Post-Game Talk: Pens vs. Caps for the 80th time

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Icarium

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Feb 16, 2010
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Well, you can't have comeback wins in every game but we sure keep finding new ways to shoot ourselves in the foot, don't we? I would understand if Letang didn't go grab a stick or change immediately but it was an extended sequence, he had all the time in the world to do it but nope. The PP is back to trying to score the perfect goal, even with more movement than before this doesn't work too well because you don't get extra points beautiful goals. There was a player with a broken stick on the Caps PK for a while but we kept wondering what to do and I am not sure if we even got a shot on goal in that sequence. It's little things like that which decide games when Sid and Geno are not playing anywhere near their best and sadly this seems to be the new normal for our team. Resilience is great and all but there aren't 3 on 3 OTs and shootouts in the playoffs, even if we get there, I don't see us going too far.
 

Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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The team as it is isn't a contender. We have most ingredients and there is a resilience to this team that reminds me of 2016. Crosby, Malkin and Letang are playing well now and have several gears left. But we need a few pieces. We need another scorer in the top 6 and we need a 4th line. I don't think the coach is going anywhere, and this might be the one season where a coaching change upsets the apple cart rather than fixes what's wrong. He's got warts but I don't see anyone out there right now that I feel comfortable coaching us in the last years of Crosby and Malkin. I feel the new management is not giving Sully as much rope to hang himself on roster decisions.
 

EightyOne

My posts are jokes. And hockey is just a game.
Nov 23, 2016
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According to Twitter, he often has migraines that wake up him in the middle of the night. So that sucks.
 

Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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Hate? I don't hate him lol.

Just think with our limited options it's something that should be strongly considered. You're gonna get a better return for him now than you will in the summer.

The 2nd line has generated precious little through 18 games. That's a large segment already, especially considering the abbreviated season. I don't see much hope for improvement either.

I guess it depends on how serious management is about this year.

Just stop.
 

TimmyD

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Nov 11, 2013
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Maybe now we can play Kappy on the PK. Besides the fact that he’s actually good at it unlike Mark freaking Jankowski he’s also a right handed shot so giving his stick up to a right handed defenseman wouldn’t be an issue. I mean any of the forwards on the ice still should have been smart enough to give Letang a stick though
 

Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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I don't think he was that bad with the puck today.

He should look across the ice to how Backstrom is aging gracefully and maybe take a couple notes though.

I'm taking another break from the board. Except for the core's greatest moments thread. I have no idea what game people are watching and the threads are so bad it's not worth it. The takes have never been so wrong and childish. People are spoiled and just don't know hockey that well. The good posters have not been around and aren't posting, and the board has been taken over by crying kids. At least that's what the quality of the writing suggests.
 

madinsomniac

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Jul 3, 2012
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I was stuck working yesterday....and if i was superstitious I’d mention that the Pens record when I am actually at work through the game is basically a guaranteed loss... because what could make me more miserable than working through a game than them losing as well....

it also doesn’t help that I share Stan Savran’s birthday yesterday...

Stupid pk dumbassery.... man that sucked
 
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ChaosAgent

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May 8, 2018
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I'm taking another break from the board. Except for the core's greatest moments thread. I have no idea what game people are watching and the threads are so bad it's not worth it. The takes have never been so wrong and childish. People are spoiled and just don't know hockey that well. The good posters have not been around and aren't posting, and the board has been taken over by crying kids. At least that's what the quality of the writing suggests.

Feels like you're more a fan of the core vs. the team. I love the core but I've never been about riding or dying with them until the wheels fall off and the vehicle totally crashes or still acting like 87 and 71 are top 5 players when they clearly aren't. I don't believe in an excess of sentimentality for guys you've already paid 9 figures to.

Being a Malkin fan does not mean I have to be a Malkin homer.
 

Dipsy Doodle

Rent A Barn
May 28, 2006
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We definitely moved off Phil, Hormy and Murray 1 year later than we should have. I think the value would have been much higher. And of course we had the Brassard disaster.

I look at a guy even like Vrana and man...we don't have that at forward. We don't have that period aside from Matheson hah.

But I can't be mad that a team that was competitive for 13-14 years is declining.

