Game 4 Notes + Twitter Mailbag Answers (Daniel Sprong)

Daniel Sprong

Game 4 Notes + Twitter Mailbag Answers

By Ryan Wilson

May 20, 2016 • 4:28 pm

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have a great opportunity this evening to take full control of the Eastern Conference Finals. A victory and the team will have a 3-1 lead in the series and while it isn't an automatic Pittsburgh will move on I can't see a team that hasn't lost back to back games since January lose three in a row.

As far as analysis goes for the series there really isn't much to add. Pittsburgh is dominating even-strength play which is the biggest factor in driving success. Their goalie is playing good enough to win. The power play dropped the ball on the five minute major in Game 1 but are two for seven in the series which is a ~28% power play. Tampa Bay is struggling with the Penguins speed to this point and have yet to find an answer.

Steven Stamkos will not play in Game 4 and Ben Bishop's practice workload looks like that of a goalie not ready to play.

Patric Hornqvist is probable to play this evening after an injury scare to his hand.

Seeing as though there isn't much to add at this time I decided to answer a few Twitter questions for today's blog. Here they are:

This is a tough one for Tampa Bay. They are a good team (obviously) but they are finding out how difficult it is to compete against Pittsburgh’s relentless speed. Pittsburgh is on the puck very fast and it makes things difficult for the opposition to make controlled plays. The difficulty is ramped up even more when you consider how disciplined the Penguins are in the angles they take in pursuit and their commitment to their structure. Somehow Tampa is going to have to up their controlled exits out of their end in order to speed through the neutral zone. Their best defense against the Penguins is to have the puck themselves and utilize the skill players they have. They can’t have the Cullen line owning the puck while Victor Hedman is on the ice. That is a losing formula. Right now the Lightning are receiving quality goaltending from Andrei Vasilevskiy and it still hasn’t been enough. If that slips they are going to have to make up for that in other areas and that will hinge on their ability to win the neutral zone in my opinion.

I can only speak for myself when I say that I find professional wrestling has a certain level of nostalgia for people of my age bracket that grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s. Pro wrestling was cheap and fun entertainment which was easily accessible in a time period where there weren't 500 channels to choose from. I don’t go out of my way to view it now but I enjoy the references when they are made. The Shawn Michaels stuff is a perfect example of this.

Funny enough professional wrestling was actually the first “blog… I ever wrote way back in high school. One of my closest friends was actually the co-founder of Wrestlezone.com back in the late nineties. This was in the heyday of the NWO and WWE’s Attitude Era. Wrestling was big business and his website was one of the biggest at the time. It was pretty crazy the monthly checks two high school kids were getting. Let’s just say they had the nicest cars in the high school parking lot. If I recall correctly my “blog… was about Chris Jericho and how WCW wasn’t using him enough so I guess I didn’t do too bad.

Matt Cullen has been awesome. His production has exceeded his small cap hit. However, his age is going to artificially push his earning potential down fair or not. I know that the HBK line isn’t a true “third line… but Nick Bonino is obviously third on the center depth chart. His ability to play with other skilled players has given the Penguins the opportunity to role forward with their current approach. Bonino makes only 1.8M and is scoring at a first line rate at even-strength. He probably deserves the biggest raise and will certainly be getting a raise when his contract real contract runs out after next season.

Looking through the unrestricted free agents for this upcoming free agency period isn’t very appealing. You have a guy like Jiri Hudler who is available but he is 32 years old and I’m not sure the Penguins should be looking to add more players in that age range. The Penguins best opportunity to improve on the left wing would be to land a guy like Jimmy Vesey (unlikely) or to make a trade (more likely). I have some bigger targets in mind that I’m going to have to hold off on mentioning for now otherwise I’ll have nothing to write about when the season is over. I do think that it is possible to clear out cap space via Fleury or Kunitz in order to accommodate a new left winger. I understand this is a non-answer so apologies in advance.

