Post-Game Talk: Sabres 5, Penguins 4 (OT) - WHAT THE FLYING **** WAS THAT

[CertifiedLurker]

Did I say that?

No. He was good actually. Still he is expendable and is the one guy who can get you back what you need most, a Top pairing Dman.

That ain't it chief. JR ain't looking at a team that has no depth scoring, trading the 11th highest p/pg player in the league. I also don't think you'd get a top pairing dman for him. That also doesn't really solve your problems. Majority of the roster is still shit, the system doesn't fit the personnel, and the goalies are still very meh. You're just making the team even worse right now for the sake of change. If anything you change the coach if you can't change the roster.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

There are absolutely a handful of contracts that I find questionable. I won't try to wriggle out of that. But I can't help but agree that this team has entirely too much talent and has even shown entirely too much this season to be chalked up to "shit roster." There has been little consistency -- consistency in play, consistency in accountability or consistency in message. Players are underperforming up and down the roster. Lineups are often a huge head scratcher and have been for years. Players look often disinterested, unprepared, checked out or a combination of all three. The team had seemingly one gear and it was SPEED SKILLZ AND MORE SPEED. Now that teams have adjusted and the roster has changed there is no plan B. The coach literally shrugged his shoulders, tonight. Stubbornness despite results has crept back into this team's mindset. We've all seen it before.

I'm more than willing to cast a wary eye at JR but c'mon... we know what's going on, here. You can't trade a whole team...

 

[IcedCapp]

By the same logic it was the same coach on that team too.

Alright, so normally this is the part of the conversation where I'd be all dismissive and sarcastic and attempt (probably unsuccessfully) to make you feel 6" tall all for some cheap laughs at your expense. Instead, I'm gonna go another route, because I just saved 15% on my car insurance by selling my car.

You're right, that the coach and roster are the same. So, the first thing you have to ask yourself is this:

1) If it's a coach vs issue situation, who is more easily-replaced, 20 players, or 3 coaches? Even if you are willing to save a handful of players, even as many as 10, you're still talking about attempting to unload the dregs of your roster in a league that has become MASSIVELY CONSERVATIVE when it comes to making trades. Now you're asking the rest of the league, who ALL still believe they're still in the playoff race because it's only November, to take your bad players and their bad contracts while giving you something of value (even if that something of value is simply "not cap back"). Meanwhile, a legitimate star coach is sitting unemployed.

2) What is more likely: a team, whose roster has been dominant for stretches THIS SEASON and whose core has won multiple cups suddenly becomes bereft of all speed, skill, intelligence halfway through the season, OR that the team has found its way into a funk (like most teams do) and the organization has tried everything from yelling and screaming to trading a top-6 roster player to get them out of it, to no avail, and at some point you need to wonder: has the coach lost the ability to reach these guys?


You can say roster! roster! roster! all you want, but I don't understand how you can say it and not even once go coach? coach? coach?

 

[PensandCaps]

It’s not about Shero doing better work (which he did).

It is about having a GM that has a thought process.

Shero’s was wrong towards the end. Do we know if JR’s has ever been right?

....he won two cups and made some great trades....so...yes. Wtf do you mean has he ever been right? Lol.

 

[KIRK]

“Trust in Gonch”

We've had this discussion.

Gonchar was able to help fix Schultz and Cole for the same reason the old coaching staff was able to fix Niskanen . . . they had talent, brains, and hockey sense.

Oleksiak? Johnson? You can't teach dumb people to be smart.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

No. Leave him where he's at. The odd are against it helping his development.

Which is sad because it's also where Riikola and Sprong should be.

 

[Gurglesons]

That is what I do not get though.

How can they completely forget fundamentals? Do they not practice?

I get that a losing streak makes players tense up, think too much, afraid to make a mistake, etc. But what we see out there is far worse than that. I could see as well a bad game like these. But not game after game with no correction of the issues.

Look at tonight. Malkin and Kessel are Malkin and Kessel. Some ugly plays, but they end up even. Letang the same. Jake and Brassard are solid support players.

From there you have Dumo and Maatta being the Dumo and Maatta they have always been.

Then you have JR’s cast of reclamation projects. Sheahan, Oleksiak, And Johnson. These are players that were scratched and bottom line up guys on truly terrible teams. Daley, Bonino, Hagelin they are not.

