Post-Game Talk: Red Wings 4, Penguins 1 - Flip the Pens Over for the New Year; They're Done on This Side

[Pancakes]

I gotta say for all my consternation about the state of affairs with the Pens right now imagine being an Oilers fan. They've got arguably the best player in the world at the height of his powers and young and they're not even sniffing a playoff spot.

Imagine if in 06-7 we had Sid putting up 120 points and Geno 85 or whatever he did and then imagine we still miss the playoffs. Unbelievable.

 

[Gurglesons]

Matt Murray has been a bag of ass this year. Given his numbers, in years past he would have been burned at the stake. He gets more leeway because of the past 2 postseasons but he's quite possibly one of the worst starting G's in the league this year.

He is, without a doubt the biggest disappointment after Kris Letang.

Kind of hard to make saves when your offense and defense in front of you is constantly losing their man and giving up glorious chance after glorious chance.

I think I’ve seen Crosby pass the puck better to the other team all season.

I think I’ve seen Hunwick passively get beat at least 40 times.

 

[Nakawick]

So then i'm not sure what you wanted to happen? I refuse to speculate, but we have 3-4 really solid people I trust that send me info. There was rumors among 2 of them that we attempted to get Tierney. A way to bolster our center depth and stay young. That didn't work out. LV didn't want to move their players until they saw what they had.

I didn't like Reaves trade. I wanted our identity to maintain but I understood it. I hated getting rid of Wilson, no matter how bad he is elsewhere, he fit our team. I thought Archi was another guy that could have been cool for the bottom 6. Hell a L4 of Wilson, Archi, and Tierney could have been decent.

But things didn't fall for JR the way he wanted and the team is at fault for not giving him cushion to find the guys we needed. Why do we always blame JR and not the players? I don't get it.

I think you are confusing me for someone else. I am not blaming JR, I am very aware that he is trying to find a trade to help the team and has been for a while. I am very aware that there isn't a dance partner and that it is better to stay put than to over pay. I don't however see that blaming Sid and Geno and or Letang is going to get us anywhere. I have been saying since the summer that we shouldn't take the playoffs for granted, that the team will be hung over, played lots of hockey and that Sully would have a hard time motivating the team. How are you going to fix Sid? You think he just stopped GAF and just needs a visit from Yoda or something? We got no depth man. We have known that, management knows that, management is actively trying to fix that.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Kind of hard to make saves when your offense and defense in front of you is constantly losing their man and giving up glorious chance after glorious chance.

Yeah. Up until recently I think Murray's looked a lot better than the stats have suggested. He kept the Pens in a lot of games they had no business in.

 

[Gurglesons]

I gotta say for all my consternation about the state of affairs with the Pens right now imagine being an Oilers fan. They've got the best player in the world at the height of his powers and young and they're not even sniffing a playoff spot.

Imagine if in 06-7 we had Sid putting up 120 points and Geno 85 or whatever he did and then imagine we still miss the playoffs. Unbelievable.

That 06-07 team would miss the playoffs in today’s NHL. There is a reason Vegas is one of the best teams in the league. Depth.

Depth wins in the NHL now. With depth at center we have the best roster in the league. With no depth, we are the Oilers.

 

[Pancakes]

Kind of hard to make saves when your offense and defense in front of you is constantly losing their man and giving up glorious chance after glorious chance.

I think I’ve seen Crosby pass the puck better to the other team all season.

I think I’ve seen Hunwick passively get beat at least 40 times.

I was digging through some older clips of Sid and it's depressing how fast he was and how he'd just hold onto the puck and toy with teams. I see none of that this year.

I do wonder if he might benefit from playing at a lighter weight. Ovechkin supposedly slimmed down a bit this past off season iirc and he looks much improved from where he was last year. Maybe Sid could stand to trim down too. All that muscle isn't so useful if he lacks the speed to be a threat. And this year I feel like he's a non factor coming through the neutral zone. Teams just collapse on him knowing he doesn't have the speed to be a threat and knowing that he's gonna curl and hit a trailer anyways.

Maybe he just needs rest and it's not a weight thing but I do wonder if he might want to play less like a battle tank next year. It's harder to play at 5 11 200lbs when you don't have 20 year old legs.

 

[Pancakes]

That 06-07 team would miss the playoffs in today’s NHL. There is a reason Vegas is one of the best teams in the league. Depth.