I think this is a 50/50 proposition. The fact of the matter is that the Penguins aren’t deep at the left wing position. You could argue that Carl Hagelin is their best left winger and while he has done an excellent job he isn’t the kind of player you think of as being at the top of the depth chart. I think Chris Kunitz still does a lot of nice things on the possession front but his tangible offense is slipping. If he is on the team his days as a top six winger should be over. I don’t think his cap hit is a huge issue as it is set to expire after next season and the Penguins aren't in need of a ton of cap space in 2016-17. Pittsburgh has its core in place and most of the accessory parts as well. The team isn't in the same position they were last year when they really needed to revamp the roster.

I don’t believe they will. It has been an unfortunate chain of events for both player and team. Here is a player that could help, but hasn’t been able to. There are a lot of younger players that have stepped up recently that the team is probably going to move forward with them. I wouldn’t be opposed to giving Bennett another one year deal, but I understand if they don’t. I like cheap players that can float around the top nine and Bennett fits that bill. Wherever Bennett plays hopefully the worst is behind him.

If Pittsburgh does anything on this front it should be low end shopping. An example of this would be if they wanted to move on from Eric Fehr (doesn’t quite fit the new scheme) and focused on pursuing a player like Patrick Eaves. Nothing too extreme.

Terrible, had garlic pasta for lunch. Oh you meant my conditioning? Yeah that is terrible too.

I think Pierre is terrible at his job for a number of reasons, but once in a blue moon him being a complete weirdo gives us a nice moment. The Phil Kessel interview from the other night was very funny and now Phil has a large bottle of Listerine above his locker room stall.

I think Matt Cullen bumping up to the Malkin line is something I would consider in small doses. I don’t like the idea of Tom Kuhnhackl because he is too vanilla at this point in his career. I really like some of the passing plays and finishes that he has displayed this year, but they are too few and far between. I just don’t think his play has merited riding shotgun with Evgeni Malkin. I still think pairing Crosby and Malkin together is the best play while letting Matt Cullen try to lock down the third line center duties.

This is not going to be an easy situation. I think we’ll see Sprong get another look with the big club at the very beginning of the regular season but I think it is great than 50% that we see him go back to the QMJHL. He’s getting royally screwed by the CHL transfer agreement. Sprong is excellent with the puck in time and space, but he could use some work in his ability to drive possession. Learning on the fly at the NHL level on a team with right wing depth isn’t likely to happen and playing more junior hockey won’t help that either. It is a real bummer.

The no movement clause makes some of these selections an automatic. My understanding is that if a player is entering his third pro season they are eligible for selection IE: Pouliot. I don’t know for sure if last season counts as a pro season for Sprong so for this exercise I’ll cheat and assume it did not. You can pick 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, and a goalie or 8 skaters and a goalie. This puts Pittsburgh in a weird spot. They have five forwards and four defensemen that I would want to protect. You can't do that under this system.

I think I would begrudgingly go the 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, and a goalie route at this time.

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist, Carl Hagelin, Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin, Olli Maatta, and Matt Murray would be my protected players. You can choose whichever two depth players you want to keep for the remaining two forward spots.

Marc-Andre Fleury does not have a full NMC and according to some that doesn’t make him eligible for automatic protection. If he has to be automatically protected the team will trade him. By the time this draft hits players like Bonino, Kunitz, and Daley will be UFA’s and I can see teams holding off on signing pending UFA players until after the draft concludes to avoid protection issues.

Derrick Pouliot is somebody who could be protected depending on what is done on the trade front that could involve one of those forwards. Or he could be flat out traded himself. He is the guy that falls through the cracks of the 7 forward 3 defense/8 skaters setup.

It is worth noting there is a long time from now until the draft and some of my selections to keep may not even be on the roster anymore because they’ve been moved in a trade.

Life is good.

Read Meesh’s game recaps. They are very detailed and very good.

They are good. He is doing a nice job given what his role is and what his skillset is. His Score-Adjusted Fenwick in the playoffs is ~55% which is all you can ask for. He still frustrates me because often times he is content on making the play that has the least amount of reward but at the same time you could argue that he’s “playing within himself…. He’s a vanilla player who is eating minutes without being a liability. The exact thing you want from a depth defender.

There is only one answer to this question and that is Phil Kessel. That will be one of the best images in hockey for a cornucopia of reasons. Let’s hope we see the day.

Enjoy Game 4.

Thanks for reading!

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