Really frustrating. It must have been Malkins turn to be disinterested tonight. 3rd line was a plus. Not sure why RW says FO are an overrated stat. Coulda used a few more wins at key times tonight.

Cuz that did sooooooo much good.
- Zac_O

Kessel had more ice time the Malkin and Crosby
Wtf???

This loss doesn't fall on the defense. Collectively they were fine. Top 6 looks unacceptably bad.
- jfkst1

Correct. Although Maatta is just garbage right now and Scuds is.....well.....the same.

This loss doesn't fall on the defense. Collectively they were fine. Top 6 looks unacceptably bad.
- jfkst1

The third line was the only line that cared. Crosby didn't look like the best player in the world. Hell, he didn't even look elite. All of his passes were off base and he should have buried that shot in the third to tie it. Not even sure what to say about Malkin. He doesn't look like he doesn't care, he just doesn't look like himself. Don't know what's going on with him. Hornqvist and Kessel are one man lines out there. I wish Bennett could play LW because he deserved to be getting primo minutes tonight.

EDIT: Also I'd really like to see Crosby's FO % for tonight. He definitely lost all the important ones...

The third line was the only line that cared. Crosby didn't look like the best player in the world. Hell, he didn't even look elite. All of his passes were off base and he should have buried that shot in the third to tie it. Not even sure what to say about Malkin. He doesn't look like he doesn't care, he just doesn't look like himself. Don't know what's going on with him. Hornqvist and Kessel are one man lines out there. I wish Bennett could play LW because he deserved to be getting primo minutes tonight.

EDIT: Also I'd really like to see Crosby's FO % for tonight. He definitely lost all the important ones...
- Victoro311

56% but 2-6 in the offensive zone.

Really frustrating. It must have been Malkins turn to be disinterested tonight. 3rd line was a plus. Not sure why RW says FO are an overrated stat. Coulda used a few more wins at key times tonight.
- Thorny87

The only thing worse about the pens the last two years are the blogs here for our team. Never have the blogs been so embarrassingly useless. I want advanced stats to die already. Hockey is a sport filled full of intangibles that no stat..advanced or otherwise..can measure. Many of such intangibles this team is completely void of. Heart passion pride work ethic effort etc. This team filled full of skill has no one left to actually acquire the damn puck and dish it effectively to said skill. I could go.on and on.

Listened to Lange and bourque for the post game and they hit the nail on the head when they talked about the pens dumping and chasing way too much. Puck management in the neutral zone is terrible.

The third line was the only line that cared. Crosby didn't look like the best player in the world. Hell, he didn't even look elite. All of his passes were off base and he should have buried that shot in the third to tie it. Not even sure what to say about Malkin. He doesn't look like he doesn't care, he just doesn't look like himself. Don't know what's going on with him. Hornqvist and Kessel are one man lines out there. I wish Bennett could play LW because he deserved to be getting primo minutes tonight.

EDIT: Also I'd really like to see Crosby's FO % for tonight. He definitely lost all the important ones...
- Victoro311

The effort is completely uneven. It's one thing to not get the results, but the process doesn't look good and it isn't showing any signs of improvement. Johnston better make some improvements because I can't imagine management/ownership is going to take many more of these losses before firing him.

Listened to Lange and bourque for the post game and they hit the nail on the head when they talked about the pens dumping and chasing way too much. Puck management in the neutral zone is terrible.
- drummer829

This is happening because our d have all the pressure to move the puck effectively. ...teams are just hanging back and allowing our terrible puck moving dmen to kill any and all attempts to begin a rush....pucks are passed up terribly and without any control...leading to dumpins that no one is able to forecheck back for us. Our system isnt suitable for our players. Our d cant move the puck...our forwards cant effectively dump and forecheck. Every team is making us do both.

A good second period and the rest not so much. Many problems to iron out but mostly I guess just bad execution generally for all defensive lines. I think the third line was the best line offensively. The PP looked worse if that's possible. The other offensive lines are very out of sync and the passing was generally just bad. The ice looked bad so that didn't help.

I feel bad that some of this was not ironed out in preseason because this is not going away real soon. It will take several games to develop any cohesion. Not pretty out there.

3rd line was a plus. Not sure why RW says FO are an overrated stat. Coulda used a few more wins at key times tonight.
- Thorny87

Prob has a skewed stat that says FO's are a meaningless event. Intuitively, winning a FO AND starting w/ the puck is better than losing it AND chasing. PLUS FO's have a massive amount of context about them (e.g. by zone, time left, score) to be overlooked.

I find it hard to believe the top 6 starts the season this cold and effortless; I'm not one for conspiracies, but I question whether this team is playing for a coaching dismissal. 79 more to go.

More sprints @ practice tomorrow, eh?

This is happening because our d have all the pressure to move the puck effectively. ...teams are just hanging back and allowing our terrible puck moving dmen to kill any and all attempts to begin a rush....pucks are passed up terribly and without any control...leading to dumpins that no one is able to forecheck back for us. Our system isnt suitable for our players. Our d cant move the puck...our forwards cant effectively dump and forecheck. Every team is making us do both.
- taleisyreXIII

I like what you are saying here. Pretty spot on. I think probably Dumo had the best passes to the offense.

