Post-Game Talk: Cole's Plus/Minus: Pens vs. Rangers - The Ogre/Cole Positive Train! CHOO CHOO

[JakeNBake59]

clearly leading the league in short handed goals allowed has developed the Pk into a short handed scoring machine... Pens now have scored 12 SHGs good enough for 3rd in the league

 

[Empoleon8771]

Except he has not been playing #6 minutes. Most of the nights since he was traded to the Pens he has played top 4 minutes. Gudbranson has easily played to the worth of his cap hit for us so far.

Gudbranson is 100% not worth his cap hit, come on now. He's playing well, but what he has done is certainly not worth $4 million when you consider he has next to zero offensive ability.

Regarding Gudbranson.

I think more than anything the RH/LH dynamic helped this team. They had waaaay too many LHers and you could see a bit issue when Schultz was out. Big issue. Guys couldn't play their off side at all. Now that we have 3RH/3LH we seem to be so much better in a lot of different areas.

4m for a #6 is a tad too much, though. It will be an issue in the offseason but I'll worry about that **** another day.

It probably won't be an issue in the off-season because the Penguins will just end up trading Maatta. It will only be an issue if Pettersson gets a lot of money, which I don't think he should.

 

[BHD]

I really want them to explore a better 4th line down the rest of this stretch, while resting Cullen. This might or might not be a deep run, but we can find out a lot right now going into next season, or the playoffs rather.

Johnson, Blueger, Aston-Reese
Cullen, Blueger, Aston-Reese
Cullen, Blueger, Johnson

Those are all iterations I would start testing the crap out of. It has the makings of an amazing buzz line. It has smarts (Blue), ludicrous speed (Johnson), and pluggery (Aston-Reese).

+ No more Sheahan. The lines are way more dynamic without him.

 

[Ogrezilla]

I am gonna say no on moving Hornqvist. I think he's in a rut that a lot of guys are on this team, he's not the only one having a pretty ruthless scoring drought - Kessel is on one too.

It doesn't help that the last 5 games, Sid has 0 goals as well. What was great about today was that even though Jake and Sid didn't need to lead this team in scoring for once, they scored 5 and won. Goals from Blueger x2, Bjugstad, Cullen, and Schultz. That's good, it's tougher to get off the slump when the team is struggling to score, more pressure is put on you.

I think the team needs to just juggle things back to what has worked before, even if momentarily, as a shot in the arm to see if it works enough to get the guys scoring again.

Guentzel, Crosby, Hornqvist - I know Sid doesn't like Horny on his wing, but I'd try it for a game to see how it looks right now.
McCann, Blueger, Kessel - Canner and Blueger seem to have some solid chemistry, even Rust and Blueger do.
Simon, Bjugstad, Rust - Could be an interesting line.

Here's the only answer needed to comments on Rust's scoring ability. A list of the top 10 even strength goal scorers in the playoffs since Rust entered the league.

Include powerplay goals (which he has 0) and he drops ALL THE WAY DOWN TO 12th!

 

[ncm7772]

My only complaint was Crosby not getting another point or 2. Would be nice for him to not need multiple point games the last week for to reach 100.

 

[ColePens]

Except he has not been playing #6 minutes. Most of the nights since he was traded to the Pens he has played top 4 minutes. Gudbranson has easily played to the worth of his cap hit for us so far.

This isn't a salary cap thread or anything so I don't want to get too far off base, but I already claimed I want to keep Gudbranson over Maatta. I think being RH and just the way he's played in general is much better than Maatta even though Maatta is clearly a better player.

Gudbranson just fits. And JJ on the left side makes a shit load more sense as he's been good. I wouldn't think twice about moving Maatta. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

 

[WayneSid9987]

My only complaint was Crosby not getting another point or 2. Would be nice for him to not need multiple point games the last week for to reach 100.

The 100pts would've been a nice icing on Sid's season but Phil's really the only complaint for me.
If they wanna make a serious run this year Phil better find his game quickly. Drop some pounds, get on some nootropics+legal roids. Whatever it takes.

