Tuesday 4-16 games for the Pens playoff hopes thread

[fractalsteel]

Fuck you Montreal for last night but I will be cheering you on tonight.
Ditto to the Flyers.

Groundhog day.

[swissvale72]

Fuck you Montreal for last night but I will be cheering you on tonight.
Ditto to the Flyers.

Groundhog day.

Fuckin' Habs blow a 3-goal lead, and two goal in last half of 3rd. I would've been a bit optimistic heading into tonight where Flyers, at home, are still alive for a playoff spot. Just have to hope Habs want to put on a good show for their crowd in the finale. To be noted, OT losses for Caps and Wings do the trick for Pens, too.

[Pabst]

To be noted, OT losses for Caps and Wings do the trick for Pens, too.

Yep. Pens own the regulation wins tiebreaker with both Washington and Detroit. Pens get in with any sort of tie.

Caps and Wings need to lose by any means necessary.

[fractalsteel]

Fuck you Montreal for last night but I will be cheering you on tonight.
Ditto to the Flyers.

Groundhog day.

Fuckin' Habs blow a 3-goal lead, and two goal in last half of 3rd. I would've been a bit optimistic heading into tonight where Flyers, at home, are still alive for a playoff spot. Just have to hope Habs want to put on a good show for their crowd in the finale. To be noted, OT losses for Caps and Wings do the trick for Pens, too.

As I noted in an earlier thread, blown leads is kind of the norm around the NHL now. Is it the talent level in the league now.?Every team seems to have at least one or a few players that are elite.Maybe not elite but guys beyond good. Very good.
I think too many teams go into a shell when they get up a few goals, especially late. Natural for the players and I think coaches coach in that direction as well.
Cowher syndrome?


Montreal has been out of the playoff race for a bit now. To be fair, they probably used the last few weeks to evaluate young guys and you can't blame them for that. It sucks but it looks like those blown points back in the Fall are going to come back and burn the Birds.

I'm tired of the old adage that hockey fans refer early in the season~ 'Missed/blown points in Oct/Nov don't matter.'

[Orangesteel]

Sorofonsky (sp?) scores his 20th to put the Habs up late.

He has an incentive in his K if he scores 20+…kinda had a feeling he would do it.

[SteelPro]

LOL. Red Wings tie game with 4 seconds left.

[SteelPro]

Flyers needed to win in regulation to stay alive. So they pull the goalie and give up an empty netter with 3 minutes left. So that is how it ends for the Pens

[Orangesteel]

So tomorrow is meaningless. Looking back at this long season think about how many games this team was sleepwalking through, just to put the fate of their season on the Flyers beating the Craps.

Yeah, well this was a failure. Question is do they retain Sullivan?

[SteelPro]

What really killed them was how poorly they’ve played 3 on 3 OT. 18 games went to OT and only 6 of them did they collect 2 points.

[fractalsteel]

What really killed them was how poorly they’ve played 3 on 3 OT. 18 games went to OT and only 6 of them did they collect 2 points.

This has been discussed here for the past few weeks. Big issue and if it is true that they don't really practice 3 on 3 then that is another mark against the HC.
12 short handed goals allowed(one of the most in the league) is killer as well.
The PP was a train wreck all year and the best the HC and Reirden could do was bench 2 of the best PP specialists from the last 15 years. Maybe a new perspective through a coaching change might have helped before it snowballed.

Dubas never took it seriously when it came to replacing Zucker as Malkin's winger. It was pretty obvious early on that Smith wasn't happy in Pittsburgh. 60 games in, forced to trade his best winger did he find a guy to mesh with Malkin~Bunting. And 71 came alive.

Adding Karlsson should have put this team into the playoffs. Why didn't it work? Player, coaches?

Oh yeah, Sid, Geno, Tanger and EK have not missed a game this year. And they still failed to get in.

On the positive end: DOC seems like he could develop into a 20 goal scorer. He adds speed, some nasty and seems to get better with more playing time.
Pettersson was even better this year than last year. He has turned into a solid player.
Bunting looks like he found a place here. The kind of player the team has needed for a few seasons.

