Is The Pens Model Really That Bad?

[Spawn]

Frankly don't think this resembles the Penguins model anymore.

It's the "suck by accident/have great luck" model.

Wasn't that the Penguins model? Lol

 

[Tarus]

Wasn't that the Penguins model? Lol

Yep

Worst/near worst team in the league for 5+ years, and won the biggest lottery draw of the decade.

 

[Hynh]

Frankly don't think this resembles the Penguins model anymore.

It's the "suck by accident/have great luck" model.

Wasn't that the Penguins model? Lol

 

[SK13]

Wasn't that the Penguins model? Lol

Some would argue "suck on purpose/get lucky" was the Penguins model.

At least in 03/04.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Here's the issue in trying to replicate the Pens model. Even if mcdavid becomes the greatest player in the nhl, that's still just one generational talent. The Penguins had two. It wasn't Sidney Crosby that was the best player in th world for their cup win. It was Evgeni Malkin. It's easier to cover up a lack of depth when you've got two mcdavid than it is if you have just one.

That being said, Center depth obviously is never a bad thing. It's a great thing to have a top group of centres in the league. But I don't think it can be at the expense of great players at other positions. To s large degree you play the hand you are dealt, but I would much rather try and be the Blackhawks and have two elite defensemen to compliment 2 or 3 great forwards. The Penguins did have gonchar and letang though when they won the cup. And those were two pretty top end d-men. So even the pens model required some great players on the backend the one time they won it all.

McDavid > Crosby
RNH << Malkin
Draisaitl >> Staal

An obvious downgrade at 2C but it's made up for at 3C IMO. The biggest thing is hoping that Connor is more like Sid in leaving $ on the table than Malkin. If he does that it ensures our team being more competitive and keeping a guy like Leon in the 3 spot.

 

[Soundwave]

I'd agree Crosby/Malkin are a tier above McDavid/RNH, just because Malkin skews it a bit, but I do think Draisaitl could pan out better than Staal, but the other big difference is we have Hall and Eberle on the wings, something Pittsburgh didn't quite have. Maybe Yakupov can turn it around too.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

I'd agree Crosby/Malkin are a tier above McDavid/RNH, just because Malkin skews it a bit, but I do think Draisaitl could pan out better than Staal, but the other big difference is we have Hall and Eberle on the wings, something Pittsburgh didn't quite have. Maybe Yakupov can turn it around too.

If Yak reaches the level on Hall or Ebs we could have a high end winger on each line to compliment our high end centers. Then you have a lunch pail guy as the other winger to do the dirty work.

 

[KCC]

How did they underperform? As has been mentioned above, this is a team that won a cup, almost won another and had a couple of Eastern Conference finals appearances. If they didn't have a rash of injuries the last 3 seasons, they might have gone further in those years.

Everybody talks about what a disappointment the Pens are, but they have done pretty darn well in the Crosby era. The Oilers would be lucky to have as much success. One cup and constant playoff contention as a high seed is about the best we can ask for in the salary cap era.

It's the East. Throw them in the West and I don't know if they'd have had the same kind of success. Especially now. But they did win a cup and all that other stuff, so you can't ignore it. Still believe that it's deceiving though. It's 1000x more impressive what the Kings and Hawks have been able to do, IMO.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Just to expand on KCC's point, you just can't have the Penguins' calibre defense in the West. It simply won't work.
You can get away with that model in the East because they don't play as heavy or prioritize defensive play.
If the Penguins had to face the Kings, Blues, Ducks, ect in the first few rounds those years, they have nowhere near that success.
Yeah, the Penguins beat the top Western team one time to
win a cup, but one playoff series isn't enough in my eyes to justify modeling my team around.
If we can upgrade our defense in a big way without losing RNH or Draisaitl I'm all for it, but if they are the price to get a stud d-man you have to pull the trigger.

 

[oilinblood]

if malkin is generational...you might as well add better centers than him to that generational list. kopi, getzer, Bergie, Toews...heck im not even a Thorton fan but if he plays behind or with crosby he would dominate likely at same level as malkin...add krejci to that list.

 

[Mr Positive]

if malkin is generational...you might as well add better centers than him to that generational list. kopi, getzer, Bergie, Toews...heck im not even a Thorton fan but if he plays behind or with crosby he would dominate likely at same level as malkin...add krejci to that list.

I think the idea is that Malkin has generational talent, but just not the opportunity to have the results to back it up. Arguably those teams with toews, Kopitar, etc would have been even better with Malkin instead (cap aside)

 

[Cloned]

Issues:

1: Overpaid goalie
2: cheap wingers
3: Lame 4th line
4: Too many injury prone players.

