Martin didnt have anyone in his face. He had time to step out from behind his net, but passed the puck into Cizikas's shin pad and the rookie had momentum going fwd and took the puck on a wrap around.
MAF just played it very....odd.
What? No that's not what happened at all. Orpik was behind the net, he passed it to Martin who was near the corner. He took a split second to corral it and the Isles had a forward skating hard to get there and he did. I'm not taking blame off Fleury or even putting it on Martin I'm giving credit to the Islanders. They were forcing plays like that on us, not the other way around which was supposedly our game.
RR wrote up another abortion this morning. Apparently it was New York's "speed" that did us in. Because we're such a slow hockey team most of the time; a subpar bunch of skaters really. Makes you wonder how someone who follows a team for a living can be so clueless about their strengths and weaknesses, their system, and what happened last night.
If you ever had a question about his hockey knowledge, that should answer them all. He knows a little bit about what goes on in the Penguins room and some of the personalities and that's all he knows. Literally. His hockey knowledge is for ****. Even Mark Madden makes fun of him and now I think we can say justifiably so, even though Madden himself is a tool.
Outside of 3-4 guys we are a slow team CV...all I see every game is our guys getting beat to pucks and slow transitions. How many breakaways have guys had so far this year? 2?
I just don't see team speed as a strength with this club. Guys have potential to be faster, but they are coasting half the time.
A) Who is everyone? Paul Steigerwald and RR? Media? Have you seen any serious commentators -- CBC or TSN say speed is a concern for us going into this season or coming out of last season? I haven't. In fact I've never heard a serious hockey mind say anything about our team speed. Are we the fastest team out there? No. But we have better than average skaters on this team across the board and premiere talent in some spots. That's enough to guarantee last night should never happen the way it did. Not talking about losing here; every team gets shellacked now and then. I'm talking about HOW we lost, and how we lost to TOR and WPG too (though those games looked like bronze medal efforts compared to last night).
B) What I understand is that Crosby, Malkin, Dupuis, Kennedy, Letang, Despres, Niskanen are all very good skaters and that for their size and/or role, Kunitz, Neal, Sutter, Cooke, Vitale are decent skaters. And that prior to these absolute half-assed efforts we never seemed to be deeply concerned about our speed before.
C) What happened last night was not "this team really put in the effort but just was not fast enough". This was a total LACK of effort. A brain fart. A sand-bag. That's why for someone like Steigerwald or RR to sit there and attempt to "analyze" it and come up with "speed is the problem" is a ****ing joke. There's nothing to analyze because there was no effort out there last night. That was a team who had given up on their coach / system / whatever you want to call it.
Before Toronto and the Islanders the Pittsburgh talking heads, who normally won't even criticize a Penguin's fashion sense, said to watch out for those teams' speed. You're asking why that's an issue because we're a fast team too, well that's what I thought as well. Not saying the Penguins are slow, but apparently they're not exceptionally fast which you mentioned. That's all, but it absolutely factored into these losses. I mean look at how the game transpired last night. You said he wrote that the Isles speed killed the Penguins. I don't see how it wasn't a big factor. They were a faster team were they not?
Outside of 3-4 guys we are a slow team CV...all I see every game is our guys getting beat to pucks and slow transitions. How many breakaways have guys had so far this year? 2?
I just don't see team speed as a strength with this club. Guys have potential to be faster, but they are coasting half the time.
You guys are mistaking lack of hustle for "slow". When this team is motivated they win plenty of loose puck battles, get plenty of odd man chances. As I noted above, there are several very good skaters on this team and a number of "OK" skaters also. Yah NYI have Grabner and some other speedy guys but that wasn't what killed us last night. We killed us.
I don't claim that this team has exceptional speed... I claim that our skating is good enough to ensure that with the right system we are fast enough and talented enough to skate with every team in the NHL, every game. Win or lose.
you know what chaffs my willy? Martin definitely made a mistake there (and so did MAF), but i thought Martin was fine the rest of the night and has been good all year, but one mistake and all we got was 'same old piece of **** paul martin." okayyyyyyyy guys, he's allowed one mistake. Yes, it sucked, but even the best players make an error at times.
Did people jump back on the Martin hate train? I didn't pay attention TBTH.
I've done what Martin did there many times and so does every other hockey player. He can't be flawless. I would only be pissed if he made a routine out of it.
MAF was the mistake I shook my head at. He just kept looking behind him like the puck was coming back out to his blocker side... Then he realized it wasn't and got caught on the net or something... It was just weird as hell.
