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Injury Report: Vol. 5 (Updates in First Post) | Kessel May Miss Start of Season

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ColePens

ColePens

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I think Geno is long overdue for one of those dominant seasons. He just needs to get freaking healthy. Last 3 seasons... 60GP 72pts, 69GP 70pts, 57GP 58pts. The 14-15 playoffs was terrible for Geno. His play was bad. This year's was good. Nothing Geno-dominant like, but still good.

His last 100 pt season was 2011-12, albeit that's a tough task nowadays. But G is one of the best players in the world, right? He hasn't scored 30 goals since then. The guy just seems to get hurt at the wrong time. Or for the Pens, the right time for HBK. :laugh:

But I expect big big big things from Geno if he's fully healthy. I'm talking top 3 in the world type things. As of right now, he's really fallen out of that discussion of best player in the world.
 
AjaxTelamon

AjaxTelamon

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ColePens said:
I think Geno is long overdue for one of those dominant seasons. He just needs to get freaking healthy. Last 3 seasons... 60GP 72pts, 69GP 70pts, 57GP 58pts. The 14-15 playoffs was terrible for Geno. His play was bad. This year's was good. Nothing Geno-dominant like, but still good.

His last 100 pt season was 2011-12, albeit that's a tough task nowadays. But G is one of the best players in the world, right? He hasn't scored 30 goals since then. The guy just seems to get hurt at the wrong time. Or for the Pens, the right time for HBK. :laugh:

But I expect big big big things from Geno if he's fully healthy. I'm talking top 3 in the world type things. As of right now, he's really fallen out of that discussion of best player in the world.
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All Geno has to do is beat the guys the other team puts out against him in the playoffs, I don't much care about regular season scoring (though point a game play isn't exactly awful in this NHL). His line won us some big playoff games, and Geno was critical to that.

Not to mention that our PP goes nowhere without him, even when he's not at 100%
 
ColePens

ColePens

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Aiastelmon said:
All Geno has to do is beat the guys the other team puts out against him in the playoffs, I don't much care about regular season scoring (though point a game play isn't exactly awful in this NHL). His line won us some big playoff games, and Geno was critical to that.

Not to mention that our PP goes nowhere without him, even when he's not at 100%
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Oh I definitely agree with what you are saying. I'm just making the point that Geno has been really good, but he hasn't been at that great level due to some of the injuries keeping him down. Great defined as top 5 players in the world. Even though he's very good IMO, he still has another level of dominance we haven't seen for an entire season in quite a few years. We all know he has it. We just haven't seen it.
 
mpp9

mpp9

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I mean, he would be top 5 in scoring every year if he played 75+ games.

Crosby isn't producing much more than a ppg nowadays.
 
Sidney the Kidney

Sidney the Kidney

One last time
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Geno's never adjusted his style to try and avoid the kind of injuries he's constantly getting. Sid's seemed to adjust his, from being full balls-to-the-wall to a bit more of a conservative approach, and it's resulted in him (knock on wood) remaining healthy since he returned from the broken jaw. Geno still seems to put himself in vulnerable positions way too often.
 
Rocket of Russia

Rocket of Russia

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BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Yeah. Kuznetsov is probably better than Malkin, at this point. Pretty depressing.

Malkin opted out of surgery, by the way.
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Ah right, the no surgery route, ugh…meh, I'm not a doctor so I won’t harp on that.

Give Kuznetsov a season to get his wrists slashed repeatedly like Geno’s had to put up with for his career. And keep in mind not even 3 months ago, when the games mattered, Geno did much more with MUCH less.
 
BlindWillyMcHurt

BlindWillyMcHurt

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Malkin might possibly maybe still theoretically be one of the best in the world. I'll concede that much. :D

It's all conjecture until he actually plays more than a part time schedule. We haven't seen that in years so who knows if he still has that level. The guy probably isn't even used to playing anywhere close to 82+ games, anymore. Who is to say he'd still be a PPG player if he did?

Oh well. Same old same old, from me. I'm sure this will be the year he turns it all around, though.
 
