First things first. Olli Maatta has avoided serious injury from the Nino Niederreiter hit from behind. However, he will miss at least 3-4 weeks. The fact that there is a sense of relief over a 3-4 week injury sums up both Olli Maatta’s injury/illness history as well as the team’s.
Secondly, because of the Maatta injury the team is going to have to use some new defense pairings. Those pairings were debuted at the morning skate today:
#Pens D pairs were Scuderi-Letang, Dumoulin-Lovejoy and Cole, Clendening and Warsofsky all rotated. -MC
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) November 19, 2015
Yep, you see that correctly. Rob Scuderi is back to being Kris Letang’s “security blanket…. There really isn’t much unique to add. Pairing your best and most skilled defenseman with the least skilled defenseman flies in the face of basic hockey logic. Being paired with Letang comes with a high amount of ice time. So now the guy nobody missed last game will be playing big minutes on the top pairing.
Johnston said (paraphrasing) Scuderi provides defensive stability in pairing so Letang can confidently do his offensive thing. #Penguins
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 19, 2015
This is false and here is tangible evidence of why that is a complete fabrication.
Since Rob Scuderi returned to the Penguins Letang has played 269 5v5 minutes with him. The results:
Scuderi, paired w/Letang at skate, said he feels a lot better. On pairing; "That's why we have a system." #Penguins
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 19, 2015
So far this season the “system… is allowing an incredibly high volume of shot attempts against while simultaneously causing the Penguins to have low end even-strength offense.
The silver lining of a Maatta injury is that Adam Clendening should be a regular in the lineup. It remains to be seen if he can be a regular contributor at the NHL level because to this point he has only played in two regular season games in Pittsburgh and 21 combined games for Chicago and Vancouver.
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Travis Hamonic is looking to be traded from the New York Islanders for family reasons. The Pittsburgh Penguins are looking for a top four defenseman so is there a fit? No there is not. Hamonic is looking at the four teams in Western Canada as the ideal destinations. Aside from the family reasons it is also more difficult to swing deals with divisional rivals.
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The HockeyPDO cast with Travis Yost and Dimitri Filopovic talked a lot about the Penguins
Today's PDOcast. The hierarchy in the scary good Central division, what's going on with Crosby, appreciating Malkin. https://t.co/1tPGRXilYy
— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) November 18, 2015
Thanks for reading!