Add in our “big” ( I use that contentiously) draft pick Sprong being a bigger bust than Pouliot was at this point and Simon and ZAR being lesser Sheary and Kuhn. It’s pretty obvious.

Our team couldn’t overcome losing Schultz and Crosby for 5 games. In 2016 our role players easily stepped up. Kuni included.

 

[PensandCaps]

We've had this discussion.

Gonchar was able to help fix Schultz and Cole for the same reason the old coaching staff was able to fix Niskanen . . . they had talent, brains, and hockey sense.

Oleksiak? Johnson? You can't teach dumb people to be smart.

Except Letang.


Though it astounds me that he STILL can't make a simple pass to Geno on the PP. It's been like 9 seasons.

 

[AquaticBirdman]

It’s not about Shero doing better work (which he did).

It is about having a GM that has a thought process.

Shero’s was wrong towards the end. Do we know if JR’s has ever been right?

He fired MJ and replaced him with Sully. We then went on to win back to back cups. Care to tell me how Shero somehow did it "better"?

 

[Ryder71]

You mean Sprong’s prime?

Sprong isn't the reason we're losing and he wasn't the reason we were winning, but Sully's usage of him at times seems at best curious and at worst idiotic! Sully's player usage is a big problem and it goes well beyond Sprong. Although the forward lines tonight did make a bit more sense. Not playing Riikola on the back end didn't.

 

[KIRK]

Alright, so normally this is the part of the conversation where I'd be all dismissive and sarcastic and attempt (probably unsuccessfully) to make you feel 6" tall all for some cheap laughs at your expense. Instead, I'm gonna go another route, because I just saved 15% on my car insurance by selling my car.

You're right, that the coach and roster are the same. So, the first thing you have to ask yourself is this:

1) If it's a coach vs issue situation, who is more easily-replaced, 20 players, or 3 coaches? Even if you are willing to save a handful of players, even as many as 10, you're still talking about attempting to unload the dregs of your roster in a league that has become MASSIVELY CONSERVATIVE when it comes to making trades. Now you're asking the rest of the league, who ALL still believe they're still in the playoff race because it's only November, to take your bad players and their bad contracts while giving you something of value (even if that something of value is simply "not cap back"). Meanwhile, a legitimate star coach is sitting unemployed.

2) What is more likely: a team, whose roster has been dominant for stretches THIS SEASON and whose core has won multiple cups suddenly becomes bereft of all speed, skill, intelligence halfway through the season, OR that the team has found its way into a funk (like most teams do) and the organization has tried everything from yelling and screaming to trading a top-6 roster player to get them out of it, to no avail, and at some point you need to wonder: has the coach lost the ability to reach these guys?


You can say roster! roster! roster! all you want, but I don't understand how you can say it and not even once go coach? coach? coach?

 

[Gurglesons]

We've had this discussion.

Gonchar was able to help fix Schultz and Cole for the same reason the old coaching staff was able to fix Niskanen . . . they had talent, brains, and hockey sense.

Oleksiak? Johnson? You can't teach dumb people to be smart.

It’s not even that. Niskanen and Schultz were utterly misused. We rebuilt confidence.

Look at Daley, all we did was flip his side and he was good.

JR specifically targeted weak players and arrogantly thought we’d be fine.

Honestly, it’s worse than Adams and Glass, because at least Shero thought they were good role players.

 

[ronduguayshair]

None of Oleksiak/Ruhwedel/JJ have the vision to do anything other than up the boards.

I agree. We might need to ask the centers to do even more in insulating the defense in the breakout.

I wanted to give Jack Johnson a legit shot as a pen but he’s shown to fail horribly in the breakout. A dman making his contract should do something exceptional. I don’t see anything exceptional and certainly no consistency.

The game was lost when Malkin didn’t bury that 3 on 1 when we were up 4-1. Our defense is so bad that we need to score 5+ goals a game.

A couple of positives...thought the lines were good. If we can slot Crosby next to Simon and find another winger to play over their head we can succeed with that depth. Some youth from wbs might be nice on the fourth line. I see Sheehan getting waived shortly.

 

[Gurglesons]

He fired MJ and replaced him with Sully. We then went on to win back to back cups. Care to tell me how Shero somehow did it "better"?

