Penguins/NHL
POST-GAME CHATTER
The Penguins had their final dress rehearsal of the season tonight in a 2-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes and now the coaching staff looks to start finding some chemistry with their lines and d-pairs between now and Thursday night vs Dallas.
“Tonight when you look at our team, first time we have had majority of group together,” Mike Johnston told reporters afterwards. “When you look at it, every line had a different guy on it [from last year]. “We don’t have lines that have played together before. Now over next four-five days that’s the important thing, lines, defense pairs. Look at Carolina, probably had 16 guys that were together last year, not a lot of changes.
“As I told the guys, it’s a matter of chemistry. There were some positive signs tonight. Liked our backcheck. I like how we played in offensive zone, we just missed on some really good looks.”
COACHES WANT MORE COMPETE FROM PERRON
David Perron tonight started on the fourth line and coaches have not liked his consistency on a day-by-day basis. Perron mixed things up a bit more and saw time on the third line as the game progressed.
“He played a hard game, thought he played physical with energy,” Johnston said of Perron. “That’s how he has to play. We need that sort of passion, compete from him every night.”
Two Separate Power Play Units
As talked about early in camp, the coaching staff is very intrigued about using two power play units. We saw it tonight and it’s something they’re going to explore at times early in the year. Johnston in fact seems very intrigued about the two units because they give different looks.
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