Post-Game Talk: Pens put out the flame with a beat down

[Rossi Rat]

Thank god they got these 2 big W’s in Edmonton and Calgary, because they have to face Brock Boeser and Suttertron on Saturday.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Here's an animated gif of Olli Maatta skating.

 

[EightyOne]

Thank god they got these 2 big W’s in Edmonton and Calgary, because they have to face Brock Boeser and Suttertron on Saturday.

BB and Sutterino better hope they are healthy scratched...

 

[Coach Travis]

But how many GOALS!!!??!?!?

Shots...look, these games were all in Canada. Home teams get to tally shots/hits(I mean, I thought they did it this way...I could be wrong/outdated knowledge). Not saying they pad their own stats, but...

Also, weak **** from the top circle vs unprotected in the slot are big differences.

Pens shots were almost all within the top of the circles and a bunch in the slot. Average distance of 33 feet.
Flames shots were all over the zone with a few in the slot. Average distance 41 feet.

1. The NHL counts stats, not the Calgary Flames.
2. There were PLENTY of high quality scoring chances in this game as well as the last two. The Flames may have taken quite a few point shots but according to their head map they took a lot from in close

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

That puts Simon out of position, and it puts Rust out of position.

edit: I'd just do the obvious and put Sprong with Sid if Brass is actually hurt.

I really hope Brassard isn’t hurt. He was looking like the guy I’d been hoping to see last night and is really starting to fit on that top line.

Still not thrilled about what it does to the third line though. Maybe the Sheahan line holds steady all season, but not thrilled with how Grant looks.

I’ll see how it goes, but really blows that TB is rotting away in the A when he looks like a much better pivot to me than Grant.

 

[Turin]

What a beatdown. Hope this isn't the last game we see like this...the Pens are a juggernaut on offense, and when the defense gets with the program they ought to be a tough team to contain.

Not sure what looked worse: Murray freezing on Neal's knuckle-puck or Giordano's "effort" in the corner on the last goal. I give Murray a pass; he was brilliant otherwise and whiffed shots can be tricky to follow.

Gio, definitely. At least you can understand why Murr wouldn’t see Neal completely whiffing. Gio looked worse on that play than anything I’ve ever seen

 

[Le Magnifique 66]

Still can't believe Murray lost that shutout
He wouldn't make a good catcher for Tim Wakefield!!!

 

[Clare2904]

Pissed Murray let in the goal to lose me points in fantasy and not get the shut out.

Please win the Norris Tanger then your stock will be sky high and maximise the return in a trade

 

[Randy Butternubs]

I really hope Brassard isn’t hurt. He was looking like the guy I’d been hoping to see last night and is really starting to fit on that top line.

Still not thrilled about what it does to the third line though. Maybe the Sheahan line holds steady all season, but not thrilled with how Grant looks.

I’ll see how it goes, but really blows that TB is rotting away in the A when he looks like a much better pivot to me than Grant.

I think it was a precautionary thing with Brassard not playing much in the 3rd. Didn't he miss practice recently?

 

[ColePens]

Still can't believe Murray lost that shutout
He wouldn't make a good catcher for Tim Wakefield!!!

Epic reference.

 

[Coach Travis]

Toronto’s shot chart wasn’t really that dangerous. Edmonton’s was but they suck. Haven’t seen Calgary’s. The only dangerous plays they had (not many) Murray was all over.

Actually, Calgary was a 58% Possession team this game and had a lot of excellent chances including some royal-road-crossing one-timers and at least one breakaway that comes to mind. They took a lot of pointshots but also had a nice red heatspot in our slot. Murray is playing as good as he always has (yes, that’s right, Murray has been good this season despite the counting stats) the only singular difference is that our D are actually boxing out and tying up sticks and not (as often) hanging Murray out to dry. What the D are still not doing is driving play. If you look at our team as 5-man units, we’re essentially a 1-line team in that when Letang & Dumoulin are on the ice, we actually control the play somewhat. In a game that had 7 even-strength goals, 58&8 were a +5. Oleksiak is actually doing a good job lately. Should give him credit. But our D’s inability to get the puck to our forwards is going to kill us eventually if it doesn’t improve.