I like what you are saying here. Pretty spot on. I think probably Dumo had the best passes to the offense.
- powerhouse

Thx..its kinda sad really. But if you look around the league...teams with effective puck moving dmen make medicore forwards better. We lost touch with this somewhere along the way. We focused too much on offensive help for sid for three or four years now and gave up what really helps generate offence.

And to all the people saying we're too soft and not enough #gritness, we lead the Habs in hits by 10 and the best hits of the night barring two destructive hip checks by I believe Gilbert were from Kunitz, Perron, and Bennett. The issue here isn't the four scoring lines model, and its not team defense. It's the top two lines not giving a damn and I put that on Johnston's shoulders to fix.

And to all the people saying we're too soft and not enough #gritness, we lead the Habs in hits by 10 and the best hits of the night barring two destructive hip checks by I believe Gilbert were from Kunitz, Perron, and Bennett. The issue here isn't the four scoring lines model, and its not team defense. It's the top two lines not giving a damn and I put that on Johnston's shoulders to fix.
- Victoro311

Yup. Sid and geno playing like Brandon sutter

Yup. Sid and geno playing like Brandon sutter
- drummer829

Poor Kessel. The guy thought he was coming here to win and now he'll have a tough time cracking 25 goals with the way his centers are playing...

Crosby really downplayed his lack of production with the media today. Was he subtly blaming the coach?
Maybe him and Geno are playing to get the coach fired?

Hang Johnson
Shoot Crosby (get it?)
Murder Mario

We need a D man, which is craziness considering we drafted 50 million of them.


F winning

I want advanced stats to die already.
- taleisyreXIII

None more so than possession metrics (CF% or FF%) at the individual player level! Case in point... in 13:27 of EV hockey, #4 had CF% of 71.4 (15F & 6A) and FF% of 72.2 (13F and 5A). EVERYONE KEEP THEIR COOL; I'm using 'him' to illustrate how bad of concept individual possession metrics are.

http://www.naturalstattri...eason=20152016&game=20039

Let’s say a team has a hypothetical player (“JT”). During the course of a game, shift after shift, “JT” skates to the ref’s half-circle and stands there – never once touching the puck. While “JT” was on the ice (5v5 situations) his teammates fired 20 shots for and only experienced 5 against. “JT” has an amazing CF% of 80%. Some fancy stat guys (or gals) claim that “JT” is awesome at driving possession/suppressing shots against. Can you spot the fallacy?

The unit of measurement (i.e. the player) suffers from lack of independence, and therefore any player value measurements, or player-to-player comparisons are inaccurate.

#RaisethePulse


bTW.. they're tanking/ playing HCMJ's hand for a #51 or #2 swap/exchange for #4 and/or #12.

Shoot Crosby (get it?)

- freeBartley

shooting crosby leads to Pens first win!

getting more than a little frustrating at this point.

I think its time to mix up the top six. Kessel and Crosby are just not clicking. Our top six makes or breaks this team and as of right now it isnt working. Hornqvist and Crosby looked better than Crosby and Kessel.

Scuderi should be ashamed of that second goal, if you are going to just stand their and take up space you need to at least take the shot away, especially when its the opponents best shooter. Terrible.

Fleury should have had the third goal, but also someone should have picked the guy up and it also should have been a hooking call but whatever.

The third line looked great, fourth looked good too... Defense is looking fairly decent. I'd like to see Maata to the top unit and Cole with Dumo on the second pairing.

I've been beating this drum for a year and a half. When the employee's don't perform at an acceptable level, it's on management. I like what JR has done, HCMJ is not what this team needs.

None more so than possession metrics (CF% or FF%) at the individual player level! Case in point... in 13:27 of EV hockey, #4 had CF% of 71.4 (15F & 6A) and FF% of 72.2 (13F and 5A). EVERYONE KEEP THEIR COOL; I'm using 'him' to illustrate how bad of concept individual possession metrics are.

http://www.naturalstattri...eason=20152016&game=20039

Let’s say a team has a hypothetical player (“JT”). During the course of a game, shift after shift, “JT” skates to the ref’s half-circle and stands there – never once touching the puck. While “JT” was on the ice (5v5 situations) his teammates fired 20 shots for and only experienced 5 against. “JT” has an amazing CF% of 80%. Some fancy stat guys (or gals) claim that “JT” is awesome at driving possession/suppressing shots against. Can you spot the fallacy?

The unit of measurement (i.e. the player) suffers from lack of independence, and therefore any player value measurements, or player-to-player comparisons are inaccurate.

#RaisethePulse


bTW.. they're tanking/ playing HCMJ's hand for a #51 or #2 swap/exchange for #4 and/or #12.
- out_of_market

Your sample size is grossly inadequate and WOWY/Impact on line mates eliminate your claims of deficiencies in outcome independence. Not to mention, being a good possession player is merely one of many metrics to assess a player on.

Pens will barely squeak in the playoffs and lose in the first round, meaning the Leafs will get the 15th pick in a draft with a deep first round.
- cesareborgia

Nope ... we are in the Austin Matthews sweepstakes right now. Leaf fans will be pissed.