The "cheap wingers" thing is overblown and a bit of a misnomer.

They brought in these guys to play with Malkin and Crosby:

James Neal - elite goal scoring winger

Chris Kunitz - two-way bonafide top 6 winger with great speed

Ryan Malone - legit top 6 forward

Petr Sykora - legit top 6 forward

Marian Hossa - elite two-way winger

Pascal Dupuis - "Alex Burrows"

David Perron - legit top 6 forward

Patrick Hornqvist - legit top 6 forward

Among others: Bill Guerin, Mark Recchi, Miroslav Satan, Brendan Morrow, Jussi Jokinen, Jarome Iginla, etc.

It's not like they've been stuck playing with Luke Gazdic's their entire time there.

 

[Up the Irons]

McDavid > Crosby
RNH << Malkin
Draisaitl >> Staal

An obvious downgrade at 2C but it's made up for at 3C IMO. The biggest thing is hoping that Connor is more like Sid in leaving $ on the table than Malkin. If he does that it ensures our team being more competitive and keeping a guy like Leon in the 3 spot.

Hall >> anything the Pens had.
Eb = Neil

comparing Pitt's Cs to our is more of a push than anything else. If our group ends up wining more, it will be because we found a better G and our Dcorp rounds into form.

 

[McShogun99]

McDavid > Crosby
RNH << Malkin
Draisaitl >> Staal

An obvious downgrade at 2C but it's made up for at 3C IMO. The biggest thing is hoping that Connor is more like Sid in leaving $ on the table than Malkin. If he does that it ensures our team being more competitive and keeping a guy like Leon in the 3 spot.

Pittsburgh hasn't had wingers that are as talented as Hall/Eberle and hopefully Yakupov for long term. Kunitz is a product of playing with Crosby and Neal/Hossa weren't in Pittsburgh very long. Pittsburgh's defence and goaltending is better then anything we've had since 2006 but hopefully Chia can fix that area.

 

[Up the Irons]

if malkin is generational...you might as well add better centers than him to that generational list. kopi, getzer, Bergie, Toews...heck im not even a Thorton fan but if he plays behind or with crosby he would dominate likely at same level as malkin...add krejci to that list.

thank you . Malkin isn't a generational talent. he's one the top Cs of his generation, but there are a handful of guys on his level. Sure, he won a Hart and an Art Ross, but so did Marty St. Louis. So did the Sedins.

Crosby was above everyone else, thus, he is generational.

 

[s7ark]

The only problem with the Pens model is that 3 top Cs are tough to keep together. But it can be quite effective when you can fit it under the cap and build the rest of a team. With two of our Cs on ELCs that shouldn't be as big a problem, at least for a short while.

I am very comfortable going forward with McDavid - RNH - Draisaitl - Lander as the team's top 4 Cs.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

I think the Problem for Pittsburgh was when Kirk Muller exposed their game-plan.

The wingers are great complimentary players and 1-shot scorers, but none of them are capable of driving the play.

The Habs/Bruins double teamed the middle ice, preventing Crosby or Malkin to go any farther than the neutral zone. Their wingers were required to drive the play with each other, but they are completely lost with a neutralized Crosby/Malkin.

 

[joestevens29]

Honestly there isn't one model. Just build the best team you can and make adjustments after.

I mean year after year CHI is in there and what do they have for centers? The Rangers don't even really have a superstar center and they made the final 4.

But then you have the TB's, LA, BOS that either have success or had success by having a lot of center depth spread out throughout their lineup.

 

[joestevens29]

The "cheap wingers" thing is overblown and a bit of a misnomer.

They brought in these guys to play with Malkin and Crosby:

James Neal - elite goal scoring winger

Chris Kunitz - two-way bonafide top 6 winger with great speed

Ryan Malone - legit top 6 forward

Petr Sykora - legit top 6 forward

Marian Hossa - elite two-way winger

Pascal Dupuis - "Alex Burrows"

David Perron - legit top 6 forward

Patrick Hornqvist - legit top 6 forward

Among others: Bill Guerin, Mark Recchi, Miroslav Satan, Brendan Morrow, Jussi Jokinen, Jarome Iginla, etc.

It's not like they've been stuck playing with Luke Gazdic's their entire time there.

And still Hall gets ragged on for not making others around him better, yet Crosby has had how many wingers?

 

[HotToddy75]

Right now I'm watching Anaheim run with two elite players, and then a depth group of forwards.

Hall and McD could be a lot like Perry / Getzlaf, and could probably carry a team in a similar way.

It makes me wonder if you can safely deal away other forward talent to shore up the D / G and run the 'Anaheim model'?

