OFF DAY THREAD! Jeff Carter Edition

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Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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So would the argument then be: Sid and Malkin pulled their weight they way they were expected do and depth/support let us down? I would highly disagree with that premise.

Fact is, like in any other seasons past, this team will live and die on Sid and Geno and based on the support they get. If they lay an egg, the team lays an egg. We have a cast that supports those two. We don't have a case that can carry the load in spite of them.

If they aren't engaged and giving 110%, were aren't getting anywhere.

Effectiveness and passion don't always have anything to do with eachother. Malkin was peppering the net with shots against Montreal and Crosby wasn't a slug either; were they effective the way we need them to be? No. But they aren't the players they were; they can't put this team on their backs and singlehandedly win playoff series. And their past greatness should never have been an excuse for the management and coaches to put together the kinds of teams you saw too often after the 2009 Cup win. We have relied on them a lot and rightly so but it takes all cylinders running to win a Cup.

At their age a bad line hampers them far more than it used to. And I'm sorry but those were bad lines last year, and the fit was never right. And Sullivan never adjusted. Crosby and Malkin's care had nothing to do with it and I don't think it ever has. They've laid it on the line pretty much their whole careers, so while I might doubt their effectiveness sometimes I just don't see the justification to doubt how much they care.

I'm much more concerned about bad roster decisions and bad line combinations sinking our chances this year. We have a deep team and a lot of character but we've seen Sullivan stick with lines that don't work. This year is all about Sullivan IMO.
 

Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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So would the argument then be: Sid and Malkin pulled their weight they way they were expected do and depth/support let us down? I would highly disagree with that premise.

Fact is, like in any other seasons past, this team will live and die on Sid and Geno and based on the support they get. If they lay an egg, the team lays an egg. We have a cast that supports those two. We don't have a case that can carry the load in spite of them.

If they aren't engaged and giving 110%, were aren't getting anywhere.

Sid and Geno not doing what they were expected to do =/= Sid and Geno not caring

Last year, at least, they cared. They simply couldn't do it. It happens. I think a lot of us feared the worst for Sid's upper limit of performance once he spent most of training camp injured; hernias are not easy injuries to recover from. As for Geno, I thought he came out flying and then got into in his own head when things weren't going right despite the chances and his elbow was feeling bad. As a result, neither delivered.

But that didn't mean they didn't care. That division needs to be made.

There's no evidence we have a winning system. When you look back at teams that underperform in the playoffs, they look like ours. A winning system would look like us dominating possession and winning even when we're getting unlucky. That's not what's happening.

We're objectively relying on taking advantage of more of our chances than our opponents and hoping our goalies outperform theirs. We don't have a system that gives us more or better chances than our opponents. If we go nowhere in the playoffs, it's 100% on Sully.

What I do agree with is that if we're winning, it's going to look like 2017 - Sid, Guentzel, Geno scoring a million points and our goalies going like .940 and our better opponents being so injured they can't keep up.

I don't think this is entirely right either. This team is clearly willing to collapse deep around the net as a system to prevent clean high danger chances. That will allow plenty of high danger chance location shots, but they'll be harder to score on than ones where the guy is unattended, which means most of those that go in tend to be about mistakes. It doesn't grade out well stat wise but there's clearly a system on display and it wins. And while we are relying a lot on our shooting talent, it's not like many of our shooters are unsustainably hot, we just have a lot of shooting talent.

I'd also point out that while our season possession stats are kinda bad, they probably look a lot better without so much ice time for Jankowski, Lafferty, Sceviour, POJ, and other possession drains we played a fair bit of. Certainly, if you look at the clearly intended lines for the post-season, it consists of three positive possession lines, and one bad - and the bad one is actually ahead on chances, it just lets up a lot of high quality ones compared to what it creates, but still comes out ahead on the score board due to having a lot of attacking talent.
 

DearDiary

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Aug 29, 2010
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*Puffs up chest*

This is exactly why I said Hall could be a Kessel-like addition for a team that acquires him. Some folks seemed convinced he was terrible or wouldn't add anything based on his Buffalo performance, but as we're seeing that's simply not the case. He's still an elite player who will provide great secondary scoring as long as he's not the #1 guy on a team (aka Kessel).

Hall has been good defensively in all 4 games I've watched. It's not just his hustle, he makes smart positioning plays and knows when to chase a player and when to let a teammate do it. He will point out who's getting open and who they should take. No one on the Pens does that
 

Zirakzigil

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Jul 5, 2010
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*Puffs up chest*

This is exactly why I said Hall could be a Kessel-like addition for a team that acquires him. Some folks seemed convinced he was terrible or wouldn't add anything based on his Buffalo performance, but as we're seeing that's simply not the case. He's still an elite player who will provide great secondary scoring as long as he's not the #1 guy on a team (aka Kessel).
A lot of people believed that, the stupid ones didnt. Biggest thing about the Hall/Boston trade was that Hall controlled where he went, Boston was one of the few teams he wanted to go to. Boston got lucky he wanted on their team and they could pick him up for cheap.
 

cygnus47

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Sep 14, 2013
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I don't think the results support this. So going 25-7-2 in the last 34 is just a continue series of moments of us "getting lucky" and the other teams continuously getting "unlucky"?

