Post-Game Talk: Penguins 4, Golden Knights 2 - Cough Drops and Hot Dogs for Everyone?s

[ColePens]

But on the minor note...the more things change the more they stay the same.
Lots of people were excited about our group of forwards going into the season, I wasn't. I think we see the same thing from last year in this very young season.

It was disscused on this board last year, that the mix doesn't seem right and there's a lot of questionabal fits. Combine this with Sullivan's unwillingness to change/mix things up (unless the first line is struggling; then he puts Rust there) and you get the same old cr*p.

This is such a bizarre post. Unless i'm not understanding what you mean. You don't like the group of forwards? The forwards can score at will. The biggest issue with this team is group defense through the neutral zone and into the d-zone. Chipping bodies off lanes, communicating with even numbers, and good lord that d-zone awareness/urgency is just bad. It's bad. It needs to be 100x better.

Bitching about the overall fit of the offense is just weird to me. It sure as hell ain't perfect, but for a cap era it's freaking awesome. It will never be perfect.

 

[EightyOne]

You see it with the Caps tonight and you DEFINITELY see it with the Knights this season. People just don't get it if they haven't played the sport. The mental toughness to do the small things, have natural sense of urgency, play consistent, be confident, etc... it's so difficult at the NHL level. The breaks that were going to Vegas last year are not going for them and they can't catch a break now. They are missing some easy fundamentals like sticks on the ice last night, puck support, 2 way defense, etc. And they have a BETTER team. That is how difficult it it. And the 10% of annoying Pens fans come in here and whine and act like it's only the Pens who go through it.

Oh and our defense is still far far far from where we need to be. The commitment to team defense is just not there. That neutral zone, gap control, and lane control was still nowhere where it needs to be and that's after four days of film to discuss it. There were glimpses of great individual defense (Geno on 1 shift that led to his pass to Kessel) and some other plays, but we still flubbed outs and have terrible d support (outside of Sprong).

I mean damn, we all have those days where we wanna hit the snooze on the alarm seven times. Show up and sleepwalk through half the day's work. Do some stupid typos and forget to send an email. Or just not put the effort in again.

It is a lot more difficult when you are covered by TV cameras.

Yeah, they are paid MILLIONS, but....still human.

They could probably try a bit harder to get the small details down. But a win is a win.

 

[IcedCapp]

This has nothing to do with the team's performance, but it's a shame Dumoulin has the offensive ability of a dead Tyler Kennedy. He's the ability to hit the broadside of the barn away from being elite.

Absolutely shocked that Hornqvist was taken off of Sid's line... this late into the season.

I'd probably run Guentzel - Crosby - no one (gotta save money to re-sign Jake to a 12-year, $120B contract), HMH (don't @ME), RBK, CS?, I'd also fire Olli Maatta into the Sun and see if we can get a sweet Chicago Blackhawks cap savings. Death by immolation is LTIR-able, right?

 

[EliteGoaltending]

And not to offend Jack Johnson's small new found fan club on here, but I didn't like him in the lineup so far. Like, he hasn't been awful, but..big meh.

Of course they wouldn't sit JJ, but I'd prefer to see
Letang-Dumoulin
Matta-Schultz(solid last year)
Riikola-Oleksiak
or flip Maatta and Riikola

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Maatta is not missed against speedy teams and Vegas is that in spades.

Agreed, but it's deeper than that too. This team relies on transition from its blueliners so much, and it's much more than simply outlet passes. The guys need to be able to skate pucks out of danger as much or more so than be able to make a clean outlet pass. Maatta's just physically incapable of that, and it's never getting any better.

 

[WayneSid9987]

I see Dea scored one of the Devil's 6 goals. Good for him!

And not to offend Jack Johnson's small new found fan club on here, but I didn't like him in the lineup so far. Like, he hasn't be awful, but..big meh.

Of course they wouldn't sit JJ, but I'd prefer to see
Letang-Dumoulin
Matta-Schultz(solid last year)
Riikola-Oleksiak
or flip Maatta and Riikola

I'd rank the defenders so far to date as:

Top 2:
Letang
Riikola

Next best:
Dumo/JJ tied for 3rd
Schultz 4th

This is actual defending.
JJ has his warts but he's been fine so far.
And "fine" is exactly where you want 'em.
Thats not to say JJ can't fall to 5th/6th but thats where i'd rank him so far.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

So you guys are back loving Letang? I love you all then.

Pens are 2-0 on Thursdays when I cannot watch because of soccer. I gotta sign up for 5 more soccer leagues so the Pens.never lose again.

 

[ColePens]

It's an 82 game season. Everyone's going to make mistakes and put forth lackluster games from time to time, but that's entirely different than two solid years of terrible defensive play as an entire roster and living/dying by the sword, so to speak, with offense from our big guns.

I am genuinely starting to wonder if they're tuning Sully out. It's a complete 180 from the style, system and discipline he put into place when he first got here.

I'm definitely concerned about the team's lack of discipline in the neutral/d-zone. I will sound like a broken record - we have even numbers on so many of these breakdowns. That's insane. All they have to do is have a sense of urgency and awareness and work hard to do the small things. It SUCKS to work hard in the d-zone as a forward. Because you can lose almost all your energy doing so. But you have to do it and you have to want to do it. They do not want to do it.

That needs to be there. I cannot figure out why it is not there.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Riikola is like "We can be better with... the puck." but what he really meant was "The rest of the team can be better with the puck."

New guy comes in from Europe and in his first game says...”wish all these defenseman could handle the puck like me... like, that Letang guy is good but the rest of those dudes...”

... but that wouldn’t win him any points with his teammates, and worst of all no one on the team would squad up with him on Fortnite anymore.

