The Pittsburgh Penguins crushed a pretty bad Edmonton Oilers team last night.
The only thing worse than the Oilers last night was their ice surface. It seemed like every time it was time for a Penguins player to pull the trigger on a good pass the puck was bouncing or rolling.
The Crosby line was excellent last night and if it wasn’t for a fluky bouncing puck him and his linemates would have had quite a number of plays where they would have had a player streaking at full speed on zone entries. Instead there were tons of in-between plays that led to a match of ping pong with the opposition instead.
Here is the carnage report:
Lower right is where you want to be. Tons of blue Penguins names are over there. That is what you want to see when playing a bad team who is missing two of their better players (Hall, Pouliot).
Only one Penguins player kind of stands out in a negative way in last night’s game.
That current bottom six for Pittsburgh just isn’t enjoyable to watch from an entertainment standpoint. No skill to be had outside of Downie’s ability to work down low and in the corners with the puck.
Great to have Evgeni Malkin back. He is a one man wrecking crew that drives possession, offense, and more importantly fun.
Fleury earned his seventh shutout, this one may have been the easiest one of the year.
I never thought it would come to this, but does Rob Scuderi have the best 3.3M cap hit on the team?
Penguins did what they had to do and will take on the Flames and their second ranked team shooting percentage on Friday.
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Evander Kane and Winnipeg may be reaching boiling point in their relationship. He was suspended for a dress code violation which caused Kane to miss playing in his hometown of Vancouver. From where I stand there is more to it than a simple dress code violation but I’m not buying the Kane is a bad apple routine.
I’ll just come out and say it, Evander Kane is black in a predominately white sport and has personality. The photo during the lockout with him holding a stack of cash to his ear was the perfect low hanging fruit to start the attitude narrative. Throw in the fact that his goals per 60 minutes has gone from 1.08 in 2012-13 to 0.89 in 2013-14 to 0.57 this season in a third line role and you have a perfect storm.
While I certainly do not believe that everybody that covers/watches hockey falls into the trap above, I do believe the people that shun analytics and lean on intangibles and unquantifiable variables in their work/viewings do fall into that trap more than others.
Why do I bring Kane up?
Mike Colligan wrote an extensive piece about Evander Kane and the Penguins today and believes it is feasible. Since Mike is really great at what he does I am going to entertain this idea.
You can find Mike’s piece about the Penguins and Kane here
This is the passage which contains the potential offer and how it would fit money wise:
Finally, what would the salary implications of a Kane for Kunitz, Bennett, Dumoulin trade look like? Kane carries a $5.25 million cap hit, while Kunitz+Bennett total $4.75 million (Dumoulin is in the minors) — a net of +$0.5 million for the Penguins, who should still have over a million dollars of flexibility to work with. I don’t have a great feel for Rutherford’s playbook yet, but he told Spector he doesn’t like to wait for the deadline to pull the trigger. His aggressive moves this year and in prior seasons confirms that. Evander Kane just seems like his next deal to put the Penguins back in contention for a Stanley Cup.
I am a believer in Beau Bennett, I think he is very good but if you are going to move on from a guy like him this is the kind of deal you do it in.
As far as the deal is concerned it would strike me as one geared more towards the future than one for this season. Kane is banged up and has been fighting injuries this year, who knows if he’d ever get back to 100%. You would be gaining a legit top six winger who has shown he can handle a more defensive role and also kills penalties. But you would also be trading away two top six players away from the current roster. This would put all your eggs in the Blake Comeau basket as Evgeni Malkin’s right winger.
From the Jets perspective they would gain a plug and play top six winger in Chris Kunitz which could still assist them in their playoff push. Beau Bennett is the skilled forward with upside that could help now and in the future, Brian Dumoulin is your run of the mill throw in prospect.
Personally if I were the Jets I would just keep Evander Kane, I would not pull the trigger on this deal. However, it does fall into the general haul for a top six winger. Mike Colligan refers to the Rick Nash trade:
I remember hearing a year or two ago that the Jets were asking for two top-six forwards, a good prospect, and a high draft pick in any deal for Kane. That fits with the standard return for a top-line winger — Rick Nash fetched Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, prospect Tim Erixson, and a first-round pick in a 2012 deal.I’m not sure Kane is as highly-regarded (overrated?) as Nash, especially in light of his recent transgressions.
It does seem like things are deteriorating between the two parties and the Jets may be looking to get something done to not distract from the playoff push, but understand there will be 28 other interested teams in a player like Kane.
I’m a believer in Evander Kane and I believe he will flourish elsewhere.
It remains to be seen if that will include a stop in Pittsburgh.
Thanks for reading!
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