Depth wins in the NHL now. With depth at center we have the best roster in the league. With no depth, we are the Oilers.

I don't think it would have. That version of Sid was just too good. But lack of depth is certainly killing this iteration of the Pens - no disagreement there.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Kind of hard to make saves when your offense and defense in front of you is constantly losing their man and giving up glorious chance after glorious chance.

I think I’ve seen Crosby pass the puck better to the other team all season.

I think I’ve seen Hunwick passively get beat at least 40 times.

No doubt, but he's let in a number of questionable goals to go with the grade A scoring chances. And him not saving some of the latter is part of why I'm disappointed.

Our Cup winning G is well outside the realm of good at this point, whether by looking at stats or passing the eyeball test. I'm not at all giving up on him as that would be asinine but it's very fair to point out he's been pretty damn bad, along with most of the team as a whole.

 

[ColePens]

Matt Murray has been a bag of ass this year. Given his numbers, in years past he would have been burned at the stake. He gets more leeway because of the past 2 postseasons but he's quite possibly one of the worst starting G's in the league this year.

He is, without a doubt the biggest disappointment after Kris Letang.

I cannot agree with this. The amount of point blank chances are absurd. I would defend Fleury if he was facing chances like this. And we've been down that road before.

Not giving #30 relief. He has to be better. He's playing hero too much. But far from a major issue. If the team played anywhere up to their potential, he'd be just fine.

 

[The Old Master]

Matt Murray has been a bag of ass this year. He gets more leeway because of the past 2 postseasons
He is, without a doubt the biggest disappointment after Kris Letang.

no! he gets leeway because we see how bad the team is playing in front of him. and its not even close to the way tanger or sid are playing

 

[ImporterExporter]

Why are Jarry's numbers noticeably better? It's not like he's only been in net 4-5 games. His sample size is big enough for where we are in the season.

Again, it's not even just the numbers (which are f***ing terrible). It's the eye test. Murray just simply looks flat a lot of the times. Not getting to spots as consistently. Not coming up with enough timely saves. Just my .02.

 

[Pancakes]

I cannot agree with this. The amount of point blank chances are absurd. I would defend Fleury if he was facing chances like this. And we've been down that road before.

Not giving #30 relief. He has to be better. He's playing hero too much. But far from a major issue. If the team played anywhere up to their potential, he'd be just fine.

Yeah regardless of his subpar play it's hard to pin things on him when he has to be near perfect to win with this offense.

I will say what we desperately need right now in games is an early lead though. MM needs to make saves early and our offense needs to find a way to get that early goal. It's too hard to come back in today's NHL when teams setup the trap and we are constantly starting games behind the eight ball. Look at Detroit the other night: they happily sat back and counter punched us to death once they got that early lead.

We come out flat all the time (though ironically we had a good first vs Detroit and deserved to be up) and it is costing us big time.

 

[ColePens]

Why are Jarry's numbers noticeably better? It's not like he's only been in net 4-5 games. His sample size is big enough for where we are in the season.

Again, it's not even just the numbers (which are ****ing terrible). It's the eye test. Murray just simply looks flat a lot of the times. Not getting to spots as consistently. Not coming up with enough timely saves. Just my .02.

This is like saying Darling should have been the starter in Chicago as he had insane numbers last year as a back up. Insert the backup as a starter and it all goes down hill. There are about a million of these examples.

 

[Tom Hanks]

Tom Hanks (always funny for me to write) - the ice time part was called out last week as bull****. The times were not all that different. And last year Sully got lit up because he was rolling lines and never went top 6 heavy. So that part was debunked.

Now the mental draining/how teams handle us - I can agree. It keeps us from Cup contenders, though, not bottom of the barrel in the east.

We didn’t want it to go up for the top 6. It’s gone up about 4 minutes total a game.

*Crosby, Kessel up about 1 min
*Jake, Horny up about 1.5 mins
*Geno same
*Sheary down about a minute

You’d know better than me how much that can affects things so I’ll defer to you on that.

 

[ColePens]

We didn’t want it to go up for the top 6. It’s gone up about 4 minutes total a game.

*Crosby, Kessel up about 1 min
*Jake, Horny up about 1.5 mins
*Geno same
*Sheary down about a minute

You’d know better than me how much that can affects things so I’ll defer to you on that.

