him. Of course the pairing is terrible but it never should have happened.


You and I have some different life philosophies, though. It takes all kinds but lol.

 

[KareemTrustfund]

So if we all agree Guentzel isn’t getting moved from Crosby’s wing and Blueger deserves more ice time, what about these lines...

Guentzel Crosby Rust
Zucker Malkin Tanev
McCann Blueger Kapanen
Sceviour Jankowski Rodrigues

Jankowski is noted for being great defensively and along with Sceviour, Rodrigues and Aston-Reese could duplicate last year’s 4th line success.
The top 3 RWs are interchangeable but Blueger and Kapanen have looked good together, Tanev looked good with Malkin in a short stint. Rust has to be an improvement over Rodrigues.

Replace Zucker with Kapanen and I’m all for it.

 

[Jacob]

I’m not that worried about Zucker. Seems like the kinda guy that knows how to get out of a slump.

 

[vodeni]

So if we all agree Guentzel isn’t getting moved from Crosby’s wing and Blueger deserves more ice time, what about these lines...

Guentzel Crosby Rust
Zucker Malkin Tanev
McCann Blueger Kapanen
Sceviour Jankowski Rodrigues

Jankowski is noted for being great defensively and along with Sceviour, Rodrigues and Aston-Reese could duplicate last year’s 4th line success.
The top 3 RWs are interchangeable but Blueger and Kapanen have looked good together, Tanev looked good with Malkin in a short stint. Rust has to be an improvement over Rodrigues.

I still want Rust ultimately with Geno, I just wanted him down to third line for a few games cause thats what works for him, looks like it only needed a few shift to light the fire there, the main problem is that Zucker can not play with Malkin at this stage, case in point last night...he wants to play geno's game and it turned out disaster last night, some weird passes, turnovers, etc...at this point Rust is as good of a shooter for Geno as we can get so that line needs speed and grit to slow down the opposing transition defense so they can have possession..also in transition, Rust and Geno is taking the same side they need someone to stretch the defense...not sure who that person would be but its not Zucker, he is better of bunching up around the goal, short passess and quick hits....I wonder whose game that is???

 

[vodeni]

I’m not that worried about Zucker. Seems like the kinda guy that knows how to get out of a slump.

I don't see that as a slump, its more he is put in position that really he has no idea what he is suppose to do and appears to be counterintuitive to all of his hockey instincts...it does not shock me that he was good when Geno and Rust did not even bother to skate and than he was awful when these two took over and basically just played off of each other...

 

[ziggyjoe212]

My biggest takeaway from yesterday's game is that Geno is awful right now. Easily our worst player. He was elite last season yet he's a liability this season. It's like he stopped caring. And most importantly, a wasted a pick on him in fantasy hockey.

 

[chethejet]

I give the team 10 games to find their game. If by then the lines are simply not working then make the adjustments. Kap will be on the first line and GMJR will come down hard on sully if he plays that game. GMJR can't afford another excuse driven glass half full sullivan while they give up countless odd man breaks and forwards who make lazy passes to no one.

 

[Andy99]

Yep, same excuses we get from Sully for Ceci and Kap...all coaches make them and they’re BS...

 

[Tom Hanks]

I’m not that worried about Zucker. Seems like the kinda guy that knows how to get out of a slump.

Its 2 not so great games in a row so I wouldn’t say slump. First few games he was good. Now the production isn’t there but that’s more to do with Rust/Malkin’s games in the first few.

All I know is it’s a weird ****ing season. Stats, analytics are all over the place league wide. Schedule wise you might play a good or bad team 3 times in a row so that will skew things plus some adapted better than others with the short pre season.

Our team has good moments from pretty much everyone but it’s a period here & there. If three quarters of the team showed up any one night we’d be killing it. No consistency and the high danger chances we give up are crazy.