Salary Cap: Pittsburgh Penguins Salary Cap Thread: Where we talk about Jussi Jokinen

[Honour Over Glory]

And personality - Mike SULLIvan “great coach”

To be perfectly clear, that incident is what made me turn on Sullivan. Everything about it was just so wrong and JR enabled him, both are complicit and one is gone but we're stuck with the other.

Edit: I do get a laugh out of the fact that Bill Guerin brought in Bones and Cole.

 

[Gurglesons]

Tampa and CBJ Marchessault was basically a "Sheary" type, not the one that exploded with Sid, but the version after. In Florida, he basically Martin St.Louis'd on them. I was skeptical af about him though, I thought he was just a flash in the pan, then VGK got him and he's continued it ever since.

So rare to find a player like that and see them turn into that. I mean before Marchessault, who in that same undrafted position has done that well? Probably Martin St.Louis.

 

[Gurglesons]

To be perfectly clear, that incident is what made me turn on Sullivan. Everything about it was just so wrong and JR enabled him, both are complicit and one is gone but we're stuck with the other.

Cole was legitimately bad so he deserved to be scratched and he was a UFA. But I can understand why you may have a knee jerk reaction to it.

At this point I’m done writing shit off though. Kapanen being benched for Sam Lafferty is Torts level nonsense.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Cole was legitimately bad so he deserved to be scratched and he was a UFA. But I can understand why you may have a knee jerk reaction to it.

At this point I’m done writing shit off though. Kapanen being benched for Sam Lafferty is Torts level nonsense.

Oh Cole was horrid for a stretch, but when he was playing better, he was still being a dick about it to Ian and trying to send a point rather than take advantage of his better play and focus on winning. To get into that petty squabble was just too close to what I absolutely abhor about Tortorella.

Then he exacerbated the Kessel & Malkin thing.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I keep forgetting how haunting Chris Kunitz looks.

He looks like a Skeleton ghoul wearing a skin suit pretending to be human.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Then he exacerbated the Kessel & Malkin thing.

Sully was the one keeping Kessel and Malkin together?

Thought that was Phil throwing temper tantrums otherwise.

 

[Gurglesons]

Oh Cole was horrid for a stretch, but when he was playing better, he was still being a dick about it to Ian and trying to send a point rather than take advantage of his better play and focus on winning. To get into that petty squabble was just too close to what I absolutely abhor about Tortorella.

Then he exacerbated the Kessel & Malkin thing.

That things that have gotten me over the last couple years are Pearson being f***ed over despite scoring at a 20 G pace and being a solid defensive forward, Bleuger being scratched in the playoffs in 2019. And then what he did last year with McCann and Lafferty.

 

[Gurglesons]

I keep forgetting how haunting Chris Kunitz looks.

He looks like a Skeleton ghoul wearing a skin suit pretending to be human.

Kunitz is probably my favorite forward of the Crosby era. Just everything you could want from a pro and seemed like a real stand up guy.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

That things that have gotten me over the last couple years are Pearson being f***ed over despite scoring at a 20 G pace and being a solid defensive forward, Bleuger being scratched in the playoffs in 2019. And then what he did last year with McCann and Lafferty.

Blueger being called up and not played probably got me some warning points here.

The Pearson thing, I was right with you on that one mate, I still can't think about that without getting mad. And yes, the other stuff as well. The f*** kind of coach sees how bad Marleau was and decided to keep playing his ass as well? f***...

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Kunitz is probably my favorite forward of the Crosby era. Just everything you could want from a pro and seemed like a real stand up guy.

Kunikaze is a legend.

Still surprised he didn't get an old boys club job with the Penguins and stuck with the Hawks.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Sully was the one keeping Kessel and Malkin together?

Thought that was Phil throwing temper tantrums otherwise.

The entire Kessel thing never ceases to make me laugh.

When the Penguins first got him, as usual, it was for Crosby, but how many minutes did Kessel actually play with Crosby? Then the staff magically struck gold with HBK. Then tried to make HMK happen which worked in spurts, then it was the other H with MK.

As you can see, the creativity in the line-up has mostly been a joke.

He's gotten lucky with "BART" and "GMR" but one he's happy to go back to asap but the other he almost ignorantly refuses to ever revisit and one of those lines was the most dominant line, production wise, that we've ever seen in the Sid & Geno era.


You think Malkin has ever had a say in his linemates? I don't think a bloke chooses to have Fedotenko, Talbot, etc as his pick of the litter. He had Jake and Rust, but is basically used as a placeholder for Sid's wingers. That's another thing that really bothers me and has for 14yrs but we won't go there.

 

[ChaosAgent]

The entire Kessel thing never ceases to make me laugh.

