Are you satisfied with the Pens' penalty kill?
"Bylsma has answers, just not his players," according to the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The Trib’s Rob Rossi interviews Pens coach Dan Bylsma on a number of topics, including what went wrong in the playoffs.
Rossi asked Bylsma what he could “extract” from the Pens-Flyers series.
“It’s tough to draw one specific thing that’s going to carry over. The hardest thing to do is draw the appropriate conclusions and move forward. I can clearly say, “It’s X, and we’re going to go in the opposite direction of X.” I can say, “Well, we have to do this way differently,” or, “We have to really focus on how we play.” But I could also ask, “Was it two bad weeks? And if was, did I just throw away a lot of dang good.” If you look at our penalty killing, you’re looking at a penalty kill that ranks first in the league over the last two years and one that has done very, very poorly in the playoff series.”
Bylsma said he was looking at all playoff exits, not just his own team’s.
“Yes, and we’re not just looking at our picture. How did the Devils do against the Flyers, what did they do? Who had success against the Flyers, and now what does that mean for what happened to us? Again, I’m not going to tell you, but I’ve seen some things.”
The Pens have lost Jordan Staal and Zbynek Michalek since the playoff loss, gaining Brandon Sutter. Short-handed leaders like Craig Adams and Matt Cooke are another year further away from 30. It will be interesting to see what wrinkles Bylsma has in store for the team’s penalty-killing unit – if any.
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I’ve got some graded Hall of Fame football rookie cards up for grabs to benefit Hurricane Sandy/Red Cross. The 1984 Dan Marino and 1984 John Elway rookies are $50 each (postage paid). The 1975 Lynn Swann rookie is $40 (postage paid). If you are interested, send me a note via my email address at
[email protected]. I’m accepting payment through PayPal only and will donate all of the money to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts/Red Cross. This way you not only get a chance to own some great cards but donate to the relief effort.
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On this date a year ago, the Penguins held a 9-4-3 mark after knocking off the Kings, 3-2, in a shootout victory at Los Angeles. Former Duck Chris Kunitz netted a game-tying third-period score and then finished off LA with a shootout-deciding score.
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Crosby, Cooke, Adams, Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz – along with former Pens goalie, Brent Johnson, are practicing at Southpointe on Monday morning, according to Dave Molinari’s tweet.
Cooke took a Crosby stick to the forehead Friday but has made his way back on the ice as only hockey players can.
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Here’s a
link to the Baby Penguins scoring statistics. After a natural hat trick Sunday, Paul Thompson leads the team with eight points (6 G, 2 A) in nine games while Tangradi has six goals in nine contests.
Penguins 2012 no. 1 draft pick, Derrick Pouliot, leads WHL Portland Winterhawks defensemen with 15 points (4 G, 11 A) in 16 games. Here’s a
link to the team’s scoring leaders.
In case you missed the Pens’ prospects update, here’s the comprehensive article via the
team’s website.
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"Meetings may be step toward end of NHL Lockout," the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Good news! The Penguins played 48 regular season games after the 1994-95 work stoppage, starting January 20 through May 3. A 70-game schedule has been mentioned. A season with 60 or so games sounds more reasonable at this point, but money’s the primary lockout reason. It only stands to reason that the league stuffs as many games as possible into a short period of time.
At least we probably won’t have to suffer through an All-Star game.
On second thought, perhaps the NHL could institute yet another All-Star format. How does all of the best stars who played in Europe against the stars that stayed behind sound?
The likely cancellation of the All-Star Game gives recently-hired Blue Jackets John Davidson another year to get things in order in Columbus before the league descends upon the city. Let’s hope he does as well there as he did in St. Louis.
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Hockey Buzz readers guessed the return date of Sidney Crosby’s debut in 2011-12 and now we’re all guessing when the first game of 2012-13 will take place. Let’s hope there’s nothing left to guess in 2013-14.
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Treasure Life!
JT
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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