nossagog

So what you're saying is you can have abysmal without Bylsma. Damn its all so clear now. Now if you can only clear up the Kennedy asassination, Area 51 and which came first of the chicken and egg I can sit back and relax.

@Vanflyerc Its more than just Kunitz and Neal going down. Plan B falls apart for anyone when you lose 4 forwards from your top 2 lines and your two top defenseman. I'd have to agree that moving one of Crosby or Malkin would give them room in salary cap, but its still the style that bugs me with the Pens. Even when they bring in players like Iginla, they indoctrinate them into the school of grind.

:lol: Really? That is thread worthy? :lol:

Its more than just being ready. He's clueless in how to adjust during a game. Just a list of stupid things: 1) every left wing on the team played at some point on the first line today. Instead of letting one player get used to it, he keeps rotating them in and provides no consistancy. 2) Derek friggin Engelland on the point for the second PP unit? Really? 3) The first two lines are struggling with the injuries, put together a line with Crosby and Malkin on it at the same time to create some offense. 4) In his in game interview he admits, he wants his team to be a grinding team. Really, with two of the most creative offensive talents in the league, he wants to reduce them to grinders. 5) Olli Jokinen and Lee Stempniek, Matt Niskanen and Malkin had more PP time than Crosby today. Malkin I can partly understand, but he had 3 minutes more? Malkin was aweful bringing up the puck, losing it at the blue line multiple times, and he gets rewarded with more time. But part of this is management too. This is what they built. Crosby's best years are being used up with Kunitz and Dupuis. Don't get me wrong, they give all they can, but let's find a talented winger to play with him and let him go offensively. The whole dump and grind think is quite boring. I think that most Pens fans will agree, Bylsma is the problem. For some reason, even team USA had faith in Bylsma. I think one more early playoff exit and his done for.

I stand corrected, I see that Letang will rejoin practice tomorrow. That is great news, not only him but for the Pens too.

@JackStraw Probably not. He's having a career year, and will probably want a large raise coming, and deserves it. Pens won't be able to afford him.

@hf101 Bennet has been practicing, but I think that Letang is only skating in full gear, not fully in practice.

Just watching the pregame for today's game, with today's game the Pens will not be at 405 man games lost.

Yave, what do you think about whether the GM's will agree to the olympics again. Both our teams have lost players that were injured at the games. I don't mean to be a selfish fan, but it hurts to see star players out of NHL lineups

From the Pittsburgh Standpoint, we share your pain. Letang 22 games - Likely out for Season Martin 31 games - Likely out for rest of regular season Those are our two top player on the blue line Neal 22 games - Out indifinetely with coucussion Dupuis 23 games - Out for the season Bennet 39 games - Hopefully back soon Add in the variety of others, and we're approaching 400 man games lost. Although Crosby and Malkin have stayed relatively healty(Malking has missed 10 games) their linemates have been a mix and mash fillins. How they have stayed near the top of the east all year as well as led the league in both PP and PK % I have no idea. Cudos for both of our teams continuing on in the face of all of that.

And the man games continue to go up. Neal now out with a concussion, no prognosis of when he may be back. We'll have to see how Coach Dan messes with the lines now. Bennet may be back within the week.

@yave1964 Jury will be out on this for a while, although his chip along the boards to set up Crosby's goal was sound both defensively and offensively. The key will be to see if he can start to go to the right place to score goals. All he needs to do is get to the open space, and he's going to get chances. He's an upgrade in skills from Duper's, but Duper's was more of the puck retrieval guy on the line. I think as he gets used to the team more, he's only going to put up more points. I see him surpassing his totals from Calgary this year by seasons end, unles he gets Bylsma'd.

Although the Pens have played like acray the last two games, I've like what I've seen from Goc and Stempniak. Goc is not getting a high amount of time yet, but he's being used in defensive faceoff situations as well as on the PK, he's fit in well and hopefully he'll find a more appropriate location on the third line. Stempniak has has a great many oppurtunities that haven't gone in on Sid's like so far, and also looks to fit in quite well.

That reversal was just awful, Plus Geno's flailing failing on the short hander. Two pretty awful plays. I'm a little dissappointed in Sid not coming back harder on that short hander though, he assumed that Geno could play defense.

No, it wasn't the big deals that Shero seems to find at the deadline, but it does make the team better. If Bennet gets back in the lineup, both Goc and Sempniak "could" fill out the third line centered by Sutter. Goc's faceoff play will be a big plus also. It will be seen if Coach Dan decides to try Stempniak on Crosby's line right away or not, he needs to do something there as Gibbons, although he tries hard, is just not first line material.