But on the minor note...the more things change the more they stay the same.
Lots of people were excited about our group of forwards going into the season, I wasn't. I think we see the same thing from last year in this very young season.

It was disscused on this board last year, that the mix doesn't seem right and there's a lot of questionabal fits. Combine this with Sullivan's unwillingness to change/mix things up (unless the first line is struggling; then he puts Rust there) and you get the same old cr*p.

They should probably just trade Malkin.

Imagine the package they would get for him.

Lots of depth and stuff.

 

[ColePens]

So you guys are back loving Letang? I love you all then.

Pens are 2-0 on Thursdays when I cannot watch because of soccer. I gotta sign up for 5 more soccer leagues so the Pens.never lose again.

Letang + Riikola = <3

 

[Ryder71]

Riikola is a silky smooth player, great first pass, plays physical, is strong positionally, nice first game. Had a couple turnovers, one pretty bad one actually, but overall he made a good account of himself.

Desmith IMO was our best player tonight.

We still need to manage the puck better, that's a glaring issue thus far.

Sprong in limited ice time had a nice game, hopefully Sully sees that and gives him a couple more shifts with the big boys in coming games.

 

[EightyOne]

So you guys are back loving Letang? I love you all then.

Pens are 2-0 on Thursdays when I cannot watch because of soccer. I gotta sign up for 5 more soccer leagues so the Pens.never lose again.

We were too busy fawning over Riikola to bother watching Letang. Don't mistake our lack of criticism for love.

 

[ImporterExporter]

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Letang + Riikola = <3

They played together?

 

[IcedCapp]

They played together?

not DURING the game

 

[EightyOne]

Kessel is definately less round. Or the NHL trimmed the specs on his chest protector, too.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

We were too busy fawning over Riikola to bother watching Letang. Don't mistake our lack of criticism for love.

We sure like our Finnish undrafted FAs. At least, this time, the guy is actually good

 

[ColePens]

They played together?

No. But both guys are incredible.

 

[Empoleon8771]

And not to offend Jack Johnson's small new found fan club on here, but I didn't like him in the lineup so far. Like, he hasn't be awful, but..big meh.

Of course they wouldn't sit JJ, but I'd prefer to see
Letang-Dumoulin
Matta-Schultz(solid last year)
Riikola-Oleksiak
or flip Maatta and Riikola

I really don't know how you can justify Oleksiak or Schultz playing over Johnson. Especially Oleksiak, Oleksiak is basically just a worse and bigger version of Johnson. Oleksiak does nothing that Johnson doesn't do, and Johnson does it better.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I'm definitely concerned about the team's lack of discipline in the neutral/d-zone. I will sound like a broken record - we have even numbers on so many of these breakdowns. That's insane. All they have to do is have a sense of urgency and awareness and work hard to do the small things. It SUCKS to work hard in the d-zone as a forward. Because you can lose almost all your energy doing so. But you have to do it and you have to want to do it. They do not want to do it.

That needs to be there. I cannot figure out why it is not there.

Agreed entirely. I don't think it's a personnel issue outside of a couple of guys on defense--Maatta and Oleksiak specifically. I think it's a "give a shit" issue. Guys are entirely too used to winning games off the back of offensive firepower.

We have as good a forward corps as we've ever had in the Sid/Geno era, or ever will have. These guys are capable in all three zones, and while I'd like to see some changes and think we can improve/reshape some things, I think these guys are absolutely capable of winning another Cup. Our blueline is up in the air, but if Letang's playing like Mad Max he's infinitely better than calm, calculated, cerebral Letang (as long as he stays healthy for the playoffs, which is a huge concern of mine--colossal). Riikola looks like an absolute stud, but it's one game and there are bound to be growing pains. Maatta's a shitshow, Oleksiak's not far behind, Schultz is a shadow of his former self in terms of transition and offensive ability, JJ is either solid (not spectacular) or really looks like he's struggling. Murray's gotta sort his shit out too. All of our shortcomings can be smoothed over, for better or worse, if Murray's playing up to his ability. We won a Cup with a flawed roster and abysmal defensive play, but we were only able to do so because of clutch goaltending by MAF and Murray, coupled with timely scoring from overwhelming offensive juggernauts at forward.

 

[ColePens]

I'll give one compliment to Jack Johnson.. he boxes out very well.

 

[EliteGoaltending]

This is such a bizarre post. Unless i'm not understanding what you mean. You don't like the group of forwards? The forwards can score at will. The biggest issue with this team is group defense through the neutral zone and into the d-zone. Chipping bodies off lanes, communicating with even numbers, and good lord that d-zone awareness/urgency is just bad. It's bad. It needs to be 100x better.

*****ing about the overall fit of the offense is just weird to me. It sure as hell ain't perfect, but for a cap era it's freaking awesome. It will never be perfect.

Yeah we have lots of awesome forwards. But the thing is, lots of them/their games don't fit well with each other/each other's games.

I'm mostly talking about top 6. The only doubtless fit we have in top 6 is Guentzel-Crosby, imo.

 

[IcedCapp]

I'll give one compliment to Jack Johnson.. he boxes out very well.

lots of practice

 

[WayneSid9987]

For me, at this very moment, the best partner for JJ is Dumo or Riikola. Believe you'd get the best minute munching version out of him.(again, at this very moment).

Dumo and Juuso are the poise guys.
Letang, Schultz JJ need a "poise" partner.

 

[chethejet]

JJ is getting the puck out and is showing some physical play as well. Once sully allows for the pairings to gain comfort and reading who is what, the d can be very good. Olli just doesn't have the movement and skating to do what Riikola does. His shot is a force from the middle blue line.