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Howl
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Howl about those Penguins ending their losing streak!
The losing streak ends at five games for the Penguins. They were able to comfortably win against the Arizona Coyotes by a score of 4-0. A win is a win although these Coyotes are competent. They are the ninth best score-adjusted Corsi team in the league.
Some notable things to take away from the game include Sidney Crosby doing Sidney Crosby things.
Sid starts the breakout deep in his own zone when he pushes the puck up to Guentzel. We don’t get a lot of even-strength time with Crosby and Kessel. Here was one of those few times. Phil is the unsung hero looking off Guentzel in the neutral zone before he saucers a pass to lead Crosby to his clean entry on Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Ekman-Larsson did what he should have on the play. Problem is that the only player in the league who turns that into a goal was the guy coming in on him. We are all aware of the Crosby’s elite backhand shot by now. Now he’s toying with the goalies despite the puck bouncing. Hitting the puck pure and in the general area of where Crosby put his shot is so incredibly difficult. Sid makes the difficult look easy though.
Casey DeSmith posted a shutout in the victory. Right now he’s the only goalie on the roster that is giving an adequate level of play. Matt Murray is going to have to take a step back and figure things out. The Penguins can’t afford to bleed points while Murray gives them below .900 goaltending. Will being pressured by DeSmith help Murray regain his form? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Matt Murray’s rise and fall has more questions than answers at the moment.
After indirectly being called out by the general manager Bryan Rust was able to find the scoresheet when he fed Dominik Simon on a really nice back door feed for the Penguins second goal.
The last thing I want to comment on about this game involves Jamie Oleksiak’s healthy scratch. It makes no sense. The Penguins have so little going for them on the back end that they have doubled down on Jack Johnson and are now using their best resource to prop him up. Jamie Oleksiak has been totally fine this season. Eye test, statistical evidence, whatever you want to look at he’s not seventh or worse in the organizational depth chart.
The Juuso Riikola experiement needs to end. He’s not an NHL player, at least not yet. He’s been objectively terrible. This goes to show the danger of the small samples of training camp. Sure, he looked fine against a mixed bag of NHL talent. When real NHL lineups have been thrown his way he’s been bad even when compared to Jack Johnson. Yep, that bad. Here are Riikola’s numbers
Nobody seems to like questioning a coach that won two Stanley Cups, but I’m not sure those two Cups are relevant in a 2018-19 regular season in which the Penguins back end has been terrible. It’s funny when you look at how Jack Johnson and Juuso Riikola fail up while Daniel Sprong fails down. Also has to be frustrating for Jamie Oleksiak to succeed down.
The Penguins get a redo against the Devils on Tuesday night. In the Devils last six games they have been outscored 29-15. If you take the Penguins game out it would be 28-10. Pittsburgh needs to follow up Saturday’s victory with a competent game against a Devils team that hasn’t exactly been on top of their game.
Thanks for reading!
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