One thing I generally stay away from is dissecting goalie play because I only played the cage in pickup and just knew the basics enough not to make a fool of myself... Sometimes.
Last edited by Mr Jiggyfly: 01-30-2013 at 09:56 AM.
Not comparable situations because as I said earlier, this wasn't about "a team finding its legs" or adapting to a new situation on short notice or whatever. The Penguins did not attempt to win the game last night. Whatever we can say about Philly and New York's losses [edit - the Flyers lost one game badly, both teams had a 3G loss, prob with empty netter included], the effort was there. Nor can we suggest that Lavs and Torts have been making the same mistakes over and over with their personnel for the last two years roughly, all the while refusing to change the system.
Coaches like Torts and Lavs make adjustments when stuff goes bad; they change things up beyond just juggling lines (which is Bylsma's only trick for changing things -- other than the retarded Neal on the Point thing he's done with the PP -- is moving guys around and calling guys up).
Hate to say it but both of those guys would've taken last Penguins past the first round (and probably past the 2nd round) each of the last 3 years. Torts especially always gets the most out of guys as long as there aren't big egos in the way, which we don't really have that problem AFAIK.
Bold 1- Mistakes with Personnel= Shero's job. As for changing the system, we have been bringing in players to fit the current way we play, and now you want to do a complete overhaul to a new system?
Bold 2- Yes Tort's or Laviolette would have taken our team minus Crosby, Malkin, and Cooke to the Cup a couple years ago.....It's obvious by the run of Cups they have been winning with their current teams
Last edited by Chancellor Vitale: 01-30-2013 at 09:46 AM.
Reason: changed quote to reflect earlier edits about Rags, Flyers
You guys are mistaking lack of hustle for "slow". When this team is motivated they win plenty of loose puck battles, get plenty of odd man chances. As I noted above, there are several very good skaters on this team and a number of "OK" skaters also. Yah NYI have Grabner and some other speedy guys but that wasn't what killed us last night. We killed us.
It's a lot of things and the biggest thing was the team laying a turd, but the Isles deserve credit too. They pwned the Penguins PP and were beating them to loose pucks almost all night. If they weren't faster it wouldn't have happened as consistently as it did.
I was screaming my head off at Fleury for that one, he completely commited to only protecting one side of the net. The pass out front isn't his job, he has to protect the net. I mean its something you teach to young golies every day, how to manage a player behind the net. That goal was hideous.
So many things wrong with this post, it's laughable. Yes it was a weird goal, but he was trying to get over, he just got caught up.
PS, a goalie worries as much about the pass in front as a wrap around. If anything, making a player hold the puck for a longer period of time should allow for more defensive help.....He just didn't get it.
I can't stop.. our goalie leaks like he drank a tub of used mexican bath water. the team in front of him plays like they know it too. i can see these things.
Vokoun is the hope.
Really? The Winnipeg game wasn't much better than this one. Using that logic, I guess the team doesn't trust Vokoun much either.
Or you could stop looking at the stat sheet and realize this team is underachieving.
Bold 1- Mistakes with Personnel= Shero's job. As for changing the system, we have been bringing in players to fit the current way we play, and now you want to do a complete overhaul to a new system?
I want a coach who can adapt when the system doesn't work and a system that while it might share some similarities, plays to our best players' strengths, not our mediocre players' strengths.
Quote:
Bold 2- Yes Tort's or Laviolette would have taken our team minus Crosby, Malkin, and Cooke to the Cup a couple years ago.....It's obvious by the run of Cups they have been winning with their current teams
How can Torts and Lavs take our team to the Finals (I suggested they would've taken this team farther than Bylsma did not that they could've guaranteed a Cup appearance) when they didn't coach our team? Put another way, I think Bylsma would do less with both of those teams than either of those coaches. Make sense now?
FWIW I don't hate Disco or think he's a bum of a coach. He's obviously a very respectable guy and he was the right guy at the right time in 2009. It's 2013 and stuff hasn't been clicking for a while now, not just this year. It's time for a change and that's all. Nothing personal against Bylsma. This is sports and hockey in particular. Coaches rarely stay put more than a few years, for whatever reason. It's a brutal game for coaches and the concept of job security. And no I couldn't do better (and save for maybe some lurking former coach in these formers, neither could the rest of us), but that's also 100% irrelevant. That doesn't need to be true for our concerns / criticisms to be valid in some cases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderratedBrooks44
It's a lot of things and the biggest thing was the team laying a turd, but the Isles deserve credit too. They pwned the Penguins PP and were beating them to loose pucks almost all night. If they weren't faster it wouldn't have happened as consistently as it did.
