Post-Game Talk: Pens 4, Blues 1 - Kunitz Inspires Sid

[Clare2904]

Would love to stand right next to her holdinga sign that says "Who's This 'We' she's talking about? "

There is a Murray fan just behind her with a kid. If that had been me I would be standing right by the glass laughing my ass of at her.

 

[Daeni10]

My morbid curiosity made me check the Pens' FB page. Man, you'd think the Pens just won the Cup with how ridiculously happy the GAF fanbois are. It's insane!

Are you the guy telling him that Fleury is not one of the best goalies in the League?

 

[vodeni]

Fleury and Kunitz both have really good nights and people here losing their minds defending the narrative - for NO reason. Starting to feel sorry for people that are so emotionally invested in seeing Fleury gone they can't simply enjoy a win.

Sid was absolutely spectacular. Great game.

The Blues are dirty as ****.

Hope the team isn't too banged up after these last 2 games. Big wins.

see this is the problem...I was one of the earliest Flower's critics, it was always clear to me who he was, an average NHL goalie, at that time vastly overpaid, but later when bunch of mediocre goalies got similar salaries I was OK, the problem with him was that we were tight with salary cap and many of us thought that a $2M goalie like Voki, or even Greiss could do just as good job. Why people hate him here is not because Flower, but because never understood narrative from the Pittsburgh media and organization of him as a Vezina goalie, greatest goalie ever, so many wins each season, and what its worse, when we finally got a goalie from our ranks in Murray they have done almost everything to diminish his value and promote Flower. You will understand that normal people got really rubbed the wrong way and tend to get all cynical on whatever situation now is around Flower.

He had a very, very good game last night and as I mentioned in the therad last night, its good to have a solid back up. No more no less.

On the other issue, please if you have a chance rewatch the game. kunitz had decent first period. he outright STUNK second and third. Too bad Mr. Burgundy stopped keeping notes, but he was just floating around, he was late to every puck, he was a great defensive liability, could not clear the puck for the life, he was bad.
The guy seriously slowed down, he can't play a lot of minutes, especially not on Sid'd line.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Fleury has never been vastly overpaid. Until now I guess. But that's because of Murray. Fleury is a middle of the pack NHL starter who has always made middle of the pack NHL starter money. Add in his healthy and year-to-year consistency and he's been worth all of his contracts.

I agree that Kunitz only had a good 1st. He just can't keep up with Sid for 1st line minutes. Kunitz needs to have his minutes limited. That's the biggest issue he has at this point. He's shown that he is still capable of playing solid hockey, just not when he has a heavy workload.

 

[trader997]

see this is the problem...I was one of the earliest Flower's critics, it was always clear to me who he was, an average NHL goalie, at that time vastly overpaid, but later when bunch of mediocre goalies got similar salaries I was OK, the problem with him was that we were tight with salary cap and many of us thought that a $2M goalie like Voki, or even Greiss could do just as good job. Why people hate him here is not because Flower, but because never understood narrative from the Pittsburgh media and organization of him as a Vezina goalie, greatest goalie ever, so many wins each season, and what its worse, when we finally got a goalie from our ranks in Murray they have done almost everything to diminish his value and promote Flower. You will understand that normal people got really rubbed the wrong way and tend to get all cynical on whatever situation now is around Flower.

He had a very, very good game last night and as I mentioned in the therad last night, its good to have a solid back up. No more no less.

On the other issue, please if you have a chance rewatch the game. kunitz had decent first period. he outright STUNK second and third. Too bad Mr. Burgundy stopped keeping notes, but he was just floating around, he was late to every puck, he was a great defensive liability, could not clear the puck for the life, he was bad.
The guy seriously slowed down, he can't play a lot of minutes, especially not on Sid'd line.

Oh come on, for once Kunitz played very well last night. He was well positioned for good break outs and also around the net in the offensive zone. More importantly, Kunitz still thinks the game like Sid. Rust on the other hand is useful on this line when the puck is not on his stick, he thinks the game like a plugger, he's always out of sync playing with Crosby and you could see it again last night. I would prefer seeing Guentzel playing with Sid and Horny but we'll see the adjustments from MS in the next month.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Oh come on, for once Kunitz played very well last night. He was well positioned for good break outs and also around the net in the offensive zone. More importantly, Kunitz still thinks the game like Sid. Rust on the other hand is useful on this line when the puck is not on his stick, he thinks the game like a plugger, he's always out of sync playing with Crosby and you could see it again last night. I would prefer seeing Guentzel playing with Sid and Horny but we'll see the adjustments from MS in the next month.