Brealic, if you read some of our previous pages here, our bottom six, in specific out third line, has been a mess due to all of the injuries. At first glace, Stempniak and Goc don't seem like a big deal, but you can't swing the fences every year. Shero addressed a big part of the issues on the team, bringing in those two, who are both from what I know two way forwards. This solidifies our third line coming down the stretch so that we actually have three decent lines again.. If we can get Bennet back in the line up, we'll be okay at the top, and push the best of the rest to a more fitting fourth line, which could now be Adams with Pyatt and Engelland, a true banger line. I believe that the Kessler deal was kabashed but the price tag that the Canucks wanted. I think that started at a lot, and never budged from there. Personally, I'm a little dissappointed that they didn't move Orpik, but with the injuries to Martin and Letang, I guess that they felt they had to keep the rest of the defense in tact.

I won't even bother reading the blog, as I never read anything from Mark Madden. Even people from the 'burgh will tell you, he's a loud mouth Rome wannabe who's not worth the effort to even complain about.

@Polaris922 I'd like to know the honest status of Bennet at this point. I'd rather see him step into Geno's line and push Jussi down to the third line. That reunites the second line where we thought we'd be all year. If we go after Kessler, and it costs us Sutter, it completely blows up the third line, which is shakey already. If you put Kessler there, your wasting him on grinders, and you haven't addressed the needs of the team. I'd rather see what Buffalo wants for Moulson and try to retain Sutter. That would give Crosby Kunitz and Moulson, and a third line of Sutter Jussi and lets say Pyatt. The problem here is, Buffalo has sooooo many picks, they probabaly are going to want roster players too. Who do we have to give them? Despres and a pick won't be enough and the rest of our bottom six(or ten) are not trade worthy.

FC, We know you're there for us, and we appreciate it.

Sutter and a third would not be close to what they want, that's almost an insult.

I I do, way too much, give them Despres and Sutter and a third, maybe the first but not both. And not Dumoulin. See what the sabres want for moulson, and put him with crosby

ihabs, don't think of it as a flame war, think of it as good natured banter. The example you gave above, great example of something we can talk about as an actual use case. There are Pens fans that will never forget PK for the skate on Staal, just as there are people that will never forgive Cooke for the achiles on Karlsson. But look, both things were accidents and there are as groups of those fans of each team that will always blame the player, just as there are fans that will just say meh, it was an accident. There were people posting slow motion images of the Cooke play, claiming that it was clear intent or whatever. Yet on TSN, they did a spot where they showed the EXACT same play happening 20 times in ONE night of games. Conclusion, the Cooke thing was a fluke, but to some people, well that was just the dirty Pens who get away with everything. The thing is NOT every pens fan felt that way about the PK thing, just as NOT every Senators fan did about Cooke. Here's the difference, fans of other teams will still talk about the Cooke play on Karrlson, yet none of them will mention PK's skate on Staal, so what's up there? See here's what we as Pens fans hear. When a Pens player injures another teams player, its dirty and the Pens should be punished. When another team does it to the Pens, well its either an accident, or simply Karma because of the magnitude of Pens offenses and we deserve it. So yeah, we get defensive. Heck, I think we're still working off the karma from Cooke hit on savard after Crosby's concussion, Orpik's concussion, Gonchar's knee, Neal's concussion and Malkin's knee. All accidents of course . . . . or were they? I pointed out to you the fact that the pens are 20th in the league in drawing penalties, yet there are people, and you fall into that category, who think that the Pens are getting all kinds of power plays just because they are the Pens. But we don't, or else we you would think we would have a higher rate of power plays, not a lower one. So can you explain that? As for our announcers, well I apoligize for that, they DO suck. But I'd have to say that most teams announcers are pretty much homers in their own rights. Hey, I remember the Lightning game, after the Steckel hit, when Hedman hit Crosby from behind into the boards giving him his second concussion. I had the Bolts feed on Center Ice, and remember them criticize Crosby, saying he was playing it up, and just trying to draw a penalty. How imbarassing it was for the sport. Well I never heard an apology from them since it caused him to be out for a year and a half of play. But what the heck. Do the Pens get away with stuff on the ice? Absolutely! See, I said it. Do the Pens embelish for calls? Absolutely! Do the officials make bad calls against the Pens opponents? Absolutely! But . . . Do the officials let other teams get away with stuff on the ice? Absolutely! Can you agree with that? Do other teams embelish for calls? Absolutely! Can you agree with that? Do the officials make bad calls agains the Pens? Absolutely! Can you agree with that too? One last thing, please don't think that your offending us, we're kind of used to it and its good have discussions like this. Please call me out if you think I am personally offending you, that's not my goal. I try to use facts and use cases to show you how we as Pens fans see it. The only suggestion that I have for you is to try to not generalize all Pens fans in one big category. Yes we have our complete rose colored homers, but i think that you'll find that the Pens fans on this forum are pretty honest about their team. Heck, go over to the Pens forum and see my critique of the current state of the team, its not good.