 

[Empoleon8771]

It still blows my mind that despite not looking good for a lot of this year and getting caved in possession every game, the team has gotten 12 out of a possible 16 points. They're starting the year great in the standings despite not playing very well most of the time, what will they be doing when they are playing well?

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I have absolutely no idea what this post is...

Letang made a half dozen absolutely inexcusable horrible plays a game last season... he was a huge detriment. At his age its not unheard of for a player to “lose it” especially after a major surgery that absolutely can affect play style.

Concern about his play going forward was real and justified, so much so that thefront office actually thought about moving him....

Outside of the first period of play this season though he has thus far rebounded into what he was before the surgery.

That doesn’t mean anybody who called out his play last year was wrong...

Its a happy surprise that he has played this awesomely but its never assured to keep up...

Its a great thing that he is playing at this level... lets just all hope he stays healthy and playing well all season

I’m pretty sure Pixie and a few others will back me up on this, but people went well beyond valid criticism of Letang. He was blamed for mistakes he wasn’t even making, and had only a decent season by his standards and a couple bad playoff games.

This place and beyond were all trying to run Letang out of town and declared him washed up.

I’m not down with doing it, but I can’t blame the other Letang defenders for calling out the over the top anti-Letang brigade on here, and there were sadly PLENTY on board that train.

I think it was a precautionary thing with Brassard not playing much in the 3rd. Didn't he miss practice recently?

I don’t recall, but I haven’t been paying much attention to practice notes TBTH, unless someone mentions something noteworthy in a thread.

Would be disappointing if he misses any time, because Brassard was doing a lot of good things at both ends yesterday and is finding good chemistry with that top line.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Sullivan Staunchly Defends 'Solid Defenseman' Johnson

Brb going to hide in the bomb shelter, this is going to make some people mad here.

This is probably just Sullivan giving a vote of confidence to a new guy, but reading too much into these comments may make you arrive at the idea that the Penguins want him playing absurdly aggressively.

 

[Shady Machine]

I don’t know what I’d do if Letang won a Norris.

Probably just sit smiling smugly to myself alone in the corner.

Or be obnoxious about it like when we won back to back.

Oh, you'll be obnoxious

 

[Pancakes]

It still blows my mind that despite not looking good for a lot of this year and getting caved in possession every game, the team has gotten 12 out of a possible 16 points. They're starting the year great in the standings despite not playing very well most of the time, what will they be doing when they are playing well?

I don't like the fact that we're getting caved in possession. Hard to win over the long haul if that keeps happening.

Hopefully it's just an early on thing and not a sign of how we're going to play all year. We can score goals so even if we do poorly in possession we can still win games but it's just not a good formula.

We're leaning a lot on the Letang/Dumo pairing right now.

 

[Pens1566]

All because Sprong got scratched ...


/runs and hides

 

[Andy99]

How did Ruhwedel play? He'll obviously dress versus the Canucks because Sully's likely not going to make changes after a blowout win, but did he play well enough to justify staying in over Riikola?

I actually thought he played pretty well..he had a lot of speed and mobility back there and wasn't nearly as bad as some others in making the first pass out of the zone...was it because the Flames were playing bad after they were down 3 goals? Who knows but he's worth keeping in the lineup....I'd personally rather see Riikola-Ruh as the 3rd pairing and sit JJ, but that's my personal opinion about JJ...JJ was definitely better with less minutes last night

 

[Shady Machine]

I don't like the fact that we're getting caved in possession. Hard to win over the long haul if that keeps happening.

Hopefully it's just an early on thing and not a sign of how we're going to play all year. We can score goals so even if we do poorly in possession we can still win games but it's just not a good formula.

We're leaning a lot on the Letang/Dumo pairing right now.

Unfortunately, without Schultz, the mix on defense is off. JR is going to have to fix that or Maatta is going to have to be the player he's supposed to be.

 

[Andy99]

What a beatdown. Hope this isn't the last game we see like this...the Pens are a juggernaut on offense, and when the defense gets with the program they ought to be a tough team to contain.

