Shark Feed (Simon Despres)

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The Pittsburgh Penguins did their best to try and hang with one of the best teams in the NHL on Thursday night but at the end of the day it wasn’t good enough.

The San Jose Sharks drifted through about half of the game and then decided they were going to go on the attack and attack they did.

This chart is a very accurate depiction of how the game went last night:

That is a scary looking possession chart I would say.

The Sharks are an incredible team; I think they are amongst the best in the NHL. They are better than the Penguins and they deserved the result they got last night. I think a healthy Penguins roster (Letang, Martin, Dupuis, Bennett) could give them a fight in a 7 game playoff series, but not with how things currently stand.

Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, and Patrick Marleau are dynamite players, add in Brett Burns and Logan Couture and you have one of the best top forward groupings in the NHL. Just wait for Tomas Hertl to find his way back into the lineup, yikes.

The Penguins scored two power play goals but didn’t really get anything going at even strength. To beat the Sharks you have to be competitive 5 on 5, the Sharks are very strong in that area.

I thought Jeff Zatkoff played a good game but not a great game. He saw a lot of rubber and made some nice saves but he will ultimately end up as one of the goats given how Joe Thornton’s wobbly wrister went into the net. If that was Marc Andre Fleury the pitchforks would be sharpened and out in force.

I still maintain that Beau Bennett is the x factor for the Penguins potential success this spring. I don’t think Lee Stempniak will be the long term option on the top line and I sure don’t think Brian Gibbons is good enough for that role. Gibbons is a product of the Penguins injury situation, I don’t think he has a spot on the NHL roster once a viable option can be found for Crosby and Kunitz. He might not have a spot on the NHL roster much longer regardless.

I mean c’mon, if you are behind players like that and you have the benefit of playing lots of minutes with Crosby and Kunitz, you need to be better, much better.

The Malkin line has been forced to pick up the slack for the Crosby line but they can’t do it every single night.

Jayson Megna needs to be called up and whether he plays 3rd line to bump Stempniak up, or takes the top line RW spot himself, it doesn’t matter because the status quo is not going to work. Gibbons isn’t good enough.

Sidney Crosby played the worst game that I can personally recall. He lacked jump and made some really poor decisions with the puck. The fact that he played a poor game is certainly not the end of the world but it is newsworthy because IT NEVER HAPPENS. Sidney Crosby’s worst games are usually what most people consider above average, which is quite remarkable. Last night his play was below average no matter what the standard is. The best part about Crosby is knowing that it won’t last. He will be strong against Anaheim, book it.

His game could be summed up on the Marleau shorthanded goal sequence:

Even the best have some moments they would like back, but the best are the best because their mistakes are usually isolated incidences.

Not an excuse for Crosby's bad game but he certainly had his hands full last night.

I know a lot of people will look towards Malkin to throw blame on the Marleau goal, but I don’t fault him at all. Malkin may be been “beat… but he forced Marleau to his backhand. I find more fault with Zatkoff and obviously Crosby for coasting. Malkin made a very nice defensive play on Marleau in a similar situation just moments earlier.

The fact that Malkin is left in one on one situations twice like that means other players aren’t doing their jobs.

Malkin playing the point on the power play did not cost the Penguins, their puck management and willingness to back check did.

Craig Adams does not have a place in my top 12 forward grouping anymore. He just doesn’t have the foot speed necessary to make up for his lack of puck skills. He was a good soldier for a number of years but it’s the end of the line for Mr. Adams as it pertains to playing on a team with Cup aspirations.

At this point Deryk Engelland is a much better option, also Joe Vitale, both of whom were healthy scratches last night.

Taylor Pyatt can’t be a 3rd line winger moving forward.

That was the bad, but there is certainly some good.

Olli Maatta is awesome; he is the Penguins best defenseman. As the season has worn on you could slowly see his confidence building and with that have come more assertive decisions that have positively impacted his offensive footprint.

Last night he did his best shark impression as he circled the waters and then closed in for the kill twice for goals around the goal front.

It’s not just the goal scoring in front of the opposition’s net, it is also his decision making with pinching and keeping the puck alive in the offensive zone. Nathan MacKinnon might have the Calder locked up but it doesn’t Maatta, Olli is going to continue to haunt other teams for the next 15 years.

For some folks the Marcel Goc acquisition might be the best move ever made

While Potash was guilty of a pretty funny autocorrect tweet, Goc was pretty good for the Penguins. He is a legit NHL talent and will be a productive member of the Penguins moving forward. Goc even recorded an assist on one of the Olli Maatta goals. It came with Craig Adams and Tanner Glass as his linemates, perhaps he is a god.

Simon Despres played much better against a very tough Sharks team. His puck skills were very evident and if he continues to work on not taking penalties and keeping things simple he will continue to play. . Despres has been prone to mistakes in his recent NHL sample size but judging him against the Blackhawks in the very snowy outdoor game wasn’t really fair to him in my opinion.

With Paul Martin and Kris Letang out of the lineup the Penguins cannot roll with Orpik, Scuderi, Bortuzzo, and Engelland every night. That is way too much pressure to put on Niskanen and Maatta as the only defensemen with above average puck moving ability. Despres will need to be relied on; he will have to show consistency to earn that though. Last night was a nice start.

The loss to the Sharks last night exposed some of the Penguins flaws but it spoke more to just how great that Sharks team is. It’s not panic time for the Penguins, this is not their playoff roster.

If nothing else the fans on the east coast who stayed up were treated to a very exciting hockey game. Its always a pleasure to be a part of Mike Lange's Night Owl Club.

The Penguins are in SoCal and will have to survive a quack attack this evening. The Anaheim Ducks are one of the best teams in the NHL and possess the deadly duo of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.

Thanks for reading!

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