Fire up the rumors
This same source was the one that reported Pittsburgh having interest in Gabriel Landeskog. Perhaps it isn't Landeskog that the Penguins are interested in, but I still think there is something to take away from the fact the Penguins head scout is at a Colorado/Anaheim game. The Penguins are done playing Anaheim this year and don't play Colorado until February 9th.
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For the first time since Mike Sullivan took over the Pittsburgh bench in December of 2015 the Pittsburgh Penguins have lost consecutive games in regulation. The sky is falling.
It is obviously not, but the Penguins did lose a good opportunity to make up ground on the division leading Blue Jackets by going 0-4 in the point department the past two games.
The above chart was created by Micah Blake McCurdy (@ineffectivemath). These charts are free at his Hockey Viz website after 2PM Atlantic time.
I wrote about how Olli Maatta has been playing better as of late in yesterday’s blog. That hasn’t been the case with Trevor Daley. The trade to acquire Daley was amazing. It is still ludicrous to think that Rob Scuderi was all it took to nab him from the Chicago Blackhawks. That being said Daley has never been known as a player who drives possession. It seems like the opposite should be true when you watch him skate and handle the puck, but the results have been fairly consistent throughout his career when comparing his ability to drive possession to his teammates
You can see that Daley really burst onto the scene in Pittsburgh after being moved away from Chicago. He peaked leading up to the playoffs and then leveled off into an acceptable 0% range for the playoffs. This year is falling in line with a lot of his Dallas sample size.
Brian Dumoulin is out with a broken jaw and prior to that he was not having the year he had last season. His absence has led to Steve Oleksy getting a regular shift which isn't something a Cup contending team can support for long stretches of time.
Olli Maatta has been better recently, but his sample the past couple years has been inconsistent.
Daley's regression might fall in line with his career sample, but it is doing no favors for the Penguins right now when they could really use a boost.
Matt Murray made his return to the lineup after missing an extended period with a lower-body injury. His return was subpar. He allowed four goals on 33 shots for an overall save percentage of .879. This was a night after Marc-Andre Fleury was at .862. It puts a lot of pressure on the offense when you can’t break the .900 plane.
Mike Sullivan got the boot last night. In a rare sequence, the Penguins bench boss was ejected from the game. Here’s the video. You can tell Sidney Crosby knows something is up by his facial expressions
Mike Sullivan said after the game that what was said would stay between him and the referee.
Pittsburgh will make what should be their final visit to Joe Louis Arena tomorrow night. A place that the team will always have fond memories of.
Thanks for reading!
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