The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the defending Stanley Cup Champion Kings 3-0. This wasn’t the true Kings roster with players like Anze Kopitar, Marian Gaborik, and Slava Voynov out of the lineup but I still classify it as a quality win. The reason the Kings are defending champions is because they have quality depth.
The win brings the Penguins to 6-2-1 on the young season and as far as I’m concerned they have only played one poor game out of the bunch and that was the Philly game. The Penguins have defeated quality teams like Anaheim, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York. Their two losses were a result of allowing star players to do great things towards the end of the game. That happens in an 82 game season.
The Penguins will be getting Beau Bennett and Robert Bortuzzo back in the near future and this should improve the team further. I believe the Penguins are the class of the Eastern Conference. Beau Bennett will push at least one of the underachieving fourth liners out of the lineup and should also bump Nick Spaling to the fourth line. This will improve the team. I'm not sure if Jayson Megna's call-up is Jason Botterill playing cap magic again (he makes the most NHL money among the Baby Penguins) or if they really intend on using him. If they use him and Beau Bennett is back the Penguins could realistically play a game without both Craig Adams and Zach Sill.
Marc Andre Fleury stopped 36 pucks for his second shutout of the year and 30th of his career.
Goaltenders who finish the year with average numbers do not go the entire season stopping pucks at the same rates each game. There are many peaks and valleys along the way. It is always beneficial when those peaks correspond with the matchups against top teams like Los Angeles.
Sidney Crosby is now tied with Tyler Seguin for the league lead in points. They both have 7 goals and 8 assists in 9 games. The underrated Jakub Voracek also has 15 points. The Kings Tyler Toffoli is in fourth with 13 points.
Perhaps it will happen sooner than later but it hasn’t happened to this point. Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis are not over the hill just yet. Kunitz has 10 points in 9 games and Dupuis has 8 points in 9 games. Those seem like good numbers to me.
Speaking of points: For those folks that are still holding out hope for Zach Sill,
I give you this .
Geno picked up another point with his slick slap pass to Kunitz for the game’s first goal. He still has a point in every game this season.
Evgeni Malkin is an emotional player and it resulted in him getting into a dust-up with Justin Williams. Some people think that Steve Downie’s presence on the roster would eliminate these kinds of things, but that just isn’t a realistic expectation. Shawn Thornton didn’t prevent Orpik from lighting up Eriksson last year or from James Neal kneeing Brad Marchand in the head. The idea that these players deter things from happening out there is overblown. Downie’s real value comes from him being able to play actual hockey and annoying the competition while doing so. The real way to deter star players from getting “punked” is for them to not engage. The best example of this would be Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. They play hard between the whistles and ignore the rest. Nobody messes with them and the Red Wings don’t have anybody to “protect” them.
The Penguins need to keep feeding Geno on the power play, he should be option number one. Anytime he is in the position to shoot good things happen. Whether he is wiring home laser beams or making slick passes to other players for easy tap-ins.
I agree with Rick Tocchet, Letang needs to shoot more on the power play. If the other team doesn’t view him as a shooting threat they will start to cheat towards the other players. If he shows the other team that he is willing to shoot it will spread them out further, leaving guys like Crosby and Malkin more room to do damage. With Hornqvist and Kunitz creating havoc in front of the net the more shots the better.
How about that screen by Hornqvist on the Kunitz power play goal? Hornqvist is a boss in front of the net.
Geno gives his detailed breakdown as only he can about the Penguins power play
Igor Larionov has said that his client Andrei Loktionov is drawing interest from 5 NHL teams. Depending on where you get your source, Pittsburgh is supposedly one of them.
Loktionov would be a player who could help the Penguins out if he makes around the 725k he did before. He is a positive possession player in each of his three NHL stops (LA, NJ, CAR). I am not sure of the validity of this rumor and I’m not sure how they would fit him into their plans. Think of Lokionov as a cheaper Spaling type player who can play center or wing, probably better. The reason Loktionov is available is because he had shoulder surgery stemming from an injury at the World Championships in the spring time. My prediction is that he does find a home in the NHL, not in Pittsburgh.
Up next for the Penguins, the Buffalo Sabres. Should be a fun game for Penguins fans.
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