Everyone is talking about how Bruce Boudreau is likely to get canned from the Ducks, but the people are focusing on the wrong coach: Pittsburgh's Mike Johnston is the one who has to go.
Sidney Crosby has points in one of his team's games this season, and the Penguins play a style more suited for a low-talent team that wants to grind out wins. With their roster, this borders on idiocy.
Yes it's true that with the team shooting 5.4% at 5v5, that they will eventually start to score goals, but at the same time, their PDO is currently 100 because compensating for their low shooting percentage has been a high save percentage of 94.5.
When they start scoring at a more realistic rate, their goaltending is almost sure to fall off.
The Penguins should immediately fire their coach because he doesn't know what he's doing. I do not care for hard--headed coaches who insist on making the roster play the way they want to, when the roster they have isn't suited to it.
It'd be so easy to fix. In the NHL, puck moving defensemen are the key to maintaining possession of the puck, which is the way you win games. If you have strong forwards, puck moving d-men will let you use them to get an edge, but if you don't move the puck, you're neutralizing your forwards and wasting them.
Kris Letang has a Corsi For rating of 48.8 playing primarily with Ian Cole. When Kris Letang gets on the ice with anyone else, he jumps to a 64.5 CF rating. Sure, it's a sample size is small, but that is massive.
When with Erhoff, Letang was 58.8 and with Maata 56.6.
It seems pretty clear then, and by clear I mean conclusive, that you should always partner Letang with a fellow puck-mover. Not Ian freaking Cole.
Which brings me to my next point: Why is Derrick Pouliot, a 21 year old puck-moving defensemen who is nearly a point-per-game player over 38 career minor league games in the AHL?
The Pens should bring him up and partner him with Kris Letang, then they should probably find a puck mover to go with Maata and use their defense to properly take advantage of their gifted forwards.
But first they should get a coach who wants to play 2015 hockey.