Post-Game Talk: Pens get Sabred by Buffalo

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
42,447
Sully wants a team full of 4th liners and bottom pairing dmen with shitty backup goalies. His dream team!
The issue is, he is playing a shitty 8th best defenseman on the roster as a top 5 and is allowed to make endless mistakes and not get punished for it while POJ never gets any rope and after sitting for so long is supposed to somehow show up like he's a polished potential top 4 after a few games on a team that's super inconsistent and coached like shit.

Then the goalies - We actually have a very good tandem, Jarry and Ned are exactly what we need and yet the system allows the opposition to walk right up to the goalies and get prime chances and the defensive coverage from the forwards and defense is nightmarish or average on any given night with either goalie having to stand on their heads.

And then the 4th liner stuff....He has a choice on who he wants to play and he chooses Carter and Harkins. The coach has tried to turn several prospects into 4th liners and in most cases he's succeeded in destroying whatever hope they might have had left, but in DOC's and Puustinen's case, they are more and he somehow just doesn't seem to really like it all that much. He's not keen on taking ice time in the top 6 away from Rust and Rakell or Smith even if there's a different option that has shown the potential to capitalize on the already promising results we've seen.

This is why I hate when a GM comes in and goes "I need to give the coach the right players..."

Yeah there's no such thing as the right players for Sullivan and making the team competitive at the same time, the shit he wants negates the other.
 

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
42,447
wow what a great point to make right after the coach that let him roll in that spot for those 28 games finally gives up and moves him down. i'll point out a player sucks right after the coach the demotes him and not a moment sooner
The irony is if Sullivan did like even a tiny bit of research, I know it's stupid for me to think he would even do a whiff of one, he'd realize the usage for Smith was never Geno's line, it had a spark at some points, but his game is not suited for Geno.

If anything, O'Connor and Puustinen inject some life into Geno on the ice, whereas with Rust & Smith, he just seems to be annoyed and checks out and I don't blame him. He gets the short end of the stick each time and then when you have a lad that has potential to be really good with Geno, Sully decides 5:31 is enough.

Also, imagine demoting a player for scoring 2 goals in 26 games, yet Jarry has more f***ing goals than Jansen Harkins in 22 games and he doesn't even pk or provide any offense or solid defensive play. LOL
 

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
42,447
I couldn't watch last night but so typical of this team going to win a huge game in Boston just to come home and shit the bed against the Sabres. Unreal
I keep seeing this "win a huge game" and I think it's been more than obvious that the Bruins laid an egg vs the Penguins game and beat them while they were on their game. That loss pissed off Boston enough to brutalize the Bolts right after and the Pens shit all over themselves in Buffalo.
 

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
42,447
To add to the Reilly Smith stuff - He was always a player VGK had playing a decent amount of PK time, on the Pens its wildly inconsistent. He will go a month where he plays closer to what he did in VGK, then he'll have 13 games where he will average 13 seconds of SHTOI per game.

Imagine that, a player that is known for being a solid 2-way winger and can pk and does well in that role, is being jerked around, it's typical Mike Sullivan.

Also Yohe the f***ing twat that he is, is just a stat whore quoting moron, if he had half a f***ing brain would know prior to last season, Smith was utilized heavily on the RW in Vegas and has had multiple successful seasons on the right side, so if he's not finding his game on the LW, you'd think a coach that knows the blokes in his room, would see what he can do to spark something. Yet no word on anything in relation to his usage, not even a whisper.

Yet we have Sullivan, literally can't be bothered to figure a damn f***ing out and waits until the player has lost morale and his game before he figures yeah let me just demote him instead.

This coach is such a f***ing dipshit and routinely has no clue how to match lines at all.

You know what trio had the best outing for Malkin's line?
Smith, Malkin, O'Connor - They put up 5 goals and allowed 2, the best of any combo Geno has had this season, generated 54% SAT% and had favorable zone starts.

Puustinen's P/60 is the highest of any RW'er on this team, lmao and you see Sullivan shitting all over his usage. Imagine being a highly productive winger when he gets a chance only for the coach to somehow punish him for literally no reason at all. The thing is that the DOC-Eller-Puus line is actually very good, but Sullivan won't pay Puustinen more and he restricts them a ton with how he utilizes them. If he just eased up a tiny bit on their usage to actually utilize them like a proper 3rd line in todays game, you'd essentially have the problem of 3rd line not producing enough and consistently, solved.

Also, Smith with Eller is disastrous.

Btw DOC with Sid is also pretty brutal, they bleed goals (3GF, 5GA).

The ideal scenario is Doc-Malkin-Puustinen, it will thrive. But then you have to hope Smith-Eller-Rust works.
 
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Luigi Lemieux

Registered User
Sep 26, 2003
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I keep seeing this "win a huge game" and I think it's been more than obvious that the Bruins laid an egg vs the Penguins game and beat them while they were on their game. That loss pissed off Boston enough to brutalize the Bolts right after and the Pens shit all over themselves in Buffalo.
To be fair Tampa sucks too now.
 
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Le Magnifique 66

Let's Go Pens
Jun 9, 2006
23,637
3,282
Montreal
I keep seeing this "win a huge game" and I think it's been more than obvious that the Bruins laid an egg vs the Penguins game and beat them while they were on their game. That loss pissed off Boston enough to brutalize the Bolts right after and the Pens shit all over themselves in Buffalo.
Bruins we're indeed terrible and still almost beat us in that game. In a 7 game series, that's the only win we would win!
 

Buddy Bizarre

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Jul 9, 2021
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Sidgeni Malkby

Registered User
Nov 19, 2008
2,552
945
NJ
Late to the party...
I'm not sure what to think of this team.

- They show dominance but still can't win?
- Jarry lets in a softy, then keeps it tight the rest of the game?
- Tied 3rd period, you knew we were going to let the next one in! We didn't do that against Boston though!
- That 5 on 3 was party a gift for refs screwing up on the delay of game call, and for that goalie interference goal reversal. We scored, but man that execution was questionable.
- Right now we are almost closer to the bottom than we are to the top in our conference.
 

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