I still don't think Kunitz was good the 2nd half of the game last night. Not awful, but not good either. He was legit good in the 1st, but not later. But, Sid was great. If that's because Kunitz was there and he was happy, so be it. The line clearly worked

 

[PensPlz]

see this is the problem...I was one of the earliest Flower's critics, it was always clear to me who he was, an average NHL goalie, at that time vastly overpaid, but later when bunch of mediocre goalies got similar salaries I was OK, the problem with him was that we were tight with salary cap and many of us thought that a $2M goalie like Voki, or even Greiss could do just as good job. Why people hate him here is not because Flower, but because never understood narrative from the Pittsburgh media and organization of him as a Vezina goalie, greatest goalie ever, so many wins each season, and what its worse, when we finally got a goalie from our ranks in Murray they have done almost everything to diminish his value and promote Flower. You will understand that normal people got really rubbed the wrong way and tend to get all cynical on whatever situation now is around Flower.

He had a very, very good game last night and as I mentioned in the therad last night, its good to have a solid back up. No more no less.

On the other issue, please if you have a chance rewatch the game. kunitz had decent first period. he outright STUNK second and third. Too bad Mr. Burgundy stopped keeping notes, but he was just floating around, he was late to every puck, he was a great defensive liability, could not clear the puck for the life, he was bad.
The guy seriously slowed down, he can't play a lot of minutes, especially not on Sid'd line.

So what you're saying is the media is dishonest and uses it's influence to promote someone that they most feel comfortable with?

Pittsburgh sports media is no different than any other media. They take care of their own. If they aren't going to say boo about Joey Porter's drunken rampage on the South Side, the odds of hard hitting piece about Fleury's decline is not going to be priority - considering the Pens will always be in 3rd place in the sports hierarchy of this city.

Seriously. Fleury hasn't started a game in nearly a month, and only reason he did last night was because it was the "easier" game of a back-to-back. Kunitz was playing on the 4th line before Geno and Sheary went down. And I say Kunitz had a good game because I don't remember screaming at the TV about anything he did, and he set up Sid for a GOTY candidate. Things are as they should be and Murray isn't going anywhere, despite the media and dumbasses on lolfacebook. Sit back and enjoy the wins regardless of who is in net.

 

[HandshakeLine]

The media won't report that **** because it won't sell. If it sold, like it does in some other cities, everyone would tumble over themselves to have that hot take.

Our media is bad because Pittsburgh sports culture is uncritical and doesn't reward good journalism.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Oh come on, for once Kunitz played very well last night. He was well positioned for good break outs and also around the net in the offensive zone. More importantly, Kunitz still thinks the game like Sid. Rust on the other hand is useful on this line when the puck is not on his stick, he thinks the game like a plugger, he's always out of sync playing with Crosby and you could see it again last night. I would prefer seeing Guentzel playing with Sid and Horny but we'll see the adjustments from MS in the next month.

No, he played like ass.

He set up a goal so people tend to let that whitewash everything else that happened.

Go back and re-watch how many times he lost the puck and killed possession. It's almost like a comedy act, but he's for real.

 

[td_ice]

The media won't report that **** because it won't sell. If it sold, like it does in some other cities, everyone would tumble over themselves to have that hot take.

Our media is bad because Pittsburgh sports culture is uncritical and doesn't reward good journalism.

So so true.

 

[SEALBound]

Kunitz was okay. He wouldn't say he was bad but by no means was he a god send fill in LW. He got a couple points and wasn't a net negative. He did what we needed him to do.

I like him much better on the 4th line with Fehr and Wilson but I digress. I have no issue giving him credit when credit is due. I'm just sick of those time being so few and far between.

MAF did indeed play very well. All things considered, that is exactly what we needed from him last night. Strong showing to boost interest and value and it got us a win.

Sid is 1 point back from McDavid and his next games are CGY, COL, ARI, VAN, and WPG. This is a serious opportunity for Sid to do some damage and gain ground on McDavid who is about to go into his bye-week. I don't care who his wings are but the Sid last night tried. Whatever gets him trying and shooting...I'm all for it. I don't care if they resign and bring back Adams and Glass for the next 2 weeks...I want Sid shooting and scoring.

 

[SaturdayNightSlegr]

Sid is 1 point back from McDavid and his next games are CGY, COL, ARI, VAN, and WPG.