Hornqvist and Kessel have 16 and 14 points this year. How anyone can look at their replacements and conclude that we gave them up one year too late is beyond me.
 
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ChaosAgent

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Hornqvist and Kessel have 16 and 14 points this year. How anyone can look at their replacements and conclude that we gave them up one year too late is beyond me.

I think the quality of the replacements - especially the return for Phil - would have been far, far higher had we traded him after 2018. When it was clear based on the playoffs that it wasn't going to work with him anymore. Phil/Geno promptly sucked together for a full year (I know I know JJ) afterwards.

Hornqvist's replacement Matheson has been outstanding. Which I was not at all expecting.

I think overall the FO was very overly sentimental about the B2B cups especially given that we won the second of those with smoke, mirrors, luck and goaltending. After 2018 they should have embraced re-composing a lot more of the roster. Maybe Hornqvist shouldn't have been part of the roster turned over but either way I'm glad they finally started to do so.
 

Dipsy Doodle

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I think the quality of the replacements - especially the return for Phil - would have been far, far higher had we traded him after 2018. When it was clear based on the playoffs that it wasn't going to work with him anymore. Phil/Geno promptly sucked together for a full year (I know I know JJ) afterwards.

Hornqvist's replacement Matheson has been outstanding. Which I was not at all expecting.

I think overall the FO was very overly sentimental about the B2B cups especially given that we won the second of those with smoke, mirrors, luck and goaltending. After 2018 they should have embraced re-composing a lot more of the roster. Maybe Hornqvist shouldn't have been part of the roster turned over but either way I'm glad they finally started to do so.

I think the FO made fundamental mistakes in evaluating what this team needed, and failed miserably in replacing key elements that contributors to the Cup win brought, leaving us with a group of bland speedsters without any special skills.
 

LOGiK

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Nov 14, 2007
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The issue isn't that Sid and Geno are getting older and can't do the same things anymore. The issue is that we spent with reckless abandon for the past five or so years, many deals that we didn't need to, and now we're in a spot where we need to rely so heavily on two 34 year old guys that it's unreasonable to expect any sort of success. We've got Jake, we've got Rust. Outside of those two, who we were extremely lucky to have panned out like they did, we don't have any heavy lifters in terms of production. Hell, even with Jake and Rust (and the aging Sid and Geno) into the equation, we don't have a single game-breaker at forward. I like Zucker, I like Kap, I think they're both really good players and honestly, probably catch more flak than they deserve around here. But ideally, Zucker's a third wheel swiss army knife on a scoring line, and Kap's an elite 3rd line RW. The top-6 was supposed to be our one strength, and on a roster full of question marks, it couldn't be as pedestrian as it's been, to put it nicely.

That's why I don't give a crap if they start the big sell this off-season coming up. Window's been closed since we decided to throw in the towel on adapting and simply stayed the course after the Isles series. Now we're just coastin' along in the lazy river.


Sid is 34 in august
Geno is 35 in July -- has a whole year older than sid.

I guess the mean is 34 years old.
 

ChaosAgent

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May 8, 2018
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I think the FO made fundamental mistakes in evaluating what this team needed, and failed miserably in replacing key elements that contributors to the Cup win brought, leaving us with a group of bland speedsters without any special skills.

Fair. And a guy like Horny does have special skills and doesn't hurt you on the ice otherwise.

Phil hurts you on the ice otherwise. Though he's a great PP player and if we coulda made PP1 + 4th line work we should have tried.

Also I think the bland speedsters would have been just fine with the Sid & Geno of not even all that long ago. But I think we are at the cliff as far as their ability to consistently generate danger is concerned. Still very good hockey players. But not at the level we need to win a Cup. Which is fine, we have enough of those.
 

LOGiK

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Nov 14, 2007
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I think the FO made fundamental mistakes in evaluating what this team needed, and failed miserably in replacing key elements that contributors to the Cup win brought, leaving us with a group of bland speedsters without any special skills.

Getting players with existing skills is always going to be costly... unless they were brought up through the system, but the penguins don't have time fo' that.

Bland players with speed and no skill / sporadic skill / hidden struggling skill are going to be cheap.
Good players with speed and skill are obviously going to be very expensive.

Pretty simple why it went the way it did.... throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks...
 

