I don't think Tanev is a particularly great goal scorer. Even ignoring his first full season (2 goals in 51 games), his goals/82 pace is 12.95 in the last 3 years. ZAR is at 12.72 and Simon is at 9.27 over that sa,e window.
That's with decent chunks of top 6 time that Tanev never got though. ZAR scored at 2.74 g/60 with Sid on ice over the last three seasons (100 minute sample). His next best C for goal scoring is Cullen with .99. He's at .55 with Simon on ice, and between .5 and .43 with Brassard, Sheahan and Blueger. Assume the .5 for a line with Simon and Blueger and we're talking a goal every 12 games, s0 6.83 goals per 82.
With Simon, it's .87 with Sid (of course), dropping to 0.27 with Bjugstad, nothing with Blueger/Brassard/Cullen/Sheahan... call it .25 for the sake of convenience and it's half as many goals as ZAR.
As a wing pairing without major offensive talent to back them up, 10-12 goals combined from ZAR and Simon seems pretty likely over 82 games.
Exactly. It's a new era for the Pens and we are going to have to be creative in how we play. I personally think we should adapt a trap and attack game. Most people won't understand what i'm saying and will hear "trap" and immediately think defense. But it's a counter attack game. But I do not believe in any part of my soul Sully will adapt. I think this guy is way to stubborn.
The last team a coach played that defensive here regularly was, if I'm not misinformed, Johnston, and the result was people wondering whether Sid was done. Since then the most prolonged period of trap-esque play I recall under Sully was March 2019 - our best part of the season, but done without stars, and promptly fell to bits when they came back. And the most trap-heavy, counter-attack heavy, part of this playoffs was the last game where the team looked more and more listless as the game went on.
I don't think Sully is the guy you'd struggle to get to adapt to this sort of play style. I think it's the guys on the ice who matter more than Sully.