DegenX

DegenX

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BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Malkin might possibly maybe still theoretically be one of the best in the world. I'll concede that much. :D

It's all conjecture until he actually plays more than a part time schedule. We haven't seen that in years so who knows if he still has that level. The guy probably isn't even used to playing anywhere close to 82+ games, anymore. Who is to say he'd still be a PPG player if he did?

Oh well. Same old same old, from me. I'm sure this will be the year he turns it all around, though.
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mpp9

mpp9

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BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Malkin might possibly maybe still theoretically be one of the best in the world. I'll concede that much. :D

It's all conjecture until he actually plays more than a part time schedule. We haven't seen that in years so who knows if he still has that level. The guy probably isn't even used to playing anywhere close to 82+ games, anymore. Who is to say he'd still be a PPG player if he did?

Oh well. Same old same old, from me. I'm sure this will be the year he turns it all around, though.
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He certainly has the level of play, just not the health. He was dominant early this season. And was our best forward in the 2014 playoffs.

If you want to say he isn't as good as he was in 2012, that's fair. Neither is Sid.
 
BlindWillyMcHurt

BlindWillyMcHurt

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DegenX said:
It comes from a place of love ... or like ... not to be creepy or anything :laugh:
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Nah, not creepy. Right back atcha.

mpp... I hope he turns in a season anywhere close to what Crosby is still capable of. That would be magnificent. I'm not holding my breath, though.
 
Ogrezilla

Ogrezilla

Nerf Herder
Jul 5, 2009
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BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Malkin might possibly maybe still theoretically be one of the best in the world. I'll concede that much. :D

It's all conjecture until he actually plays more than a part time schedule. We haven't seen that in years so who knows if he still has that level. The guy probably isn't even used to playing anywhere close to 82+ games, anymore. Who is to say he'd still be a PPG player if he did?

Oh well. Same old same old, from me. I'm sure this will be the year he turns it all around, though.
Click to expand...

Geno certainly outplayed Kuznetsov in the playoffs this year. Kuz was a complete no-show when the games mattered.
 
AjaxTelamon

AjaxTelamon

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ColePens said:
Oh I definitely agree with what you are saying. I'm just making the point that Geno has been really good, but he hasn't been at that great level due to some of the injuries keeping him down. Great defined as top 5 players in the world. Even though he's very good IMO, he still has another level of dominance we haven't seen for an entire season in quite a few years. We all know he has it. We just haven't seen it.
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And this gets to the point of why Geno is still very important for us, even if he's not 100%. He's capable of doing insane things, even if he's not 100%. And you just never know when he's going to bust out and win a game by himself. So no coach in the league is going to risk his job by putting his bottom pairing and 4th line against Geno for a series.

It reminds me of that 13th warrior quote about any fool being able to calculate the strength he sees. You also have to account for what you can't see (or haven't seen in weeks of play). And it leads to guys like Trotz putting out Backstrom and Ovie against Geno in D zone draws, and that definitely hurt their offensive output and wasted shifts.

It also leads to Chorney playing 11 minutes, Niskanen playing 27, and their 4th line playing an average of about 7 minutes a night.

Awful hard to win in a 7 game series doing that.
 
mpp9

mpp9

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BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Nah, not creepy. Right back atcha.

mpp... I hope he turns in a season anywhere close to what Crosby is still capable of. That would be magnificent. I'm not holding my breath, though.
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I mean, Crosby barely outpaced him the past two seasons. Again, your issue with him is his inability to stay healthy. And that's fair. But it's not the same thing as saying Malkin is incapable of being the best player on the ice on any given night.

It'll be interesting how seriously Malkin takes his offseason training and handling his injuries during the season. If we had even an 85% Malkin this postseason, I think this team cruises to a Cup.
 
clefty

clefty

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It's worth pointing out that nobody actually said Kessel might not be ready for the season. What JR said was that he doesn't know, because Kessel's not here to be evaluated. Slight difference.
 
WayneSid9987

WayneSid9987

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