Post-Game Talk: Penguins 4 - Canadian 3 - Shoot Out Edition - Are you not entertained?

[OtherThingsILike]

I've been advocating for more balanced scoring for a while. I don't think it makes sense to try and construct your lines where your bottom six's only function is drawing the other team 0-0. It's not going to kill you to infuse some offensive ability onto the 3rd line so that Sid/Geno don't have to carry 99.9% of the offense every single game.

Sid and Geno would need to show more willingness to play defense if they're going to be given more difficult minutes. As it is, they're both over 35, and giving them more difficult minutes is in itself probably a bad idea.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

You mentioned the reason why though - Jarry needs rest, yes, but that's why you and others trust Ned more right now, Ned is rested and should have been playing more, but Jarry was getting over played like usual by Sullivan, long stretches of games for a goalie that had a couple of seasons of injuries that nagged him, that's not really all that intelligent from the coaching staff.

But I mean, that's to be expected by a low intelligence group of wankers like the coach and his staff, also his GM.

Ned would have played more by now, but he was out close to a month.
At the time they didn't trust Hellberg to handle anything besides the 2nd of B2B's.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Sid and Geno would need to show more willingness to play defense if they're going to be given more difficult minutes. As it is, they're both over 35, and giving them more difficult minutes is in itself probably a bad idea.

Why would they get more difficult minutes? Advocating for more offensive ability on the third line doesn't mean I'm suggesting Sid or Geno now have to take over as the defensive lines. It simply means that instead of flanking Eller with a couple of defensive plugs, you actually flank him with a couple of offensively capable players who can also be reliable defensively.

I mean, Sid and Geno are getting roughly the same sort of usage as they did in the 2016 Cup run. Yet that team still could run HBK on the third line as a scoring line. Didn't suddenly mean Sid and Geno were swamped with defensive responsibilities they don't have now.

Some people in this fanbase have become so used to Sullivan's newfound love of "top six scores, bottom six defends" that they can't even remember what won us the Cup in 2016 and think that the bottom six's only job now is to defend otherwise Sid and Geno will have to be used in too many defensive situations, when that's not the case.

 

[canadianguy77]

This team is going to go as far as Sid, and to a lesser extent, EK, will them to. Bookmark this statement and use it against me next season.

 

[OtherThingsILike]

Why would they get more difficult minutes? Advocating for more offensive ability on the third line doesn't mean I'm suggesting Sid or Geno now have to take over as the defensive lines. It simply means that instead of flanking Eller with a couple of defensive plugs, you actually flank him with a couple of offensively capable players who can also be reliable defensively.

Eller starts 75% of his shifts in the defensive zone. It takes a special kind of player to turn that into consistent offense. Your run of the mill "offensively capable players who can also be reliable defensitively" aren't going to cut it.

I mean, Sid and Geno are getting roughly the same sort of usage as they did in the 2016 Cup run. Yet that team still could run HBK on the third line as a scoring line. Didn't suddenly mean Sid and Geno were swamped with defensive responsibilities they don't have now.

I wouldn't describe Crosby as having been "swamped" with defensive responsibilities, but he did handle more of them then than he does now. Kessel got the lion's share of the O-zone time that postseason (much more so than Crosby did), and even Bonino and Hagelin saw the majority of their starts happen in the O-zone.

Also, Matt Cullen got more ice time per game then than anyone on the fourth line does now.

Some people in this fanbase have become so used to Sullivan's newfound love of "top six scores, bottom six defends"

No, some of us just realize that that is the only viable path to success when you have two lines centered by 36+ centers (who aren't Patrice Bergeron).

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

Read some Habs comments. Even they noticed Malkin skating and looking like zombie, talking about him being close to retirement. Did he really have such a bad game?

He's looked like he's skating in quicksand the past week or so.
Prior to that he looked, dare I say, youthful? He had a ton of energy, then it seemed like he got sick and hasn't been the same since.

It's kinda weird...almost like he's playing with some long term bug

 

[pistolpete11]

He's looked like he's skating in quicksand the past week or so.
Prior to that he looked, dare I say, youthful? He had a ton of energy, then it seemed like he got sick and hasn't been the same since.

It's kinda weird...almost like he's playing with some long term bug

I agree with this. He was flying earlier in the year. His stop/start still wasn't great, that's just what he's going to be at this point, but once he got going he looked great. He hasn't had that same top end speed the last week or so.

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Regarding Puusy, Rust is going to be out for a while. That will tell us all we need to know. Either Puusy's call-up adrenaline bump wears off and it's an easy decision to send him back down. Or he keeps producing and/or is on PP1 and it's clicking. If it's the later, he needs to stay in the lineup. However they figure that out, either put him in the bottom 6 or bump Smith or Rakell to the bottom 6 wouldn't matter so much to me.

 

[vodeni]

Malkin looked fine for what he is these days.

He is the slowest guy on the team and in basically every game. He still has more skill than almost every player but unless he's scoring (or his line is scoring) it's not going to look good. I don't know the recipe for being effective while being the slowest guy on the ice as we enter 2024, but for the sake of having a decent 2nd line hopefully Geno and the coaching staff figure it out.

I know its a super small sample, but out of all the wingers he played this season, Puusty has the biggest effect on this"slow" game Geno is playing now. Lets see how it goes from now on...

Sid and Geno would need to show more willingness to play defense if they're going to be given more difficult minutes. As it is, they're both over 35, and giving them more difficult minutes is in itself probably a bad idea.

thats all Geno has been doing he rarely ventures forward, someone needs to look up but it has been a while since his line got scored on...after that bug when he cam back, he is playing super conservative..

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

Regarding Puusy, Rust is going to be out for a while. That will tell us all we need to know. Either Puusy's call-up adrenaline bump wears off and it's an easy decision to send him back down. Or he keeps producing and/or is on PP1 and it's clicking. If it's the later, he needs to stay in the lineup. However they figure that out, either put him in the bottom 6 or bump Smith or Rakell to the bottom 6 wouldn't matter so much to me.

I fear that the only thing keeping Puusy up is his PP ability. If that starts to falter, I think he's the first one to be sent back down. He's gonna have a short leash, but Harkins will get 50 more games to "figure things out"

 

[Freeptop]

Puustinen has added a nice element to the powerplay. Retrieval. I hope he stays a while.

Given how superstitious Crosby is, I expect Puustinen will stay as long as the power play keeps scoring

 

[SEALBound]

Ned would have played more by now, but he was out close to a month.
At the time they didn't trust Hellberg to handle anything besides the 2nd of B2B's.

That probably ended up being a good thing though since in that time, Jarry played himself out of that funk he was in. He went from consistently terrible to terrible every third game or so. So that's a positive.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

No, some of us just realize that that is the only viable path to success when you have two lines centered by 36+ centers (who aren't Patrice Bergeron).

Yeah, such tremendous success we've had over the past 5 years running that kind of setup.