Self Assessment of needs coming up to the trade deadline: Goaltending: Fleury/Zatkoff Above average. It all depends on MAF in the playoffs. Stand pat with what we have Forwards - After starting off with two of the best centers in the league, the Pens go down hill from there. A top line of Kunitz-Crosby-pickyourprospect is not going to hack it going into the playoffs. Right now, its Kunitz-Crosby-Gibbons, and although Crosby is creating chances, they're for the most part being wasted on Kunitz and Gibbons. Kunitz, although he has decent numbers on Sid's wing, the Crosby/Kunitz pair will never be seen in a light like Getzlaf/Perry. Kunitz just doesn't have the pure talent, and is more of a grinder/jammer. Crosby STILL does not have a talented wing to compliment his skills. This line is short a Scoring winger to reach its potential. The second line of Neal-Malkin- 5thbestforward continues at the moment with Jussi Jokinen on the wing. Malkin and Neal work well together, and create many chances, but Jussi is not a great fit on their wing. He's not a puck retriever, so he does not bring alot to this line. He's got decent numbers, but is better fit to the third line.This line is short a puck retrieving/scoring winger to be at its potential. From there, things go down hill, other than Sutter, the bottom six is a mix and match of grinders who are interchangable, and all have issues scoring goals. There is no secondary scoring for the team past the top two lines. The BEST that they can field for a third line at the moment is Vitale-Sutter-Adams THAT's THE THIRD line. The forth line for bangers is Pyatt-doubleshiftSid/Geno-Egelland/Glass/whatever. A true third line is needed for this team. Two forwards to compliment Sutter to become a shutdown set would be good. If Jokinen could be pushed down to the third line, only one would be need, and the fourth line could be made up of Pyatt-Adams-Engelland for banging. Defensively with the injuries to Martin and Letang, the team is truely hurting, we have depth at 2nd/3rd pairing guys, but losing both puck moving defensemen is a killer. Niskanen/Matta is a good pair, but this is NOT a top pairing for a contender Orpik/Scuderi sounds like a great shutdown pair, but this is NOT the Orpik of a few years back. He's a shell of himself. Bortozzo/Despres/Engelland is a weak third pairing. ONE of them paired with a veteran would be okay, but a pairing of Bortozzo/Despres have a hard time getting out of their own zone too often. Bortozzo now offers us our only physical defenseman. Addition of a veteran defender would be good, Martin should be back for the playoffs, but I'd like to see Orpik moved and someone else in his place, he's lost his physical edge, and the pens not struggle in front of their own net and clearing the zone. I seriously worry about the style of play of the Pens in the playoffs also. Dump and grind is going to be hard if you do not have the talent to retrieve the puck and create chances. The amount of interference coming back into the league means that dump and chase teams will once again struggle. Bylsma's strick adherence to backing into the defensive zone and NOT take advantage of the lax rules also means more pressure on the defense as teams get set up in the zone TOO easily Also, because of the difficulties of the "shutdown" line, Coach Dan is now using Crosby's line to shutdown the other lines top line. Seems to be a waste, create a true shutdown line, and let Crosby loose. In the end, I really don't see the Pens as being a favorite for the cup this year, regardless of them being atop the standings in the east at the moment. I think that there are too many pieces missing to address at the trade deadline. Getting Bennet and Martin back for the playoffs is going to help, and the developement of Matta and Megna will help next year, but the biggest issue right now is depth at forward past out top 5, the rest are just a bunch of grinders who are a dime a dozen.

True

Its the style, not the player. The Isles play a tenacious forecheck, without Letang and Martin(at least he should be back) and Orpik playing so bad, the Pens defense is going to get bashed.