Sure.

Bylsma continually led us to 100 point seasons and we disappointed every time after 2009. Having the highest PDO is provably not sustainable and shooting at a higher percentage than your opponent is not repeatable over any significant time frame. We don't outchance our opponents on a regular basis, you can call winning in spite of that whatever you want. We've also had a super easy schedule in the second half of this season.

EDIT: actually there's a better way to put it. Because we play collapse defense, we have possibly the worst transition game of teams remaining according to possession and scoring chance stats (and the eye test). Do you think consistently playing good teams will make us look worse than we have or better?
 
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Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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Idle stat of the day - among goalies starting 30 or more games, Jarry's got the sixth highest Quality Save percentage at .632, behind Varlamov, Flower, Talbot, Grubauer and Shersterkin.

Weirdly Murray's just behind Vasilevskiy among all goalies. Very feast or famine. DeSmith had only a .529, which kinda surprised me.

EDIT: actually there's a better way to put it. Because we play collapse defense, we have possibly the worst transition game of teams remaining according to possession and scoring chance stats (and the eye test). Do you think consistently playing good teams will make us look worse than we have or better?

Our xGF% never really swung much from month to month and we had a stronger xGF% against the Bruins and Rangers than the Devils and Flyers, so I'm not sure it'll have a particularly strong swing either way.

Also, to point at another thing that's affected this - xGF% tends to be lower when defending a lead and higher when attacking one. Only three teams spent more time defending a lead than us; only six teams spent less time attacking one. We weren't an amazing possession teams when tied or behind, but we were better than 50% and on the right side of league average, and stacking us well enough against our divisional peers.
 
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spcastlemagic

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Jul 3, 2006
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Man, I'm worried about this long wait before the playoffs. Historically - and I'm thinking about the 2013 ECF in particular - that doesn't serve us well.
 

Fordy

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May 28, 2008
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Hall has been good defensively in all 4 games I've watched. It's not just his hustle, he makes smart positioning plays and knows when to chase a player and when to let a teammate do it. He will point out who's getting open and who they should take. No one on the Pens does that
no one on the pens points out who's open. ok lol
 
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orby

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I think the Pens and Bruins are very evenly matched overall. Hall has unquestionably made the Bruins better, but frankly, I think Carter has improved the Pens in equal measure. Boston is probably the toughest team to face in the division, but I doubt they're jazzed at the prospect of having to play Pittsburgh either. Both teams are formidable and playing really well overall - I give the Pens a slight advantage on offense and Boston a slight advantage on defense. IMO, that series would be a crapshoot.

Conversely, I think the Pens would stomp the Islanders. Then again, that's what I said last time they played the Islanders in a series...
 

Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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that doesn’t seem likely with Tampa, analytics darling Carolina, Colorado and Vegas...

So 5 of the greatest team performances just happened to come during one season - when no other season produced more than 2 - is more likely? I mean we'll never know the answer, but that'd be one hell of a coincidence.

I'm also pretty confused as to what goals x60 is. I think it's just GF% at all strengths but if it is, then Tampa, us, Boston, and NYI (in that order) all came ahead of Florida on that metric this season, so...
 
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Khelandros

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Feb 12, 2019
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We are set up for one of the most exciting NHL postseasons in recent memory - TSN.ca

some interesting numbers in here...maybe supports the theory that the East winner will not be doing anything outside of the division...
Two things to take into account;
1. It's Travis Yost, he writes about the Leafs and hates everyone else.
2. The numbers he uses are placed without reference, as in he doesn't state which graphic came from which site. They don't match up to any stat site I look at.
 
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KIRK

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Aug 2, 2005
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I mean, the fact that Malkin is on the ice is a great sign after the other day. Not sure how you can possibly see that as negative.

Yes but the playoffs is a different animal. One leg. One arm. You're gonna play. Problem is-- and I said this two weeks ago-- is if Malkin's skating was right the sky is the limit but if it's not right all bets are off. It's not right and the first step and stopping and starting didn't improve to an extent over the 4 games that one would expect if that knee were right.
 
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Gurglesons

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Dec 18, 2009
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Yes but the playoffs is a different animal. One leg. One arm. You're gonna play. Problem is-- and I said this two weeks ago-- is if Malkin's skating was right the sky is the limit but if it's not right all bets are off. It's not right and the first step and stopping and starting didn't improve to an extent over the 4 games that one would expect if that knee were right.

Luckily we were able to pull 25 year old Jeff Carter.
 
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DesertedPenguin

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Mar 11, 2007
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Yes but the playoffs is a different animal. One leg. One arm. You're gonna play. Problem is-- and I said this two weeks ago-- is if Malkin's skating was right the sky is the limit but if it's not right all bets are off. It's not right and the first step and stopping and starting didn't improve to an extent over the 4 games that one would expect if that knee were right.
1. He's got at least a week to continue working on his knee.
2. I was referring solely to the fact that he did not finish Saturday's game and people were freaked out that he was going to be out again. At least he's skating, which is far better news than him being absent.
 
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