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

[EliteGoaltending]

HMH is a possession line, not a scoring line. As soon as Geno went off God mode last year, the line stopped producing.

Seeing a goal from Hags(if it isn't on SH breakaway, but then it's a little bit too) it's like a small miracle. Geno-Horny oil and water. Not a great formula for a top 6 line, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess...

Trying Brassard in top 6 is a good ideas, and trying Sprong is a logical one. But we're talking about Sully here..

 

[EightyOne]

Johnson looks exactly as I expected just entirely mediocre when he looks good and when he looks bad he’s just out of position cos of what makes him look mediocre.

Do you think the Pens can make it work? Other that the salary, does he actively hurt the team's chances for wins, or just, not add to the chances for wins?

The Pens have had some pretty warm bodies on defense before.

 

[mpp9]

Does that not validate some of my question of resigning Horny??

Nope. We didn't sign him to play with Sid. We signed him because he's a nonstop motor on a team full of finesse and the best netfront presence in the game.

 

[EliteGoaltending]

HMH is a possession line, not a scoring line. As soon as Geno went off God mode last year, the line stopped producing.

Seeing a goal from Hags(if it isn't on SH breakaway, but then it's a little bit too) it's like a small miracle. Geno-Horny oil and water. And both Hags and Horny 'grind' type not 'skill' type. Not a great formula for a top 6 line, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess...

Trying Brassard in top 6 is a good ideas, and trying Sprong is a logical one. But we're talking about Sully here..

Wanted to edit post instead did a replay. Why there's no delite option

 

[ncm7772]

The Pens doubled up goals on the powerhouse VGK missing players to injury and using their back-up goalie.

Clearly, all of the issues have been solved.

Hence why I don't think it was anywhere close to perfect. But not gonna complain about a win.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Going to be making voodoo dolls for all the people talking stuff on Simon.

Got down Cole, KIRK and Pixies so far on the list...

Oh man are you fools going to regret bad mouthing my boy. Stock up on band-aids boys.

 

[Gurglesons]

Going to be making voodoo dolls for all the people talking stuff on Simon.

Got down Cole, KIRK and Pixies so far on the list...

Oh man are you fools going to regret bad mouthing my boy. Stock up on band-aids boys.

View attachment 146027

Hey man. I defended Simon all summer.He’s fine.

 

[vodeni]

I think people underestimate how freaking dedicated to team defense our Cup winning teams. Especially 2016. Team commitment at its finest. The commitment and urgency was through the damn roof.

not really in 2017, it was more of shotblocking and goaltending....having said that its more sticks on the ice, cover the lanes in NZ and take bodies no backpedalling

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I don't think Horny will drop off drastically this season. It was more looking at the contract term and how Horny fits with our top 3 centers. Also, what would we get back if traded or what we could have done with the cap space for a better fit at wing or D.

Horny's an animal. Until he proves he can't come through when we need him, I'll always want him on this team at that price. I get the issues with finding the right fit at ES, but he hasn't really had a fit at ES here yet and still always managed to be a huge contributor.

He can be a solid complement for Sid and Jake, at the very least.

 

[WayneSid9987]

If I was going to move Brassard to wing I’d keep him on the left side. Last season Kessel and Sheahan only looked great when Jake was there. Brassard is a real smart player and would complement Sprong.

Brassard-Crosby-Sprong
Hagelin-Malkin-Hornqvist
Guentzel-Sheahan-Kessel
Simon/Grant-Cullen-Rust

You know, dis ain't bad if you wanna re-energize Sid.
Also like Lines 2 thru 4.
I don't think Brass will be moving to wing anytime soon tho...

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Hey man. I defended Simon all summer.He’s fine.

 

[Gurglesons]

Do you think the Pens can make it work? Other that the salary, does he actively hurt the team's chances for wins, or just, not add to the chances for wins?

The Pens have had some pretty warm bodies on defense before.

He’s a net negative on the ice and he has amplified both Schultz and Maatta’s bad tendencies.

Him and Schultz got caved in tonight. I guess in some bizarre world where you produce 6 shots for and 25 against, I dunno.

But, I’m sure he is funny to interviewers / a good guy so who cares.

 

[Dick Sledge]

I don't know if it's my vpn affecting it but nhl gamecenter is a choppy mess. Pretty much unwatchable. It's so f***ing irritating. I'm glad I only paid for a month instead of the full year.

My internet is 250 per second so it's not that. I have given up on 2 games in a row trying to watch it through nhl.tv. The reddit streams are 100x smoother. I can't watch every game live because of work. I refuse to pay comcast more. I'm pretty pissed.