Not sure what looked worse: Murray freezing on Neal's knuckle-puck or Giordano's "effort" in the corner on the last goal. I give Murray a pass; he was brilliant otherwise and whiffed shots can be tricky to follow.

It was a beatdown because (1) the Flames D structure is pretty bad; (2) the Flames goaltending is bad and (3) after they got down by 3 goals, the Flames were trying to do too much offensively to get back in the game and so (1) got worse...let's not read too much into from the Pens end...the PEns still had problems in their own end and Murray bailed them out...my biggest joy is seeing Murray playing this well...if he keeps up to his old form, we'll be in good shape no matter how bad the D is...

 

[Randy Butternubs]

I don’t recall, but I haven’t been paying much attention to practice notes TBTH, unless someone mentions something noteworthy in a thread.

Would be disappointing if he misses any time, because Brassard was doing a lot of good things at both ends yesterday and is finding good chemistry with that top line.

I found the Tweet.

 

[Shady Machine]

It was a beatdown because (1) the Flames D structure is pretty bad; (2) the Flames goaltending is bad and (3) after they got down by 3 goals, the Flames were trying to do too much offensively to get back in the game and so (1) got worse...let's not read too much into from the Pens end...the PEns still had problems in their own end and Murray bailed them out...my biggest joy is seeing Murray playing this well...if he keeps up to his old form, we'll be in good shape no matter how bad the D is...

We need some perspective. Yes there are concerns, but look at the rest of the league. Washington is 4-3-2 and has given up 34 goals in 9 games (3.8 per). Vegas is 4-4-1 and look meh. St Louis who were rightly heralded with a big offseason is 2-4-3 and has given up 36 goals in 9 games. Nashville, Toronto, and Tampa are really the only pre-season contenders that are performing as expected.

All things considered, the Pens are playing just fine.

 

[Gurglesons]

We need some perspective. Yes there are concerns, but look at the rest of the league. Washington is 4-3-2 and has given up 34 goals in 9 games (3.8 per). Vegas is 4-4-1 and look meh. St Louis who were rightly heralded with a big offseason is 2-4-3 and has given up 36 goals in 9 games. Nashville, Toronto, and Tampa are really the only pre-season contenders that are performing as expected.

All things considered, the Pens are playing just fine.

Not to mention we have yet to lose a game in regulation.

 

[madinsomniac]

It was a beatdown because (1) the Flames D structure is pretty bad; (2) the Flames goaltending is bad and (3) after they got down by 3 goals, the Flames were trying to do too much offensively to get back in the game and so (1) got worse...let's not read too much into from the Pens end...the PEns still had problems in their own end and Murray bailed them out...my biggest joy is seeing Murray playing this well...if he keeps up to his old form, we'll be in good shape no matter how bad the D is...

Its not even that any of the D we have are dumpster fires in and of themselves... guys like Maatta play well in certain situations and poorly in others... its more that we aren’t balanced in the pairings and are mismatched too often ... the aforementioned maatta has issues with speed games... he is paired with guys who cannot cover for that. We don’t have a true defensive line to play him behind so in cases where we play a speedy team he looks worse than he is...

All of them have redeeming qualities but im not sure we have three solid style fits even with Shultz healthy...

It may come down to moving one or two for a better matching defenseman for the second or third pairing later in the season... with shultz out its going to be difficult since he will undoubtedly be on that second pairing, and we won’t see who compliments him best

 

[Empoleon8771]

I don't like the fact that we're getting caved in possession. Hard to win over the long haul if that keeps happening.

Hopefully it's just an early on thing and not a sign of how we're going to play all year. We can score goals so even if we do poorly in possession we can still win games but it's just not a good formula.

We're leaning a lot on the Letang/Dumo pairing right now.

I agree, but I think that should improve in the long run. As guys get more comfortable with the system and the young guys continue to improve, I think the team will be doing better.

Oleksiak has looked really, really good recently, it makes me way more optimistic about the defense in the long run. Oleksiak and Riikola are the big X-Factors on defense I think.