When the Penguins first got him, as usual, it was for Crosby, but how many minutes did Kessel actually play with Crosby? Then the staff magically struck gold with HBK. Then tried to make HMK happen which worked in spurts, then it was the other H with MK.

As you can see, the creativity in the line-up has mostly been a joke.

He's gotten lucky with "BART" and "GMR" but one he's happy to go back to asap but the other he almost ignorantly refuses to ever revisit and one of those lines was the most dominant line, production wise, that we've ever seen in the Sid & Geno era.


You think Malkin has ever had a say in his linemates? I don't think a bloke chooses to have Fedotenko, Talbot, etc as his pick of the litter. He had Jake and Rust, but is basically used as a placeholder for Sid's wingers. That's another thing that really bothers me and has for 14yrs but we won't go there.

Kunitz-Malkin-Neal was dynamite though.

I do think there's an argument that Sully knew that Kessel-Malkin couldn't work anymore in '18-'19. However, he kept trotting Messel out anyway to take their daily -1 or -2 just to prove a point to at least Phil. Malkin likely knew that he&Phil = goals against at that point too but Phil always has that delusional confidence in himself and fat-kid-loves-cake vibes to actually believe it could function again.

It didn't help either that they had JJ behind them...and they'd so often come onto the ice after a brilliant Crosby fling into the slot with all 3 of our forwards below the opponent goal-line led to a 3-on-2 against to start it out.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Kunitz-Malkin-Neal was dynamite though.

I do think there's an argument that Sully knew that Kessel-Malkin couldn't work anymore in '18-'19. However, he kept trotting Messel out anyway to take their daily -1 or -2 just to prove a point to at least Phil. Malkin likely knew that he&Phil = goals against at that point too but Phil always has that delusional confidence in himself and fat-kid-loves-cake vibes to actually believe it could function again.

It didn't help either that they had JJ behind them...and they'd so often come onto the ice after a brilliant Crosby fling into the slot with all 3 of our forwards below the opponent goal-line led to a 3-on-2 against to start it out.

Thing is Kessel never complained about playing with Bozak and Bonino.

I'm not going down that rabbit hole, but we all know it was a 3 person issue.

In any case, Blueger thing, Pearson, Cole, vying for JJ, etc...

 

[Pittsburgh1776]

Malkin loved playing with Talbot and Fedotenko, you make it sound like he was playing with scraps. He scored 36 points with them in the 2009 playoffs.

Sullivan kept Kessel with Malkin in 2019 apparently to score goals; that whole situation went south in the same way that all situations involving Phil Kessel eventually go south. Nice enough guy I guess, a big contributor for two years, but when he gets sour it spoils the batch. My frustration with Sullivan in that situation has nothing to do with Kessel; it f***ed Malkin up and should never have been allowed to get as bad as it did. I don't believe he did it to prove a point, I just think Sullivan reached a point after 2017 where he got pretty full of himself and exacerbated some divisions in the team that were already there in 2018-19. And he didn't know how to deal with Kessel, but I don't blame him because that's a full time job.

My frustrations with Sullivan are about his biases starting to show, playing favorites, and not being attentive to maximizing both superstars not just Crosby. But I think you can go overboard on the woe is Malkin stuff and it's just speculation really.

 

[66-30-33]

Imagine if Caps never traded Forsberg?

 

[Turin]

Man I would love to swap Zucker with Forsberg somehow.

 

[cygnus47]

Bit late, but I saw a lot of positives in the last game. We were playing a bit higher in the zone and generated most of our chances off our own sticks instead of just getting lucky bounces. PP showed the right attitude and it paid off. Zucker even generated a few. If we keep playing like that we'll win a lot more games. We blew the zone early a couple times, but we also jumped on some pucks and generated rushes that we haven't got to in a while. We're still working out our forecheck and neutral zone but there were some good signs.

Still want to see Zucker - Sid and Guentzel - Geno, but can't get everything at once.

 

[Kristopher Letang]

Imagine if Caps never traded Forsberg?

No.

 

[Gurglesons]

Imagine if Caps never traded Forsberg?

They probably don’t trade for Oshie and maybe we get him for Kunitz and never win a cup.

 

[66-30-33]

No.

No Forsberg and no Schmidt.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Malkin loved playing with Talbot and Fedotenko, you make it sound like he was playing with scraps. He scored 36 points with them in the 2009 playoffs.

Sullivan kept Kessel with Malkin in 2019 apparently to score goals; that whole situation went south in the same way that all situations involving Phil Kessel eventually go south. Nice enough guy I guess, a big contributor for two years, but when he gets sour it spoils the batch. My frustration with Sullivan in that situation has nothing to do with Kessel; it f***ed Malkin up and should never have been allowed to get as bad as it did. I don't believe he did it to prove a point, I just think Sullivan reached a point after 2017 where he got pretty full of himself and exacerbated some divisions in the team that were already there in 2018-19. And he didn't know how to deal with Kessel, but I don't blame him because that's a full time job.