 

[Peat]

At the deadline, me and a lot of others were saying the mentality was wrong and there was no point throwing good money after bad on this season.

The turnaround in terms of the way they chase opposition leads and play tight games now is awesome.

Can we viably move Horny at this point?
Move phillip, horny..... keep our d corps strong, possibly ship out Maatta.

Didn't think about any of that as I'm not a contract / roster poster, more a color poster... but I'm curious.
where are the contract/roster guys -- @pixiesfanyo

You probably can't move Horny while keeping the PP effective in its current format. People will point to Guentzel but the numbers say he can't play the same role and so does the eye test imo. Its not about how skilled you are, its about strength and stubbornness and keeping a dman occupied. Maybe you can change how the power play works and reduce the net for a net front guy and that'd work.

This said, for all I complain about the awkward fits of our RWs, I'd far rather decimate the D Corps than them. Because it isn't strong. Its really rather average, and it spends a lot of time getting shielded by our forwards. That's not realistic but then neither is moving both Phil and Horny really.

 

[Empoleon8771]

On the powerplay, I'm starting to come around to the idea of having both Guentzel and Hornqvist on the top unit. I think you can probably put Crosby in Kessel's spot on the powerplay, similar to how Gaudreau (who's also a lefty) runs Calgary's powerplay from the left half wall, and you'd have Guentzel and Hornqvist down low. I also believe that Malkin has some history of playing the left half wall, although that hasn't been done since Therrien or Bylsma were here.

I don't really see much of a point of moving Hornqvist. Kessel? I get that argument entirely, because there are some serious red flags with him. Hornqvist doesn't have a majority of the red flags that Kessel has, that's the big thing. I also think Hornqvist fits well with Bjugstad and he has torn apart the league with Crosby multiple times in the past.

 

[EightyOne]

Don't need to ship out Horny or Phil. This team can be kept 100% intact for next season with one exception: move JJ, Gudbranson or Maatta. They can't all play anyway.

Kessel is still a pt/gm player, despite the slump. You won't get better production out of the 6.8m cap hit he costs you. With McCann's emergence we don't need to chop Phil in half to create two wingers for geno. We have Phil at 6.8m and McCann at 1.25m. Thats an average of a hair over 4m average for Geno's wings. Totally fine.

Whether they win the cup or not, I don't want this roster intact.

Sorry, not sorry.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

 

[Peat]

I'd just like to add that I don't think its a complete coincidence that one of our best attacking games coincided with one of our worst defensive games for a while. Loose play and risktaking makes space for both sides.

 

[LittleSpoon]

Whether they win the cup or not, I don't want this roster intact.

Sorry, not sorry.

If they win the cup I think I would be more than happy to keep the roster intact.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Whether they win the cup or not, I don't want this roster intact.

Sorry, not sorry.

I don't think they have to do much this off-season. Move out Maatta and Kessel and bring in a winger like Zucker and I'd be pretty happy with the lineup overall. You just need to get one of Johnson, Blandisi, DiPauli or someone like that to fill the 4th line wing spot with ZAR and Blueger, which I don't think is much of a stretch. If Kessel has a good run to finish the year, I don't even think you have to move Kessel, I'm perfectly happy with this lineup if Kessel is playing well:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
McCann-Malkin-Kessel
Simon-Bjugstad-Hornqvist
Johnson-Blueger-ZAR
Blandisi

Dumoulin-Letang
Johnson-Schultz
Pettersson-Gudbranson
Riikola

Murray-DeSmith

 

[The Old Master]

If they win the cup I think I would be more than happy to keep the roster intact.

that would be a mistake. change brings fresh hunger that's badly needed to repeat.

 

[bathroomSTAAL]

It's a good thing we scored 5 last night since Murray gives up 4 goals every game

 

[hafaba]

I can´t praise JR enough for the Florida trades. Unbelievable how these kids changed the scenario in here

 

[StaalForOne]

Here's the only answer needed to comments on Rust's scoring ability. A list of the top 10 even strength goal scorers in the playoffs since Rust entered the league.

