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Hitchcock's boring brand of hockey departs PIT for hopefully last time |
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It wasn't a great night for the Penguins and it also wasn't a great night for entertainment. After a stretch of high event games the Penguins ran into a Ken Hitchcock coached team. The result was boredom and low event hockey. Tactically speaking the Penguins haven't fared well lately when the games have been low event. Here are the results of their recent sample
Ken Hitchcock is considered a successful coach, but given he has only won a single championship and his main approach is to dull the product down the league will be much better off when he is no longer running a bench. Fortunately, the Penguins may only have to play against him one more time which will come next Saturday on February 4th. I'm looking forward to seeing what Mike Yeo has in store for the Blues when he takes the team over. They have some fun players and perhaps he will allow them to be fun.
Ken Hitchcock was the original person to call Sidney Crosby a whiner. Hitchcock himself didn't seem to care he was doing the exact thing he was accusing Crosby of doing. This was the game that Sidney Crosby got his teeth knocked out, there was no call, and then Crosby later scored on a breakaway in overtime with missing teeth to beat Hitchcock. The teeth were missing because of a high hit from Derian Hatcher. Sid was called for embellishment on the play. Crosby continued to take Hitchcock's lunch money as the Flyers coach until he was fired. In Crosby's ten games against Hitchcock he had 11 goals and eight assists for 19 points. In the three games Crosby played against Hitchcock when Ken was the Columbus coach he had a goal and six assists for seven points. I'd be upset too if the same guy owned me every game.
Kris Letang was practicing in full today. I'd keep him out of Thursday's game and give him even more time to heal with the All Star Weekend happening in a few days.
Penalties were an issue with Oleksy and his chance to be a fill-in for the Penguins was taken by Chad Ruhwedel, David Warsofsky, and Cameron Gaunce.
Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist were given the day off today. They both took some shots in the game last night that may require some attention.
EDIT: It will require attention. Malkin is going to miss at least one game and the All Star Weekend
I was looking forward to seeing Sid and Geno play 3 on 3 for an extended period of time. I was hoping Alex Ovechkin would be their third. Geno has a great personality and on a weekend where the game is trying to sell itself it is a bummer an injury will be keeping him back.
Thanks for reading!
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