The Pittsburgh Penguins head into the all-star break losers of their last four games. This includes only taking one out of a possible six points against Metropolitan Division foes (NYI, NYR, PHI) and then finishing with what I consider a very solid game against the Blackhawks.
Last night’s game against the Blackhawks was fun. It was a game that involved two teams focused on playing the actual sport and giving us many moments of incredible skill. When people were checked clean, everybody just played on. That is how it should be.
Before I give some thoughts about the game I am going to touch on the injury situations for both Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin:
So we have Evgeni Malkin missing the all-star festivities (which is fine by me) and we also have conflicting reports on whether or not Letang will be out indefinitely.
It remains to be seen if the Penguins are giving him the indefinite label with Rinaldo’s hearing still yet to commence or if he really is out indefinitely.
I don’t really have huge concerns with Evgeni Malkin. If he was out taking the warmup then it probably isn’t too bad.
The good news is that there is a break in the schedule which will allow some time for some Penguins players to heal up.
Congratulations to Zach Sill. He scored his first career NHL goal. That is always a great moment regardless of who you root for. It was a very nice high glove shot and he almost decapitated a Blackhawks player with his celebration:
This does nothing to change my evaluation of his overall body of work.
David Perron is pretty great to watch. He will be this generation's Alex Kovalev. What a great trade.
What appeared to be him missing a wide open net was actually an extremely clever play by the Blackhawks defender. He hooked/pushed on Perron’s hands just as he was putting the puck on net. Probably should have still gone in the net and probably should have been a minor penalty as well.
I’m just going to leave this here
Funny how that player usage stuff matters.
Mike Johnston has made some strange decisions towards the end of the game the past two nights.
Last night he took a fresh Sidney Crosby off of an offensive zone faceoff in the last minute of the game because Jonathan Toews was out there. I mean I understand trying to get away from that matchup over the course of a game but we are talking about the last minute of a tie game and no Evgeni Malkin in the lineup. He is Sidney freaking Crosby. Play him. Craig Adams played the last 42 seconds of regulation against the Chicago Blackhawks in a tie game.
The night before Evgeni Malkin did not play the last 4 minutes in regulation and also did not play a single second in overtime. You could make the argument that he was dinged up and held out due to that potential injury but why was he the player jumping on the ice for the too many men penalty? They clearly thought he was good enough to play.
Craig Adams played 3:31 of game’s final 6 min. Crosby only played 2:28 of the last 9 minutes of game and only 7 seconds in OT. That is unacceptable.
The Penguins power play last night lacked a shooter. With Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin out of the lineup I think that Christian Ehrhoff should be one of the first guys jumping over the boards on that #1 unit. It makes no sense to keep Ehrhoff or Pouliot on the bench while sending Brandon Sutter of all people as the fourth forward.
Slowly but surely people are coming around to understand how much fluff is in Sutter's game. It is like eating potato chips. They taste really good (sweet snipe goals) but they don't really fill you up and give you empty calories (brutal possession).
Speaking of Derrick Pouliot, he was great last night. He had the top possession numbers of any defenseman against Chicago. You can tell what camp you are in with Pouliot depending on what kind of things you’ll take away from last night. You can focus on the cornucopia of good things he did like I am going to do. Or you can highlight that faux pas from the neutral zone which led to a scoring chance the other way.
Pouliot creates, distributes, and frees up space for the forwards. To me that severely outweighs a gaffe like he had in the third period. I fail to understand why one gaffe should supersede doing things that some of the other guys on the back end can’t do.
Pouliot should be a regular in the lineup. Keep playing him. He will get better. Somebody has to replace Olli Maatta. It could be Despres or it could be Pouliot. Let’s find out.
Martin-Letang
Ehrhoff-Pouliot
Scuderi-Despres
That is what I would run with leading up to the playoffs. The last regime missed the boat by not giving Despres regular minutes. Don’t make that mistake again.
One hiccup which may get in the way of Pouliot earning time moving forward this season is a technicality with his performance bonuses. The great Mike Colligan
wrote another very informative piece today
He explains:
Two of particular concern are defensemen Derrick Pouliot and Scott Harrington. Both have spent time with the NHL club in Pittsburgh and carry potential bonuses that could result in a penalty if earned.
If Pouliot were to spend the rest of the season in the NHL and achieve all possible bonuses, I calculated that the team would be faced with a $237k penalty next year. For Harrington, that number is $292k.
I would eat the bonus money next year in the case of Pouliot. I think the importance of him playing NHL minutes is worth the 237k bonus penalty next year.
Lastly, thanks to Mr. Colligan, #JagrWatch2015 is not dead.
I could be wrong in my interpretation of the CBA in this situation, but if the New Jersey Devils already paid his bonus prior to a trade, it shouldn’t lead to a bonus penalty next year for the Penguins if they acquire him later in the season.
Yes, he’d still be left off a top powerplay unit with two superstars already fighting over the right half-wall position he prefers. This was a sticking point that limited his interest in Pittsburgh last time around.
I’m just saying the door isn’t completely closed on Jagr yet.
Still not optimistic of a Jagr acquisition now that Perron is in the fold but I do disagree with one thing Mike said. I think Jagr should be on any potential #1 PP and he should take that half wall position with Crosby down low and Malkin on the right point.
Plenty of room for all three.
I would fill out the rest of the power play with David Perron and Kris Letang. Perron has a solid net front presence and does Crosby. You don’t automatically need a Patric Hornqvist or Chris Kunitz on that unit.
Mike is the very best when it comes to Penguins related material on the internet.
Make sure you follow him
Also recorded a brand new Hockey Hurts podcast last night. Rinaldo/Letang, what to do with the defense, some forward usage stuff and more. Find that
here
That is it for today.
Thanks for reading!
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