Arg, and those are teams McDavid plays all the time. While Sid deals with the likes of the Rangers, Caps and BJs.

 

[TorstenFrings]

Fleury and Kunitz both have really good nights and people here losing their minds defending the narrative - for NO reason. Starting to feel sorry for people that are so emotionally invested in seeing Fleury gone they can't simply enjoy a win.

I have a few tumblrs I check for gifs and tumblr is generally a more Fleury-loving place. It's funny to see how both sides get so into it and start seeing proof for their bias in everything. Even the exact same things.
So I go to tumblr and it's all "Root is so annoying acting as if Fleury being good is surprising, Sullivan just loves Murray, he is dead to me" and then I come here and everyone is complaining about how unreasonably Steigy and the org love MAF.

 

[Mattpilf]

see this is the problem...I was one of the earliest Flower's critics, it was always clear to me who he was, an average NHL goalie, at that time vastly overpaid, but later when bunch of mediocre goalies got similar salaries I was OK, the problem with him was that we were tight with salary cap and many of us thought that a $2M goalie like Voki, or even Greiss could do just as good job. Why people hate him here is not because Flower, but because never understood narrative from the Pittsburgh media and organization of him as a Vezina goalie, greatest goalie ever, so many wins each season, and what its worse, when we finally got a goalie from our ranks in Murray they have done almost everything to diminish his value and promote Flower. You will understand that normal people got really rubbed the wrong way and tend to get all cynical on whatever situation now is around Flower.

He had a very, very good game last night and as I mentioned in the therad last night, its good to have a solid back up. No more no less.

On the other issue, please if you have a chance rewatch the game. kunitz had decent first period. he outright STUNK second and third. Too bad Mr. Burgundy stopped keeping notes, but he was just floating around, he was late to every puck, he was a great defensive liability, could not clear the puck for the life, he was bad.
The guy seriously slowed down, he can't play a lot of minutes, especially not on Sid'd line.

Yeah 17 minutes, and that's after a physical game the day before.


It's becoming clear how Kunitz struggles with these heavy minutes. He still a good player when he's in a role where he can give it 100%, as evident by a fourth line that for like 4 + straight games was crushing it. I think his body just can't handle the grind of top 6 minutes day in and day out. He starts off strong, but his body just starts giving up

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

I have a few tumblrs I check for gifs and tumblr is generally a more Fleury-loving place. It's funny to see how both sides get so into it and start seeing proof for their bias in everything. Even the exact same things.
So I go to tumblr and it's all "Root is so annoying acting as if Fleury being good is surprising, Sullivan just loves Murray, he is dead to me" and then I come here and everyone is complaining about how unreasonably Steigy and the org love MAF.

The people on tumblr are wrong. The commentary team is obsessed with Fleury. How many commentary teams openly wonder when the backup goalie is going to get another chance to play? It's embarassing.

They don't realize that Sullivan doesn't "love" Murray, he's just aware that he is the team's best goalie. At least we are living in reality. These delusional psychos not only believe that Fleury is better than Murray, but they believe that Fleury is one of the greatest of all time.

We are not nearly as biased as those folks.

 

[Shrimper]

Sid is going to get 1k when I'm not watching isn't he?

 

[OnMyOwn]

Sid is going to get 1k when I'm not watching isn't he?

I hope he gets it at home this next game.

 

[vodeni]

I hope he gets it at home this next game.

3 pts against Flames - not unreasonable expectation. tune in.

 

[ColePens]

The media won't report that **** because it won't sell. If it sold, like it does in some other cities, everyone would tumble over themselves to have that hot take.

Our media is bad because Pittsburgh sports culture is uncritical and doesn't reward good journalism.

That's how media changed years and years ago. Shock jock/clicks = more than credibility and good journalism. Definitely not just Pittsburgh. That is just today's media altogether whether it's sports, politics, or anything.

 

[Empoleon8771]

That's awful to hear, I didn't think Rowney's hit was at all malicious. Unfortunate.

 

[Clare2904]

Just seen this, feel for the kid Hopefully everything heals correctly and he is back in the Autumn raring to go.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

That's awful to hear, I didn't think Rowney's hit was at all malicious. Unfortunate.

Holy crap that sucks.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

That sucks, never like to see young talent go down like that.

 

[Fordy]

didn't watch these games this weekend but i hope they are a demonstration of why you never ever should be happy about anything kunitz ever does. he'll be getting top 6 chances in 2020

 

[ColePens]

Very sad to hear about Fabs. Hate seeing that.