They might be modestly faster as a group... so what? If the Pens had any fire at all last night, maybe they would've won 5 or 6 more loose puck battles. And maybe some of those won battles lead to a goal and the complexion changes. It isn't required for team A to always be faster than team B in order to beat team B, as we've seen many times over the years.
Bottom line: while our speed could and should be improved, it's not among the top issues dragging this team down right now.
So many things wrong with this post, it's laughable. Yes it was a weird goal, but he was trying to get over, he just got caught up.
PS, a goalie worries as much about the pass in front as a wrap around. If anything, making a player hold the puck for a longer period of time should allow for more defensive help.....He just didn't get it.
That goal was Fleury's fault. You don't go down and swing your stick out like that. You hug the post while crouching and have your stick out but not swinging. Fleury totally committed to that side of the net for no apparent reason. It was bad.
It takes a lot for me to wig out and I'm not really there yet.
The Pens will start winning again, they will have their streaks, etc.
We will forget about this meltdown in a week or two.
The thing is, these problems we are seeing will be masked, but they will remain just below the surface and will undoubtedly spring up again at the worst time.
This is where I'm at too.
This team has enough talent to mask their problems with wins during the reg season. However, once the POs roll around and coaches focus on beating the Pens in a series, instead of just one random reg season game, our weaknesses get exploited.
RR wrote up another abortion this morning. Apparently it was New York's "speed" that did us in. Because we're such a slow hockey team most of the time; a subpar bunch of skaters really. Makes you wonder how someone who follows a team for a living can be so clueless about their strengths and weaknesses, their system, and what happened last night.
If you ever had a question about his hockey knowledge, that should answer them all. He knows a little bit about what goes on in the Penguins room and some of the personalities and that's all he knows. Literally. His hockey knowledge is for ****. Even Mark Madden makes fun of him and now I think we can say justifiably so, even though Madden himself is a tool.
The irony of Madden is that he's forgotten his first instinct when it came to Bylsma (he 'screwed' the Pens by winning the cup was the gist of an article if memory serves) and now can't get enough of the kool-aid.
I have no idea why people are taking shots at this goalie tandem. They have been the least of the problems and I believe Fleury looked like he was going to have a very good year. But if you put him behind this group of disinterested stumblebums, then him or Vokoun aren't going to look very good.
Not comparable situations because as I said earlier, this wasn't about "a team finding its legs" or adapting to a new situation on short notice or whatever. The Penguins did not attempt to win the game last night. Whatever we can say about Philly and New York's losses [edit - the Flyers lost one game badly, both teams had a 3G loss, prob with empty netter included], we can't say that about them. The effort was there. Nor can we suggest that Lavs and Torts have been making the same mistakes over and over with their personnel for the last two years roughly, all the while refusing to change the system.
Coaches like Torts and Lavs make adjustments when stuff goes bad; they change things up beyond just juggling lines (which is Bylsma's only trick for changing things -- other than the retarded Neal on the Point thing he's done with the PP -- is moving guys around and calling guys up).
Hate to say it but both of those guys would've taken last Penguins past the first round (and probably past the 2nd round) each of the last 3 years. Torts especially always gets the most out of guys as long as there aren't big egos in the way, which we don't really have that problem AFAIK.
I've always wondered what type of players Sid and Geno would've been right now with a coach like Torts, especially when you look at the player Lecavalier was.
This team has enough talent to mask their problems with wins during the reg season. However, once the POs roll around and coaches focus on beating the Pens in a series, instead of just one random reg season game, our weaknesses get exploited.
Guess you aren't having a good morning, between the loss last night and Grigs getting a goal.
If Bylsma doesn't learn from his mistakes then he needs to go. He has 20 games I say to learn.
He's 12-10 in his last 22 (the game where the Pens opened up with a big first at Philly only to lose in OT . . . when the big recent issues really started).
I want a coach who can adapt when the system doesn't work and a system that while it might share some similarities, plays to our best players' strengths, not our mediocre players' strengths.
How can Torts and Lavs take our team to the Finals (I suggested they would've taken this team farther than Bylsma did not that they could've guaranteed a Cup appearance) when they didn't coach our team? Put another way, I think Bylsma would do less with both of those teams than either of those coaches. Make sense now?
FWIW I don't hate Disco or think he's a bum of a coach. He's obviously a very respectable guy and he was the right guy at the right time in 2009. It's 2013 and stuff hasn't been clicking for a while now, not just this year. It's time for a change and that's all. Nothing personal against Bylsma. This is sports and hockey in particular. Coaches rarely stay put more than a few years, for whatever reason. It's a brutal game for coaches and the concept of job security. And no I couldn't do better (and save for maybe some lurking former coach in these formers, neither could the rest of us), but that's also 100% irrelevant. That doesn't need to be true for our concerns / criticisms to be valid in some cases.
