Penguins/NHL
Tuesday Penguins Playoff Report
Olli Maatta’s return to the lineup for Game 1 will send Ben Lovejoy back to the press box which won’t be shocking to anyone.
The question with Maatta has been, where should he play?
Trevor Daley and Kris Letang were extremely productive together as a pair over the final couple weeks of the season. When Daley and Letang were on the ice together, Pittsburgh controlled 56% of their 5 v 5 shot attempts with a 2.78 Goals/60 and 1.38 Goals Against/60. There was no surprise that the Penguins drove possession with those two as a pairing but the two were a little better defensively together than expected.
Penguins coaches, though, believe Daley is better on the right side which makes the decision of where play Olli Maatta an easy one.
Maatta in today’s practice saw the bulk of reps with Kris Letang a clear sign he’s going to play there on Wednesday night.
While a notoriously slow starter when coming back from injury, the Penguins in a perfect situation would probably like to limit Maatta’s minutes a bit, but if the Penguins are going to play Maatta, there’s no other choice but to play him in the top-4.
Ian Cole and Justin Schultz just aren’t suited to be over-taxed and play more than a third pairing role.
GOALTENDING BUZZ
While opinions are flying among some in the media that Marc Andre Fleury doesn’t look right and shouldn’t play [hide], the man has been cleared to play.
Only Marc Andre Fleury knows whether he feels right or not and he’s given the Penguins every indication that he feels really good.
Today was another positive step in the right direction for Fleury who participated fully in the practice, dealing with traffic in front of the net, getting bumped a few times, and also manned the net vs the No. 1 power play unit.
If the Penguins had any doubt that Fleury won’t at least dress as the No. 2 in the Game 1, Tristan Jarry would have sure seen a lot more pucks than he saw through the 50 minute practice which was — zero –.
LINES & D-PAIRS
Chris Kunitz – Sidney Crosby – Patric Hornqvist
Carl Hagelin – Nick Bonino – Phil Kessel
Tom Kuhnhackl – Matt Cullen – Eric Fehr
Tom Sestito – Oskar Sundqvist – Conor Sheary
Extra: Beau Bennett
Defensive Pairs
Olli Maatta – Kris Letang
Brian Dumoulin – Trevor Daley
Ian Cole – Justin Schultz
Extra: Derrick Pouliot – Ben Lovejoy
No. 1 Power Play Unit
Phil Kessel – Patric Hornqvist – Sidney Crosby
Kris Letang – Trevor Daley
Did Not Practice: Matt Murray, Bryan Rust, Evgeni Malkin [/hide]
I think Sam is an immigrant. How else can you explain his outright destruction of the English language.
Remember the days when Same couldn’t find the hidden articles and life was Same free for a little while?
Sam’s zingers are the stuff of legend.
Guys – let’s go live to Le Mausolee Bell…. https://thewinterofdiscontent.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/p1020308.jpg
I bet its as noisy at it is at the consol Retirment center when its full
Sam must have hired a ghost writer… this wasn’t a bad reply lol. Still attacking the English language though.
The cool thing is, there’s only a few less people there now than there were for the last 20 games.
Better consult yahoo answers first.
now when st.blurry lets in wristers from the blueline because it’s the playoffs, you guys can play the concussion card. with murray going down, forget it.
Remember when you said they’d miss the playoffs?
Yeah yogurt. What’s YOUR excuse for that. We finished second in the conference when you said we wouldn’t make the playoffs. What happened? ? I like hearing you make absurd predictions because I know the opposite will happen.
“Guarantee 10th or 11th in the conference” HAHAHA
i’ll tell you what happened. they were reading my posts and fired the coach like i said.
Even after they got Sullivan, you said 8th/9th and a first round exit if we got in, so we shall see.
Yep. He predicted a playoff miss after the coaching change. Total rube.
“Like I said” while the rest of us fully supported what was happening lol
AMAZING… Zatkoff may be the starter and this fuckingmoron is still shitting on MAF. They were never gonna be here according to you so why don’t you just fuckoff
I have to tip my hat on the playing of the 8 mile card tho. If MAF does have a rough go we can absolutely look at the concussions. I mean sure he had his issues but he looked great the last two years. Way to hedge your bullshit fuckhead
youre a really angry dude
I enjoy telling people to fuck off… anger has nothing to do with it 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUKMUZ4tlJg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsw_auIc8-o
It never gets old!
meatspin.com
I cant wait this bennett contract is up .We done need to hear him and his doctors
He has more Chemistry with the doctors then with his own team mates
you guys are fuckingg clowns with a capital C not the same C that stan wants it on Kessel . Every one bitching about one roster spot for sestito when few years back half of pens roster was garbage TK,poni,fedo,adams and list goes on with other 4th liner garbages now we have one bad player and its the end of the world all pens and you clowns should worry about is Fleury is healthy Malkin decides to be back from his vacation and the D plays good up front and Gayjoy is used as least as possible. the rest is… Read more »
Trying to comprehend this makes my head hurt.
Lol that’s one of sames more classic posts. I personally like the “garbages ” comment
all pens and you clowns should worry about is fleury is healthy malkin decides
clown with a capital K
“now we have one bad player and its the end of the world” – Coming from the retard that has shit all over Kessel, Bonino, Lovejoy, Bennett and Malkin all year.
and, and, and, and…
they are bad but better then last few season
only their salary sucks
I see risk/reward of playing bennett. Bennett playing 2 shifts than leaving is better than dressing sestito
I’d rather dress you than Sestito.
I’d rather dress sam.. for the hilarity of it all. He showed us some mad ball hockey skillz a couple years back! Here’s winking at you kid!!!
I do give 100%, which seems to be the be all end all to some.
I think you mean undress.
Yeah – but you’re basically a notch above talking to a jersey barrier.
the only thing you rather dress up is a giant hot dog so like that npl can hump you again like the old days
So bad at this. So, so bad.
play pouliot at wing over sestito
I’d be fine with them just dressing 11 forwards and playing a man short if that’s what it took to keep Sestito out of the lineup. Take turn double shifting guys like Crosby, Kessel, Hags, Hornqvist, Cullen and Fehr.
Actually the more I’m thinking about it I’m really liking the idea of 11F-8D but I’d dress Lovejoy as the 7th D and use him on the PK only.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Letang/Maata pairing, I’d be very curious how a Maata/Dumoulin pairing would work as the main shutdown pairing similar to how Martin/Orpik were used in the past and thus keeping Letang/Daley together.
Agreed, Maatta doesn’t seem to click the same way with Letang as he does on his own line. We have seen snippets of Maatta looking like he did in his rookie year when he wasn’t paired with Letang. On top of that we have watched Letang and Daley eat a ton of minutes and control play with Maatta out. Don’t make a lot of sense to go away from that now.
f the rangers?