 

[NMK11]

Ice times were interesting. Our 7 top forwards between 15-17 minutes. That’s a good way to battle fatigue.

Not to bring up last year's center debates, but being able to do this against a good team was my number one reason to start with good center depth. Not having to ride crosby and malkin is huge.

 

[Dick Sledge]

Also Mears has the worst "he scooooores" call.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The thing that sucked about today was that the Penguins decision to put Rust on the top line elimianted any chance of Sprong getting into the top-9, because the only realistic way for Sprong being in the top-9 is by Simon being bumped to the 4th line and Rust being bumped to LW. I'm disappointed Sullivan doesn't give Sprong a chance on higher lines when he's playing like he did today. It doesn't look good on Sullivan to continue to trot out Simon as he's doing whatever the **** he was doing tonight, while not giving Sprong a promotion when playing really well.

He’s a net negative on the ice and he has amplified both Schultz and Maatta’s bad tendencies.

Him and Schultz got caved in tonight. I guess in some bizarre world where you produce 6 shots for and 25 against, I dunno.

But, I’m sure he is funny to interviewers / a good guy so who cares.

Don't you think it's unfair to blame Johnson for that when both Maatta and Schultz have also played like absolute crap? Why is it that he's amplifying their issues, not Maatta and Schultz amplifying his problems? It's not like either of those guys have played well at all this year.

The Johnson-Schultz pair tonight sucked, but I didn't see anything in Johnson's game tonight that stuck out as being noticeably bad. He got smacked in Corsi, but so did the entire team. No one was even at a 50% CF% tonight.

 

[EightyOne]

Don't you think it's unfair to blame Johnson for that when both Maatta and Schultz have also played like absolute crap? Why is it that he's amplifying their issues, not Maatta and Schultz amplifying his problems? It's not like either of those guys have played well at all this year.

True. It could be a chicken or the egg situation.

I think the Pens could do worse than having JMFJ. But I wouldn't mind if he were upgraded upon. Like about 60% of the defense, lol.

 

[ColePens]

Love Sid. But Guentzel and a third wheel should be enough for him to do his thing. Let him have Simon if he won't play with PH.

Meh some things i've learned in this era... let Sid glide. Because he does this and then turns into beast mode for Games 5/6 in the SCF against the Preds. Especially Game 5. He was shot out of a freaking canon. IF they start slow, so be it. I'd rather them save it for later.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

The thing I hate with the tinkering is that it's the most horrendous kind of tinkering. If you're going to change stuff up, f***ing change it. Don't half ass it, whole ass that shit.

Sullivan is almost as bad as Bylsma with his "line-up creativity" in the sense that he goes back to what worked for brief moments, years ago. Then the most obvious thing, he is oblivious to.

The win today was nice. But it doesn't change the fact that:

1. The Defense was still sloppy.
2. The team doesn't play as a cohesive unit.
3. Support from the forwards on D needs to be better.
4. Breaking out as a unit needs to be a thing again.
5. The pairings on D need to be sorted out.
6. The forward lines need to be fixed and not just Rust/Horny swaps.

 

[ColePens]

Going to be making voodoo dolls for all the people talking stuff on Simon.

Got down Cole, KIRK and Pixies so far on the list...

Oh man are you fools going to regret bad mouthing my boy. Stock up on band-aids boys.

View attachment 146027

Time out! During GDTs, I critique the game within the game itself. Simon was brutal tonight. I think he's an NHL player finding himself. His struggles are no different from the ones Sheary/Rust/etc. went through. You can see the guy has talent. But if we are talking within the game, he was brutal.

And for Simon/Sprong those 2 should be battling like there is no tomorrow. Sprong, tonight, showed that. Simon has taken some weird/dumb penalties and was very poor tonight.

I'm a lot more patient than many around here. I want to see him progress. I'm not even close to the point where we simply just waive him and say goodbye.

 

[Empoleon8771]

True. It could be a chicken or the egg situation.

I think it's both. Johnson's problems are very evident, anyone who has watched him can very easily see the deficiencies in his game. I think these deficiencies are hurting his D partners, the Byron goal against Montreal is a great example of that, where Maatta got burned because Johnson went off to skate in Lala Land. But on the other point, the other guys are playing worse than he is, to the point where it's ridiculous to complain about Johnson causing them problems when they're doing nothing positive out there.

It's ridiculous to blame his D partners struggles on Johnson, because his D partners have all legitimately played like crap this year, with or without Johnson. Schultz was garbage before Johnson was put on his D pair, so why blame Johnson for the Johnson-Schultz pair sucking today? Johnson is causing problems for his D partners, but those problems aren't nearly as bad as the play of his D partners.