Include powerplay goals (which he has 0) and he drops ALL THE WAY DOWN TO 12th!

5 Current and 1 Former Penguin. Nice.

 

[BHD]

On the powerplay, I'm starting to come around to the idea of having both Guentzel and Hornqvist on the top unit. I think you can probably put Crosby in Kessel's spot on the powerplay, similar to how Gaudreau (who's also a lefty) runs Calgary's powerplay from the left half wall, and you'd have Guentzel and Hornqvist down low. I also believe that Malkin has some history of playing the left half wall, although that hasn't been done since Therrien or Bylsma were here.

I don't really see much of a point of moving Hornqvist. Kessel? I get that argument entirely, because there are some serious red flags with him. Hornqvist doesn't have a majority of the red flags that Kessel has, that's the big thing. I also think Hornqvist fits well with Bjugstad and he has torn apart the league with Crosby multiple times in the past.

Yeah, Kessel would be the guy I'd move off the first unit if it came to that.

 

[LittleSpoon]

that would be a mistake. change brings fresh hunger that's badly needed to repeat.

Not always the case. When you have many of these guys as young as they are I think they will probably still be quite hungry. Im all for shipping out a couple guys, but for the most part if this team wins the cup, I would rather let them gel for another season and see if the dominance increases.

 

[Shady Machine]

Murray is now (hadn't checked in a while) 12th in sv% for all goalies this year and 6th for goalies that have played more than 40 games. Pretty damn impressive considering his inconsistent start and injuries.

 

[Peat]

Whatever moves we may or may not make post-this season, I'm okay with waiting until in next season before doing them rather than going for it in the summer. We've had a lot of change this season already - the scoreboard last night was testament to that - and some time to let that settle and assess who's long term fits, who's got the hunger and who hasn't makes sense.

Obviously the really big moves we can't make in season but everything else - wait and see. Can Blueger be a long term top 9er? What's McCann's ceiling? Just how good is Gudbranson actually? And on and on. Anything else apart, big moves aside, Rutherford seems to find better value in the season than in the summer.

 

[SirBrad]

Murray is now (hadn't checked in a while) 12th in sv% for all goalies this year and 6th for goalies that have played more than 40 games. Pretty damn impressive considering his inconsistent start and injuries.

I was just coming here to post that among goalies that have played as many games as he has (45), he's 8th in GAA and 3rd in SV%. THIRD!

He's at 2.45 and .928 since the All Star Break and pretty great in March at 2.20 and .934. This is the kind trend you want to see from a goalie heading into the playoffs. Just needs to stay healthy which has been a huge problem.

 

[Peat]

I was just coming here to post that among goalies that have played as many games as he has (45), he's 8th in GAA and 3rd in SV%. THIRD!

He's at 2.45 and .928 since the All Star Break and pretty great in March at 2.20 and .934. This is the kind trend you want to see from a goalie heading into the playoffs. Just needs to stay healthy which has been a huge problem.

If he hadn't had that dodgy start he'd be getting Vezina talk.

 

[WayneSid9987]

Whatever moves we may or may not make post-this season, I'm okay with waiting until in next season before doing them rather than going for it in the summer. We've had a lot of change this season already - the scoreboard last night was testament to that - and some time to let that settle and assess who's long term fits, who's got the hunger and who hasn't makes sense.

Obviously the really big moves we can't make in season but everything else - wait and see. Can Blueger be a long term top 9er? What's McCann's ceiling? Just how good is Gudbranson actually? And on and on. Anything else apart, big moves aside, Rutherford seems to find better value in the season than in the summer.

I'm just very pleased the 3C is pretty much done and dusted with Bjugs, McCann and Blueger all here now.
Took JR too long to sort out Bones's departure.

JR should 100% not settle with just moving Olli in the summer.
This F group deserves more "Ummph!" from the back end with how much money is being spent there.
Not saying he has to do it right this summer but he should ALWAYS be on the lookout in improving the offense from the back end.