Bourne Endeavor
Registered User
They've essentially sold their future on the Crosby era. Can't exactly blame them given his and Malkin's age.
Pens in my view have the best core in the NHL. Letang, Maata, Malkin, Crosby, Kessel.
However, they have a very poor bottom 6, and a very poor bottom 4 on D with a few exceptions in there.
Any injuries and this team is sunk.
And slumps, this team is sunk.
I personally hope they get into the playoffs in 16th place and get swept.
I'm hoping for...
Kessel-Crosby- Hornqvist
Plotnikov-Malkin-Perron
Kunitz-Sutter-Dupuis
Farnham-xxxx-Bennett/ Megna
I'm hoping for...
Kessel-Crosby- Hornqvist
Plotnikov-Malkin-Perron
Kunitz-Sutter-Dupuis
Farnham-xxxx-Bennett/ Megna
.
Except the Pens offensive trio, while offensive wizards, are nowhere near the two-way players the Hawks trio are (at least Toews and Hossa, which form probably the best two-way duo in the league).
Keith is head and shoulders above Letang.
The Hawks quintet is much more versatile, and playoff hockey suits them much better.
...
Right now, unless they got some upgrades on D and bottom 6, the Pens team look like a regular season juggernaut, for sure.
I'm just not sure their game will transition well to the playoffs.
It seems like they trade 1st round picks and quality prospects like it's going out of style
Soon enough they are going to be in very rough shape in terms of futures
close to 40 m tied up in 5 guys
good times
They've essentially sold their future on the Crosby era. Can't exactly blame them given his and Malkin's age.
They spend high on 4 or 5 guys and use the rest of their payroll on scrubs. They really should invest in more depth throughout their lineup instead of signing all these stars.
They've essentially sold their future on the Crosby era. Can't exactly blame them given his and Malkin's age.
Yeah, that's not even remotely true.
I really wish people would just drop the parroting "LOL PENS HAVE A BUNCH OF MONEY LOCKED UP TO A FEW PLAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!" nonsense. They have their long term core locked up. Their top-6 (at least 5 of the members), top-4 D (Maatta, Letang, Pouliot and Cole will be the top-4 for at least 3 years) and goalie situations are all handled long term. They need to cut out the overpaid older players like Kunitz and Sutter and play cheaper, more cost effective players in the bottom-6. The salaries to the top end players aren't even remotely a problem, it's the $3.375 million to Scuderi or the $3.75 million to Dupuis or the $3.85 million to Kunitz.
The Pens D group is also getting laughably underrated here. They have a Norris caliber D, 2 young NHL ready studs with top pair potential, 2 younger guys that have good potential and 1 older veteran on D for them. Their D core right now is better than it was by the end of last year, where the Pens let up like 13 goals in 6 games against the Rangers. A good D system (which MJ runs) makes up for having a young and inexperienced blue line. And that's really the only knock you can make on them, no one knows yet how good they'll be by the end of the season. If Pouliot, Cole and Dumoulin progress as fast as Maatta did, they'll have 5 top-4 D.
You imagine wrong. But please, continue, it seems like Hawks fans are really bitter about the Pens getting Kessel, not even sure why or how, are you guys adopting some weird hatred for us like Wings fans? Not even sure if I should be offended or not, laughing it off of course, but still.
Pens have some how made it out with giving up assets that come back to haunt them. Weird, since I thought quite a few could, but it hasn't happened yet. But you have to give to get, Kessel was the best player on a crap team, maintained solid numbers without any real #1 center for 90% of his NHL career.
He goes to a team where he might get the odd moronic Rossi comment, but for the most part, he won't be answering to like a couple dozen Rossi's like there were in Toronto.
I'm still waiting for Joe Morrow to haunt us, or Hanowski, or Agostino...or Leveille, or...yeah.
But Despres has the potential to, so does Kapanen and Harrington if Kessel fails to score more than 30 all of a sudden with 2 of the best centers in the game as his options...yeah even I laughed at the thought of Phil no being able to hit 30...
But they do have have a bunch of money locked up in a few players. It's not an untrue statement. I think the problem with them is that they've been giving away picks the last several years and it's lead to zero depth and they are relying on making trades to get 3rd line value. Problem is they've been giving up picks to do so. Blackhawks are in the same boat starting this year. It'll be interesting to see where they are at in 4-5 years.
They have 15 players under contract and $6.4m left to sign 7-8 players.
And the overrating of Toews, and two-way play continues.
How's that?
Toews-Hossa has arguably been the best two-way duo in the league for 6 years now.
And they have 3 Cups to show for it.
I'm sure the Chicago fans will live with people saying they're "overrated".
Same for the Dynastic Blackhawks.
They've essentially sold their future on the Crosby era. Can't exactly blame them given his and Malkin's age.
Daver is a notorious Toews hater.