I think the Pens could do worse than having JMFJ. But I wouldn't mind if he were upgraded upon. Like about 60% of the defense, lol.

The extent of my problems with Johnson are that they have an extremely similar, but worse version of Johnson in Oleksiak. There's not a point in having both, I'd 100% rather have Johnson over Oleksiak, but Oleksiak was a RFA that wasn't going anywhere.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

True. It could be a chicken or the egg situation.

I think the Pens could do worse than having JMFJ. But I wouldn't mind if he were upgraded upon. Like about 60% of the defense, lol.

The thing is, we are seeing individual performances doing well. Not tandems. Even Letang and Dumo look off as a pair and I am interested to see them split up to try something else but the team isn't at all for whatever reason.

The defensive coaching stinks to high hell and we're blaming players. The only legit thing to blame is Maatta being slow, that cannot be fixed. What can, is the pairings and tightening things up with systems. There is a clear disconnect on defense and has been since last season, you would think they worked on the systems in the off season to fix it, but they seem even more clueless than last season. How the f*** did they manage that?

I'm not going to sit here and play the horse shit blaming game people want to do with JMFJ, Oleksiak, and even Letang and Dumo at times. It's clear, what is broken is the defensive coaching. It's beyond broken right now and they need to do a deep dive into what is wrong.

 

[ColePens]

not really in 2017, it was more of shotblocking and goaltending....having said that its more sticks on the ice, cover the lanes in NZ and take bodies no backpedalling

I think every Cup team has an underlying identity that doesn't get noticed.

2016 Pens - team committed defense. They made the neutral zone a living hell on teams. The backchecking was relentless.

2017 Pens - bend/don't break/capitalize on chances. They weren't dominating in transition, they'd just go on spurts and capitalize in a big way. You could find like 8 minute pockets where the team explodes and then they survived 52 other minutes.

2018 Caps - Transition offense. The powerplay got the love it deserved, but that team's success rate on turnover/transition offense was out of this world. I've never seen a team convert that much on transition chances. It was automatic.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Time out! During GDTs, I critique the game within the game itself. Simon was brutal tonight. I think he's an NHL player finding himself. His struggles are no different from the ones Sheary/Rust/etc. went through. You can see the guy has talent. But if we are talking within the game, he was brutal.

And for Simon/Sprong those 2 should be battling like there is no tomorrow. Sprong, tonight, showed that. Simon has taken some weird/dumb penalties and was very poor tonight.

I'm a lot more patient than many around here. I want to see him progress. I'm not even close to the point where we simply just waive him and say goodbye.

Pssst... it’s too late for you to...

Don’t try to beg, it’s not becoming.

Accept your fate.

 

[ColePens]

The thing I hate with the tinkering is that it's the most horrendous kind of tinkering. If you're going to change stuff up, ****ing change it. Don't half ass it, whole ass that ****.

Sullivan is almost as bad as Bylsma with his "line-up creativity" in the sense that he goes back to what worked for brief moments, years ago. Then the most obvious thing, he is oblivious to.

The win today was nice. But it doesn't change the fact that:

1. The Defense was still sloppy.
2. The team doesn't play as a cohesive unit.
3. Support from the forwards on D needs to be better.
4. Breaking out as a unit needs to be a thing again.
5. The pairings on D need to be sorted out.
6. The forward lines need to be fixed and not just Rust/Horny swaps.

I will say this. I'm not big on cementing someone's legacy on one move, but Sully really shocked me by not playing Riikola in game 1. That was the first time I witnessed Sully stick to his guys that he won a Cup with whether they deserved it or not. When he came up in 2016, he gave zero shits. The best players played no matter how old or who had hurt feelings.

Riikola earned a spot with his camp and there were 2-3 defenders who played like shit that could have been sent a message to pick it up. Especially Maatta who had disaster preseason games against AHL talent. That message could have been at Game 1.

You see it with the lines now, too. Sprong, tonight, earned a shift or two up with the top 6. He was just having one of those nights. And the RW for Sid's line was struggling no matter who it was. It was the perfect time to pull that trigger and reward him. And he didn't. Hell if L1 RW is struggling and it's Rust/Horny, what the hell would hold you back from trying Sprong out? It's do or die for his Pens career as he's not eligible to be waived. Give it a go.

And i'll say it for the 100th time... the defensive zone is bad. 4 days to dwell on it and we still stood around covering the same guys. I'm keeping these in my back pocket to see if the trend continues. That's all.