LOGiK

Registered User
Nov 14, 2007
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When people are clamoring to get McCann back in the line up you know you're in trouble.

I think bjug's will make a bigger impact for the penguins once he gets off LTIR... he's closer now than ever... isn't he?
 

Turin

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
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Kessel, despite playing for Arizona, has more points than all but 3 of our players.

He also has more PP points than anyone on our team.

So no, not trash.

Kessel gets to play every second game against a garbage team like SJ or ANA and still blows defensively. Last season he wasn’t even an NHL level player making 6.8 mil.

He sucks now. This team would be worse if he was on it.
 

Dipsy Doodle

Rent A Barn
May 28, 2006
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Kessel gets to play every second game against a garbage team like SJ or ANA and still blows defensively. Last season he wasn’t even an NHL level player making 6.8 mil.

He sucks now. This team would be worse if he was on it.

Flaws =/= suck.

Kessel provides a skillset that we, as owners of the 25th best PP in the league, could desperately use. He'd be worth a helluva lot more than Zucker, who does nothing for this team despite being "good defensively".

But since we won't get Kessel back, we need to finally come to grips with replacing his skillset, and getting rid of those who don't contribute anything.
 

LOGiK

Registered User
Nov 14, 2007
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I'm taking another break from the board. Except for the core's greatest moments thread. I have no idea what game people are watching and the threads are so bad it's not worth it. The takes have never been so wrong and childish. People are spoiled and just don't know hockey that well. The good posters have not been around and aren't posting, and the board has been taken over by crying kids. At least that's what the quality of the writing suggests.

While what you say is true about the board changing to extremely negative stuff.... I think it's a product of the team and this current era beginning to end.

Back then the team just got Crosby and Malkin (et al)... even though Leclair tried to kill him before he even made his nhl debut. Things were on the up..... it is like waves in the ocean man, up, down, up, up, up, down hard, up, down.

I think the board is way more tolerant as a whole to everyone, but yeah... 14 years ago when I joined hfb... you couldn't have said some of the stuff that gets said around here, and live to post about it again =P

Once the sid and geno era is over watch a lot of people just up and vanish... once the penguins are out of the playoffs for a year or two the penguins will be in DeGenX 2.0
(maybe degenx will even come back =])

Like my 3 year old niece used to say.... 'live in the now'... she was just mumbling words, but it's a good saying =P
 

ChaosAgent

Registered User
May 8, 2018
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While what you say is true about the board changing to extremely negative stuff.... I think it's a product of the team and this current era beginning to end.
I think the board is way more tolerant as a whole to everyone, but yeah... 14 years ago when I joined hfb... you couldn't have said some of the stuff that gets said around here, and live to post about it again =P

Like my 3 year old niece used to say.... 'live in the now'... she was just mumbling words, but it's a good saying =P

Bear in mind that particular poster has no problem sh1tting on Letang post after post after post because he doesn't compartmentalize him as part of the core, but will jump down your throat if you say "hey based on this year it really looks like Malkin is declining" and call you a child or something.

How people anchor and compartmentalize is part of who they are, but they may lack self-awareness about it. I don't always like myself but at least...well, I don't always like myself. And that's a good thing.
 
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LOGiK

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Nov 14, 2007
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Bear in mind that particular poster has no problem sh1tting on Letang post after post after post because he doesn't compartmentalize him as part of the core, but will jump down your throat if you say "hey based on this year it really looks like Malkin is declining" and call you a child or something.

How people anchor and compartmentalize is part of who they are, but they may lack self-awareness about it. I don't always like myself but at least...well, I don't always like myself. And that's a good thing.

I don't have time to sift through everyones posts, but after so long you see trends in posters attitudes.

I donno... it was extremely negative after the loss yesterday, but I mean.... that was a putrid first period, even considering the zooks injury, one injury shouldn't bring down every line. The constant over passing... the late late late hit by the infamous capital... it's just very frustrating, I get it.

Usually it's extreme dread for a few hours after a loss, but the next day it's more level headed on the board. It's impossible to be stoic in posts... of course the outcomes affect the mood of the place. I never said I agree about the quality of penguins hfb posters declining... there is still plenty of good posters here.
 
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