Shero’s Penguins were actually a consistent playoff team and even in their worst years never dipped as bad as the two ugly Rutherford teams we’ve seen which are largely because of roster make-up.

 

[Turin]

Alright, so normally this is the part of the conversation where I'd be all dismissive and sarcastic and attempt (probably unsuccessfully) to make you feel 6" tall all for some cheap laughs at your expense. Instead, I'm gonna go another route, because I just saved 15% on my car insurance by selling my car.

You're right, that the coach and roster are the same. So, the first thing you have to ask yourself is this:

1) If it's a coach vs issue situation, who is more easily-replaced, 20 players, or 3 coaches? Even if you are willing to save a handful of players, even as many as 10, you're still talking about attempting to unload the dregs of your roster in a league that has become MASSIVELY CONSERVATIVE when it comes to making trades. Now you're asking the rest of the league, who ALL still believe they're still in the playoff race because it's only November, to take your bad players and their bad contracts while giving you something of value (even if that something of value is simply "not cap back"). Meanwhile, a legitimate star coach is sitting unemployed.

2) What is more likely: a team, whose roster has been dominant for stretches THIS SEASON and whose core has won multiple cups suddenly becomes bereft of all speed, skill, intelligence halfway through the season, OR that the team has found its way into a funk (like most teams do) and the organization has tried everything from yelling and screaming to trading a top-6 roster player to get them out of it, to no avail, and at some point you need to wonder: has the coach lost the ability to reach these guys?


You can say roster! roster! roster! all you want, but I don't understand how you can say it and not even once go coach? coach? coach?

I get the sentiment about it being an easier move, I do. But if this roster had a better track record than one good road trip I’d agree with you, but this is not the roster that won in the past. I think that this is a lot of bad luck catching up to an unacceptably bad defense among other things.

 

[Gurglesons]

....he won two cups and made some great trades....so...yes. Wtf do you mean has he ever been right? Lol.

Was that Rutherford or Botts?

Is it not interesting how the Pens brain trust collapsed once Botts left in terms of smart deals outside of Brass?

Furthermore how Shero and Botts have seen relative quick success moving on from our team?

 

[AquaticBirdman]

You just answered your own question, and frankly the two biggest issues are (a) the cumulative changes on defense and (b) Sully still thinking he's coaching the fast team he had 2 years ago in the league the way it was 2 years ago and refusing to adapt to the fact that it's not 2 years ago.

Thing is, I don't think Sully is a bad coach. Quite the contrary. I think he's a really good coach who just refuses to rethink the way he has this team playing.

 

[Turin]

Shero’s Penguins were actually a consistent playoff team and even in their worst years never dipped as bad as the two ugly Rutherford teams we’ve seen which are largely because of roster make-up.

Shero’s Penguins had the two best players in the league in their primes too...

 

[ronduguayshair]

That is what I do not get though.

How can they completely forget fundamentals? Do they not practice?

I get that a losing streak makes players tense up, think too much, afraid to make a mistake, etc. But what we see out there is far worse than that. I could see as well a bad game like these. But not game after game with no correction of the issues.

I think teams have figured out our breakout and now these small and/or offensive minded players are being forced to play defense instead of skating north.

 

[AquaticBirdman]

Was that Rutherford or Botts?

So when bad trades happen it is because JR is a bad GM but the good moves were entirely attributed to Botterill?

 

[WayneSid9987]

Post game i went directly to google/yt to look at whats outside of Hughes to draft.
I'm pretty pumped about the suckage right now to say the least.

 

[Gurglesons]

Shero’s Penguins had the two best players in the league in their primes too...

And they went to as many cup finals as Rutherford’s?

The 08 team had the second most impressive run outside of the 2012 Kings squad until they hit Detroit with a hurt Malkin.

That Hossa trade is the thing of dreams for JR.

 

[KIRK]

Thing is, I don't think Sully is a bad coach. Quite the contrary. I think he's a really good coach who just refuses to rethink the way he has this team playing.

Then he's no longer a good coach.

 

[Woodrow]

We also didn't give Schultz and Niskanen big contracts before we knew that we could fix them.

 

[Thistheexpresslane]

Maatta is NEVER going to be able to skate well enough in this supposed system. Just cut The BS & trade him. I have lurked here for a long time & I have seen poster after poster saying well this off season he will work on his skating. Hell even after the Caps eliminated them posters said Now he can really work on his skating