My frustrations with Sullivan are about his biases starting to show, playing favorites, and not being attentive to maximizing both superstars not just Crosby. But I think you can go overboard on the woe is Malkin stuff and it's just speculation really.

Malkin is a bloke that makes the best of whomever he has. His talent has never been appreciated properly by a lot of blokes here. He made it work with them. The level of talent to make it work with seemingly new wingers for the first, well f*** it let's be honest, his entire career is just surreal.

Sid had stable line mates for most of his career.

Malkin had...

Malone
Sykora
Talbot
Kunitz
Neal
Jokinen
Rust
Kapanen
McCann
Bjugstad
Fedotenko
Satan
Cooke
Hagelin
Kessel
Hornqvist
Zucker
Dupuis
Comrie
Tangradi
Sprong
Adams
Rupp
Perron
Kennedy
Etc

Hagelin is probably the leader in games played with Malkin I'm guessing.


If you look at how many games wingers have played with Malkin vs the other line and what not you'd see how frequently he's had to adjust to his placeholder wingers

Malkin's entire career has been him making it work with the wingers and less so the wingers that would work with him. That's Sid's line that had that issue. So the one time you can put 2 good wingers with Sid that would work and give Geno the two wingers that made the Pens a team hard to match up against, it's odd that the coaching staff can't figure that the f*** out. Geno f***ing had Neal scoring at an unreal pace that he's never touched before or after.

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[Honour Over Glory]

Man I would love to swap Zucker with Forsberg somehow.

Here's how you can.

 

[madinsomniac]

That things that have gotten me over the last couple years are Pearson being f***ed over despite scoring at a 20 G pace and being a solid defensive forward, Bleuger being scratched in the playoffs in 2019. And then what he did last year with McCann and Lafferty.

i dont think you should undersell what happened with ian cole... cole filled an essential role on those early sully teams... he was very good at clogging shot lanes and forcing shots from the outside or blocking shots and he played physical... he wasn’t a great defenseman by any stretch, but he filled a role that was immediately missed upon his trade... replacing his role was exactly why Jack Johnson was brought in... and JJ just didn’t mesh right despite having similar traits...

I get that the guy mouthed off a bunch, but frankly coaches in general are extremely flawed individuals that need reality checks way more often... its a shame most are thin skinned and cannot handle being called out...

I really think cole was one of a half dozen players they got rid of then realized they had no good fill in for their roles...

 

[Honour Over Glory]

i dont think you should undersell what happened with ian cole... cole filled an essential role on those early sully teams... he was very good at clogging shot lanes and forcing shots from the outside or blocking shots and he played physical... he wasn’t a great defenseman by any stretch, but he filled a role that was immediately missed upon his trade... replacing his role was exactly why Jack Johnson was brought in... and JJ just didn’t mesh right despite having similar traits...

I get that the guy mouthed off a bunch, but frankly coaches in general are extremely flawed individuals that need reality checks way more often... its a shame most are thin skinned and cannot handle being called out...

I really think cole was one of a half dozen players they got rid of then realized they had no good fill in for their roles...

The same coach that beefed with Ian Cole also presented an argument to the GM for why the team should sign Jack Johnson.

And none of that is made up. It hurts my soul.


Cole struggled but he formed a good second pair with Schultz when he did get back to his game. The loss of Tocchet also had the team looking and playing different but we didn't understand it until a year after that season. The Pens were trying to find a way to add more Cole types with the Oleksiak deal and then when they moved him it was Gudbranson and JJ. Both bad fits.

The team essentially never has found a replacement. I think it was @Gurglesons that had mentioned Gudas and I liked the idea of Riikola/Matheson/Pettersson, Gudas as a pair.

 

[Gurglesons]

i dont think you should undersell what happened with ian cole... cole filled an essential role on those early sully teams... he was very good at clogging shot lanes and forcing shots from the outside or blocking shots and he played physical... he wasn’t a great defenseman by any stretch, but he filled a role that was immediately missed upon his trade... replacing his role was exactly why Jack Johnson was brought in... and JJ just didn’t mesh right despite having similar traits...

I get that the guy mouthed off a bunch, but frankly coaches in general are extremely flawed individuals that need reality checks way more often... its a shame most are thin skinned and cannot handle being called out...

I really think cole was one of a half dozen players they got rid of then realized they had no good fill in for their roles...

Cole was walking. As much as people want to make it about Sully, the reality was we were never going to invest 4 mil into our 3rd pairing D.

That being said, we should've given Schultz's money to Cole.