The Pittsburgh Penguins were a mixed bag against the Montreal Canadiens and when Carey Price is in net that isn't good enough most nights.
The Penguins 0-3 start is the worst start since Crosby's rookie season. The offensive output is the worst since Pittsburgh's famously bad 2003-04 campaign
Here is how the flow of the game looked
Montreal owned the first period. Pittsburgh dominated the second period. Both teams had moments in the third period. Pittsburgh's big chance was when Sidney Crosby had an open upper portion of the Canadiens net but was unable to roof it over Carey Price.
Montreal's game winning goal came off of an offensive zone blue line turnover by Sergei Plotnikov. There is an argument to be had that it was a hooking penalty. It went uncalled and the very next sequence was the game winning goal. You can be the judge
Beau Bennett was the Penguins best forward last night. Slowly but surely he is starting to show that when healthy and not playing with bums he can positively contribute to the team
The problem with Beau Bennett being the best forward is that the Penguins have more skilled guys who need to get going.
One of those players is indeed Sidney Crosby.
Two of those occurrences have come in the last two Penguins games which isn't good.
That stat is pretty incredible though and just shows how consistently great Crosby has been for Pittsburgh. It just hasn't been in 2015-16.
Your Rob Scuderi update
Why can't the forwards press the other team's defense? There is a lot of that going on.
Pittsburgh through three games this year reminds of the Colorado Avalanche of the previous two seasons. Skilled up front but the forwards are not consistently put in place to make things happen. For some perspective the Penguins went from this:
Martin-Letang
Maatta-Ehrhoff
Scuderi-Despres
To this:
Cole-Letang
Maatta-Lovejoy
Scuderi-Dumoulin
And with Maatta not off to a tremendous start you could argue that there are a minimum of 3 downgrades from last year to this year with no real upgrades (Letang is still Letang but he didn't get markedly better).
I suggest moving Olli Maatta alongside Kris Letang in an effort to try and get him going. I was in favor of splitting them because I thought Maatta would start the year better than he has. I anticipated Maatta being the Penguins second best defender but Ian Cole is the has been that guy so far. I would split Cole from Letang to try and even out the pairings a little bit more. If Olli Maatta doesn't play well Pittsburgh really isn't going to be in a good spot moving forward.
As you can see Rob Scuderi isn't the only problem, but he is the most glaring one. It remains a simple fix with Adam Clendening or Derrick Pouliot available. Both players have puck skill which is very much needed at the moment.
Marc-Andre Fleury gave up two short side goals last night he would probably like to have back. Some people are going to blame Scuderi for the second Max Pacioretty goal because he was standing in front of Fleury but the netminder tracked the puck the whole way and just missed it. Those are saves that have to be made from that angle, especially with Carey Price in the opposite net.
Pittsburgh isn't the only Metro team not playing well to start the year.
Only the New York Rangers have a positive goal differential through the beginning stages of the year and that was with a 4-1 loss to Winnipeg last night.
Pittsburgh ownership and management think they have a contender. Whether that is true or not doesn't matter it is what the organization believes. If the losing continues early on in the season there is another situation worth keeping an eye on and that is the Boston Bruins and Claude Julien. The Bruins are heading towards a rebuild and the coach may not be along for the ride.
Pittsburgh gets Ottawa on Thursday night a day after they play Columbus.
They have to start winning games because the wiggle room is bound to run out sooner than later at this pace.
Thanks for reading!
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