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Not even Casey DeSmith can get in the way of Penguins victories at the moment. The Penguins overcame spotting the Blue Jackets a free two goals to win the game 5-2. Tristan Jarry who started the night before came into the game and had to relieve DeSmith after he gave up two sketchy goals in the first period. Mike Sullivan has had enough of it and so have I. Last night crossed the point of no return for the Penguins and their need for a more reliable backup goalie. They can't afford to burn Jarry out and they will if nothing changes. DeSmith was a good backup last year, but even then his overall NHL sample isn’t very large. He just might not be up to the task. The Penguins actually look like they can contend at the moment, which is something I wasn’t sure was possible. They can’t let the backup goalie position burn them, again. It is one thing for DeSmith to play poorly, which he has. It is completely another thing that he is doing so bad he can't even let Jarry rest on his night's off.
Jaro Halak is one name that always pops into my head as a veteran backup goalie who has a large track record of being playable and most times starting goalie caliber good. He is on a cheap expiring contract and currently plays on a bad team. He has only eight starts this year and is (I think) coming off of the COVID list today to make his ninth start of the year. He has been a .915 goalie in those starts this year and is .916 for his 547 career games.
Sidney Crosby isn’t creeping towards 500 goals right now because he is accelerating towards it. After scoring his first power play goal in 30 games last night he followed up with another power play goal. Then he followed things up with two more goals to earn the hat trick. It was vintage #SidDownLow.
His first goal was his classic eye hand coordination at the goal line with a bad angle just redirecting the puck like he’s done it 1,000 times. It was at the very end of the period
His next goal was the iconic knee down to the ice one timer on a 5v3. Nice job by Rust to find him hiding over there.
His third goal was the result of paying attention in geometry as it was a bank shot into the open net.
Sid, could have lied about it, but he was going for Bryan Rust and got a fortunate bounce. Quite frankly, a bounce he deserves after all those years of having bad empty net luck.
Mike Matheson scored again. He has three in the last two games.
The most suprising thing that happened last night was Brian Dumoulin scoring and not only that it was actually a laser and not the normal look of a muffin.
Jake Guentzel has points in 22 out of his last 23 games.
Outside of DeSmith the other lowlight for the Penguins has been Kasperi Kapanen. I don’t know what to do with him. He is a very limited player, albeit with some specialized talent. The problem is and always will be he cannot consistently unlock those talents because of the other weaknesses in his game. There was a sequence last night that looked completely out of the ordinary for him and I was left impressed by it. It was when he was circling up near the blue line in the offensive zone showing poise and making clever passes to his teammates. So many times he just has tunnel vision and works off of the rush. I thought it was one of the best sequences of the year for him. The problem is these sequences seem like they are as tough to spot as a unicorn or Bigfoot. It is not the norm. Mike Sullivan is clearly frustrated
I would have no problem moving on from Kapanen and just handing his cap hit over to Evan Rodrigues after the season. I wouldn’t even have an issue trying to move him during this season if there was a way to find a winger upgrade elsewhere.
The Penguins have now won 15 out of 17 games and they are finally gaining traction in the Metropolitan Division. They are one point out of first place and only four points out of the President’s Trophy.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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