The flaw I see to Pittsburgh is that with so much centre talent, you can't play them all together effectively when the game demands it. IE, when Anaheim rolls out Perry and Getzlaf with two minutes left, they mesh well, each playing a natural position.

Same idea with d-men. It's handy to have an elite RH and an elite LH so that you can mix and match.

 

[Topkatz]

Pretty much my feelings on this topic.

 

[Soundwave]

To be honest long term the D isn't in that bad of shape. Lets say they draft someone like Roy with the Pittsburgh pick and Nurse and Klefbom develop OK ....

xxxxx Nurse
Klefbom Roy
xxxxxx xxxxxx

I think Nurse honestly could be a no.1 guy if we develop him properly and he gains confidence in his first couple of years here, but lets assume he's a no.2.

Klefbom a 3. Roy a 4.

At some point we'll be able to swing a deal for a solid top pairing guy I think if we really have to.

 

[LTIR]

The 2016 class of UFA Dmen looks very solid. Even if majority of them dont make it to free agency there should still be some quality Dmen available.

Off the top of my head I can name Seabrook, Byfuglien, Burns, Hamhuis, Campbell, Giordano, E.Johnson and Yandle

 

[Topkatz]

To be honest long term the D isn't in that bad of shape. Lets say they draft someone like Roy with the Pittsburgh pick and Nurse and Klefbom develop OK ....

xxxxx Nurse
Klefbom Roy
xxxxxx xxxxxx

I think Nurse honestly could be a no.1 guy if we develop him properly and he gains confidence in his first couple of years here, but lets assume he's a no.2.

Klefbom a 3. Roy a 4.

At some point we'll be able to swing a deal for a solid top pairing guy I think if we really have to.

I disagree. The D is in very bad shape. Right now we have maybe one top 4 legit top 4 deference who can be relied on upon, Mark Fayne (and he is strictly a #4). Defence, to me, is the most important position on the ice because they make the first pass to the forwards and also it is so hard to get quality defencemen outside drafting them, which the Oilers up to now have not been very good at. Klefbom has a lot of talent but cannot be relied upon yet to carry the Oilers defense. Nurse is another guy who I think very highly of and I pushed hard for the Oilers to draft him, but while I think he can slot into a top 4 role now, he is going to need some seasoning in the NHL to reach his full offensive top line potential. I think it is unfair to these guys right now to expect them to produce top 4 stats. They need to be blending with quality, proven defencemen to reach their potential otherwise I think it will harm their development. They have NO ONE to learn from. Look what happened to Schultz...

The Oilers need two/three quality top 4 defencemen in order to start to progress. It is the biggest thing holding us back. Oh and a goalie!

 

[Riptide]

They won the Stanley cup when Malkin was on the last year of his ELC, and Crosby was on the first year of a major contract. Since then, they've gotten past the second round once when they lucked out by drawing two weak eastern conference opponents in 2013(NYI/Ottawa, before getting swept in a no-contest series against boston), and they've been outright dumped in the first round 3 times in those 6 years despite being supposed cup contenders. Considering both Malkin/Crosby are regarded as generational(I disagree regarding Malkin, but whatever), that is the definition underperforming for the highest paid center duo in the NHL.

They've straight up struggled to ice a team that can compete in the playoffs on a year to year basis since both Crosby/Malkin started getting paid, some of the reasons why I pointed out in my post. Shutdown/limit the effectiveness of Crosby/Malkin = that team can't compete, and the results have reflected that

Three times. 09/10 when we lost against Montreal. 12/13 when we embarrassed ourselves against Boston and last year (13/14) when we lost to the Rangers. We also had a year when we were missing both Crosby and Malkin (10/11).

So in the 7 years since first going to the cup finals, our playoffs look like this:

07/08 - lost in cup finals
08/09 - won cup
09/10 - lost in 2nd round
10/11 - lost in 1st round (no Malkin or Crosby)
11/12 - lost in 1st round (one of the highest scoring series in NHL history)
12/13 - lost in 3rd round
13/14 - lost in 2nd round
14/15 - lost in 1st round (many injuries)

In 09/10 and 11/12 MAF was a disaster. 12/13 we won because we had Vokoun, but then we had Bylsma who refused to change a single thing (lines, something other than stretch pass, etc). 13/14 our PP and offense just wasn't there. This year with Letang, Ehrhoff, Maatta (3 of our top 4 D), and Pouliot (only good PMD replacement) all hurt, and with Malkin and our 2 best wingers hurt (Perron/Hornqvist with rib injuries) we were not going to beat the Rangers. I said all along I would have been happy with 1 win.

Overall, this team has had a lot of success. Not as much as many would have wanted, but better than most.