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The Pittsburgh Penguins are going to play hockey today!
The Penguins have only had one game in the last eight days. Today they welcome the Florida Panthers to the Consol Energy Center. Tonight’s game will be the first of four matchups for the Penguins this week, with the Penguins also set to face the Canadiens, Islanders, and Stars.
There will be some familiar faces back in the lineup that have been missing for some time. Returning to the lineup after a very long absence will be the Penguins anchor on defense, Paul Martin. Also returning will be Jayson “Megnatron… Megna and Chuck Kobasew.
The return of Paul Martin is a great site to see if you are a Penguins player or coach. The Penguins will be able to finally ice their best defensive unit, something that has not happened frequently enough this season. Kris Letang was out for the beginning of the season and when he returned it was Rob Scuderi who broke his ankle.
It will be really nice to see the defense get some reps together and hopefully breed some familiarity and consistency.
According to the morning skate the Penguins' top pair will be Scuderi and Letang, while Martin joins Brooks Orpik on the second pair, with Olli Maatta and Matt Niskanen rounding out the Pens defensive rotation on the bottom pairing.
That looks pretty good and it is also why Simon Despres was sent down. If Despres doesn’t have a realistic chance to crack the top six (which I don’t believe he currently does) then playing in WB/S is absolutely the right move to make with him.
Over the weekend Despres scored three goals in two games for the Baby Penguins. It is a nice response by him and if he continues to focus his efforts on his defending ability he will earn more opportunities at the NHL level moving forward.
On the forward side of things this is how the lines shake out:
Kunitz-Crosby-Kobasew Jokinen-Malkin-Neal Glass-Sutter-Pyatt Adams-Sill-Megna
Yes, that is Kobasew on the first line with Megna playing on the fourth.
I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
Now don’t get me wrong, that probably won’t last the whole game tonight but why even start like that?
You have a known commodity in Chuck Kobasew. What you know about him is that he was given a large sample size with the Malkin line and he fell flat on his face in that role. There is nothing about Kobasew’s game that could be considered an improvement over a player like Jayson Megna. Megna has more size, speed, and skill than Chuck Kobasew. Both players have been injured for a chunk of time this year so it isn’t’ like the Penguins are going with the healthier option. If Megna isn’t ready to handle more minutes because of his injury, then I would argue he should not be in the lineup.
This is probably the one area with Dan Bylsma that I am not a fan of. He has a tendency to play less skilled veteran players as opposed to his younger more skilled players. This was a storyline in last year’s playoffs with Beau Bennett and Simon Despres and it seems to be the case right now with Megna.
Bylsma is by far not the only coach with this tendency, but it doesn’t make it right.
The best part about the Penguins being ahead in the division by so much is that it should afford them the opportunity to try things out with minimal consequence. Trying Megna out on the top line is exactly the kind of thing you can do with such big lead in the division.
Megna is still an unknown at the NHL level, but his small sample size has been encouraging. See what you have in him right now. Find out if he sinks or swims. If he swims that is one less roster spot that Ray Shero has to worry about moving forward. If he sinks, Ray Shero can plan accordingly. There is no mystery with Chuck Kobasew; he is a fringe bottom six player on a contending team. Same could be said about Taylor Pyatt, the most recent waiver wire dumpster dive the Penguins were forced into because of injury. Even Tanner Glass' ceiling is a known commodity as a fourth line grinder. Nothing more nothing less.
Why should Megna ever find himself behind any of these players?
Waiver wire scraps should never play over a young promising player when there is so much intel to gain by playing the younger player. There is literally nothing to lose by propping up Megna into a top nine role right now. By playing Megna on the fourth line to start under players like Kobasew, Pyatt, and Glass, the Penguins are using a low risk low reward approach instead of a low risk high reward approach of playing Megna in a more significant role.
I hate to be such a Debbie downer on gameday after the Penguins haven’t played in a while, but the logic behind Megna on the fourth line bothers me to no end.
For a team that has struggled mightily to find competent forward depth, you think the Penguins would be more motivated to learn about a potential solution to that problem by throwing Megna into the fire.
Oh well.
Thanks for reading!
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