Sadly I always agreed with Sully about running 4 lines. I think he proved that it works. I think 90% of us hated that Reaves move because took away that ability to do that. The rational ones said let's at least give it a shot and see, hoping to be wrong. We at least wanted to see him with reasonable hockey players. Then we get rid of Archi and Wilson and I'm sitting here scratching my head. It really sucked to lose Cully but also losing players who fit our mold is even weirder. It's a special kind of insane to go with Rowney, Kuhn, and Reaves each night. Expecting that piece of trash line to click is ridiculous. We had/have other options. I'd rather just trust youth to try to spark something. It worked for the Buzz Line.

But I digress with that rant. Even with that whole rant, I still don't think we should be as bad as we are. That's for sure.

 

[Ugene Magic]

It is always a group effort when it comes to goaltending. Always.

 

[Tom Hanks]

Why are Jarry's numbers noticeably better? It's not like he's only been in net 4-5 games. His sample size is big enough for where we are in the season.

Again, it's not even just the numbers (which are ****ing terrible). It's the eye test. Murray just simply looks flat a lot of the times. Not getting to spots as consistently. Not coming up with enough timely saves. Just my .02.

Small sample size and I’d imagine he played more when we had easier games and that stretch where we played a bit better around late November

 

[Tom Hanks]

Sadly I always agreed with Sully about running 4 lines. I think he proved that it works. I think 90% of us hated that Reaves move because took away that ability to do that. The rational ones said let's at least give it a shot and see, hoping to be wrong. We at least wanted to see him with reasonable hockey players. Then we get rid of Archi and Wilson and I'm sitting here scratching my head. It really sucked to lose Cully but also losing players who fit our mold is even weirder. It's a special kind of insane to go with Rowney, Kuhn, and Reaves each night. Expecting that piece of trash line to click is ridiculous. We had/have other options. I'd rather just trust youth to try to spark something. It worked for the Buzz Line.

But I digress with that rant. Even with that whole rant, I still don't think we should be as bad as we are. That's for sure.

Agreed

 

[Ugene Magic]

Jarry, is absolved of the issues earlier on. Imagine if he was the backup the entire time?

Not saying Jarry didn't steal a couple games (he absolutely did) just that he did not get exposed as much to the horrors on a regular basis. I don't even blame Nemi. He was exposed in the second game of b2B's every time.

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

The irony is that now Reaves is probably the best player on that line. Bizarre.

 

[ColePens]

The irony is that now Reaves is probably the best player on that line. Bizarre.

For sure. I actually agree.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

That is the funny thing.

Most of us enraged about the Reaves trade was because the change of identity would make it very hard to compete for a third cup.

Our top players playing like beer leaguers though has made that kinda irrelevant. Have an entire bottom six of Reaves clones or cross dressing Dolly Parton impersonators for all I care now.

 

[Coastal Kev]

The Pens went into the season with Rowney locked a spot. That alone says JR was a tad goofy.

I still go back to the signing of Hunwick. It was a waste of focus, waste of cap space and not much of an upgrade over Pouliot who still holds more upside potential. I get that we were trying shore up losing Hainsey and Daly, but we could afford patience with already having poo and the availability of bottom 6 vet d on the market.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Pouliot was awful in Pittsburgh, he was never going to get an opportunity in Pittsburgh. He did nothing to deserve the Penguins patience, they gave him like 4 years. At some point, he just had to do something. In hindsight, I wouldn't have signed Hunwick because Ruhwedel took a step forward this year and the Penguins added Oleksiak this year (who I've been happy with so far with the Penguins, he has done well statistically when playing tough #4 minutes so far with the Penguins).

Pouliot hasn't even done that well with Vancouver statistically, he's only on pace for 25 points while getting insanely sheltered minutes and getting smacked in terms of goals against. Since Pouliot's 3 point game, he has 1 point and is a -12 in 11 games.

 

[Dinfire]

The defense is terrible. Against the Canes Cole had two guys coming out from behind the net and instead of taking the man with the puck he tried to hug the post and play goalie. What is he thinking? The whole team is doing boneheaded stuff like this. It’s like they forgot how to play hockey. Schultz can’t get back soon enough. At least that’s 25 minutes of competence per game. Murray is playing below his standard, but he doesn’t have much of a chance with this D. Dumoulin has been a dumpster fire. What happened to his rock solid play from the last two seasons? The goals will eventually come, but the defense has no quick fix.