Who knows about Bemstrom but he did show flashes.
Zohorna will never get a fair shot with Sully around but I think he has topped out as a marginal bottom 6er.

St. Ivany had a small sample size but he looks like he could be a decent NHL defense man.

Get rid of Smith and keep Eller another year.

Goaltending is the big question going into next year.

@Orangesteel Hell yeah, fire Sully. What has he done since the last cup?
I know they extended him but two NHL teams fired coaches this year after giving them extensions.
Sully has worn out his welcome.
I like the guy and what he meant when the team needed a boost to reach the ultimate level and will forever be grateful for bringing those cup years.
And he won't be short of a job if he wants one.

[Steel Ubaldo]

The season was a pretty big disappointment. However I would be lying if I said was surprised. Once it became evident that Sully was staying and they resigned Jarry, which I still question why, I did not have a good feeling that this season was going to turn out well. I did expect the Pens to at least make the playoffs if Sid Geno and LeTang stayed relatively healthy. They were all healthy as was Karlsson and they still failed.

The power play was below AHL level with all of their big name star players healthy ( though acknowledging Rust and Guetzel missed some time).

I am not sure why they are so reluctant to move on from Sully but I expect him to be here next season.

I do not know why they resigned Jarry, but I expect him to be here next season as well.

The Pens don’t have any big name prospects ready to contribute next year. The goalie seems a year or so away…

They have a little bit of cap space… maybe Dubas can do something with that.

I don’t have much hope that next year will be significantly better than this year especially since we can’t expect Sid Geno and LeTang and Karlson to all stay healthy like they did this year….maybe the power play will be better because it would be difficult to imagine it being worse.

Hockey season is over. I am in despair

[Pabst]

The season was a pretty big disappointment. However I would be lying if I said was surprised. Once it became evident that Sully was staying and they resigned Jarry, which I still question why, I did not have a good feeling that this season was going to turn out well. I did expect the Pens to at least make the playoffs if Sid Geno and LeTang stayed relatively healthy. They were all healthy as was Karlsson and they still failed.

The power play was below AHL level with all of their big name star players healthy ( though acknowledging Rust and Guetzel missed some time).

I am not sure why they are so reluctant to move on from Sully but I expect him to be here next season.

I do not know why they resigned Jarry, but I expect him to be here next season as well.

The Pens don’t have any big name prospects ready to contribute next year. The goalie seems a year or so away…

They have a little bit of cap space… maybe Dubas can do something with that.

I don’t have much hope that next year will be significantly better than this year especially since we can’t expect Sid Geno and LeTang and Karlson to all stay healthy like they did this year….maybe the power play will be better because it would be difficult to imagine it being worse.

Hockey season is over. I am in despair

Go Bucs!

Honestly, I'm a bit more optimistic about the future now than I was just a few weeks/months ago.

Bunting seems like a good fit.
The Finns (Puljujarvi and Puusti) look like they can play as middle-6 role players and at least contribute. Plus both are <25
O'Connor took a step forward this year.
Carter is gone

My offseason wish list:
Bring in a new PP coach
Trade Ryan Graves for a bag of peanuts
Use some of that $10m+ in cap space to bring in a quality FA

[bradshaw2ben]

What really killed them was how poorly they’ve played 3 on 3 OT. 18 games went to OT and only 6 of them did they collect 2 points.

IDK, starting 3 on 3 OT without either of your two best players on the ice seems like a good strategy.

Lars Eller to start OTs and them moving away from feeding Malkin's one timer on the PP cost them how many games do you think? 2-3? More?

[fractalsteel]

What really killed them was how poorly they’ve played 3 on 3 OT. 18 games went to OT and only 6 of them did they collect 2 points.

IDK, starting 3 on 3 OT without either of your two best players on the ice seems like a good strategy.

Lars Eller to start OTs and them moving away from feeding Malkin's one timer on the PP cost them how many games do you think? 2-3? More?

Against Toronto
Matthews/Marner/ McCabe
So Sully trots out DOC/65/ and Eller in OT
Brilliant

[Pabst]

Just came across this stat: Washington is 20-2-11 this year in games decided by one goal