They might be modestly faster as a group... so what? If the Pens had any fire at all last night, maybe they would've won 5 or 6 more loose puck battles. And maybe some of those won battles lead to a goal and the complexion changes. It isn't required for team A to always be faster than team B in order to beat team B, as we've seen many times over the years.
Bottom line: while our speed could and should be improved, it's not among the top issues dragging this team down right now.
I would think that a fast north south offensive game would be what would fit our best players, wouldn't you? I would think that a slow grinding defensive style would be more of a benefit to Cooke, Adams and Glass, than it would for Crosby, Malkin, and Neal.
I'll give it to the 15 game mark and if we still look like ****, then real significant changes need to happen. We can realistically go .500 for that period while still playing poorly. It won't kill our playoff chances and it gives the team time to get the rust off. I'm of the opinion that a fairly significant trade should happen whether Bylsma goes or not.
Martin didnt have anyone in his face. He had time to step out from behind his net, but passed the puck into Cizikas's shin pad and the rookie had momentum going fwd and took the puck on a wrap around.
MAF just played it very....odd.
I don't think he expected Martin to just let him walk around the net freely and there was a guy (16) wide open in the slot because Orpik hadn't recovered yet who was a bigger threat to score than the guy behind the net..
Watching the play again, Martin loses the puck and doesn't even challenge to get it back, him and Orpik just go the front of the net to cover the same guy and completely forget about the puck.
I would think that a fast north south offensive game would be what would fit our best players, wouldn't you? I would think that a slow grinding defensive style would be more of a benefit to Cooke, Adams and Glass, than it would for Crosby, Malkin, and Neal.
Yeah, when I think Sid and Geno, I think stretch pass, chip, chase, recycle.
I would think that a fast north south offensive game would be what would fit our best players, wouldn't you? I would think that a slow grinding defensive style would be more of a benefit to Cooke, Adams and Glass, than it would for Crosby, Malkin, and Neal.
Not one that is focuses on stretch passes to chips. That benefits players without the skill to lug the puck up the ice.
That's just it. The problem starts with management. How on earth can a team with both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on it NOT be built around those two guys? Instead, we're building around a bipolar goalie and a plethora of puck-moving defensemen.
Until we get somebody who is going to recognize this as the fundamental organizational flaw, we're going nowhere.
Sure, Bylsma puts a system together that caters to Matt Cooke. But as long as Shero continues to ignore his two superstars on draft day and in free agency, then all the coach is doing is following up on the 'plan', really.
I'll give it to the 15 game mark and if we still look like ****, then real significant changes need to happen. We can realistically go .500 for that period while still playing poorly. It won't kill our playoff chances and it gives the team time to get the rust off. I'm of the opinion that a fairly significant trade should happen whether Bylsma goes or not.
Shady, I wrote this in the Strait thread. Therrien's last 15 games, the Pens were 7-7-1 (the Pens are 8-7 in Bylsma's last 15 games).
Those Pens had Satan, Sykora, Dupuis, and Feds in the top six, no Gonchar or Whitney, and Sid hobbled with groin issues. And, the game before the Toronto debacle that got Therrien canned, the Pens beat San Jose. Yes, Therrien had much less to work with than Bylsma, which is something it's only fair to note.
Back then, the streak included games where the Pens really would step up against teams you wouldn't expect (wins again San Jose, Anaheim, the Rangers), and you'd start to think 'progress'. Then, they'd lay eggs against team's they should steamroll (or at least play competitively). One night, Sid and/or Geno would save the day against the top team, and the next one it would seem like they were going through the motions. The coach's press conferences would include a tone that was increasingly lost. Line juggling became a crutch. The swings from good to bad cop and back, along with the 'let's try this approach to practice'.
That's just it. The problem starts with management. How on earth can a team with both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on it NOT be built around those two guys? Instead, we're building around a bipolar goalie and a plethora of puck-moving defensemen.
Until we get somebody who is going to recognize this as the fundamental organizational flaw, we're going nowhere.
Sure, Bylsma puts a system together that caters to Matt Cooke. But as long as Shero continues to ignore his two superstars on draft day and in free agency, then all the coach is doing is following up on the 'plan', really.
They both need to go.
Oh, don't forget the abundance of 2M third liners.
Makes you wonder how someone who follows a team for a living can be so clueless about their strengths and weaknesses, their system, and what happened last night.
