Penguins-Lightning Fallout
Two teams built with speed and skill, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning clashed their similar styles to a highly entertaining game in a Lightning 5-4 win.
It was probably too much fire wagon hockey for the coaches but fans got their money’s worth.
“We don’t want to be a team that trades chance for chance,” Mike Sullivan said afterwards on the high scoring affair.
In the second game of a back-to-back, Pittsburgh was under siege during the first period in allowing scoring chance after scoring chance, Pittsburgh chased the game throughout, trailing by scores of 3-1, 4-2 and 5-3 and battled back each time before eventually falling short.
The Penguins got goals from Jake Guentzel (2), Conor Sheary (3), Bryan Rust (1) and Matt Hunwick (1) in the loss. Antti Niemi made 29 saves on 34 shots.
The Penguins outshot Tampa Bay 40-34.
— Tampa Bay is a hot pick this season to re-emerge as a Stanley Cup contender after a down season in 16/17 with the Steven Stamkos injury, among other things.
You look at that forward group and you see why, especially if Stamkos can stay healthy.
They can match any club in a skilled game and can create major matchup problems.
Buzz among scouts, though, is the Lightning’s Achilles heel last season in missing the playoffs was that they were a team, notably the forward group, that got pushed around far too often (remains a question mark), and not everyone around the league is sold on young goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy just yet.
Niemi’s athleticism remains a + but can the disastrous poor angles in his game be fixed?
Prior to signing Antti Niemi and the Penguins’ were aware based on talks with the Dallas Stars weeks prior to the signing that Niemi was likely to get bought-out, the club studied a lot of tape on what the 33 year old still had left in the tank.
One area the Penguins kept coming to was that the athleticism from Niemi was still there.
That was on display tonight where Niemi made a number of side-to-side saves and the quickness is still pretty good for his age.
Where the concern with Niemi stands is the To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!
Rust Contract Talk
Bryan Rust with a goal, assist, leads the Penguins with 7 points on the season and has been the Penguins most consistent player to open the season.
Jim Rutherford is not big on negotiating during the season but there could be some exceptions this season, I’m told.
Pittsburgh would still like to get something done with [hide] Patric Hornqvist as the two sides exchanged numbers prior to the regular season starting and the Penguins internally have had lots of discussions on Rust.
And a Penguins source says the team has gone back and forth for a while now whether to wait it out until the end of the season or not.
Some fret waiting could backfire.
$3.25 million per season had been a number floating around where the Penguins see things from their end on a new deal.
A big offensive season, 20+ goals, 50 points, and if the Rust camp pushes the envelope, they could easily sell him as a $4 million a year player. [/hide]
Habs lost again. Haha!
Like you said though, they got a point. For a franchise like that, you can’t really ask for more.
Guys. Dead serious. Montreal got a point tonight.
Lol
Awesome game. Great job by Murray and Sid looked in rare form. Still giving up too many shots/chances, but a W is a W. Hopefully we can get a handle on these d zone turnovers.
They have until March or so to figure that out thankfully.
ZeroTool must be happy sheary got a point tonight. Oh wait thanks to letang and sid.
I guess same is right pens will be playing 90’s hockey high scoring games and a lot of goals in return. Thank god Crosby is playing tonight. Murray can get his W thanks to him. And once again pens need 4 goals in order to win for fleury. Oops I meant Murray
YEah. Murray made 40+ saves cause of Crosby, tubby. Just stick to what you know and shove some more poutine in your fat fuckingg pie hole.
He’s too dumb to understand reason, so needless to say, any responses to his posts fall on deaf, poutine filled ears.
I think Montréal quadrupled their goal output for the year tonight. And Ryan Reaves is useless.
Reaves is useless.
Sam, did you go to the Canada’s Poutine Eating Championship today? #PoutineCart
Sam sucks
6 goals on 27 shots on Fleury last night. 4 goals in the third.
That sucks. Hope he bounces back and has a strong performance. One of my favorite pens of all time. I hope he can win another 100 games before he hangs them up and passed Belfour for 3rd all time in wins.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see him back in a pensuniform at some point.
I know you guys kill me for it, but I could see him backing up Jarry in 3 years.
It would depend on the construction of the roster and Jarry’s development, but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. I just had a problem with the notion thatwe should trade Murray and keep Fleury, banking on Jarry turning into a quality starter. Too many variables with a team in a championship window.
Let’s hope pens won’t need 4 goals in order to win for Murray tonight
I’d happily take a 4-3 win. And nice of you to give yourself a thumbs up.
I was just talking about Rust and contract after the game vs Nashville. I was pegging him more in the 2.5/2.75 range for about 3 years. If he continues to progress then at 28 you talk about the $4 million range.
I think Niemi needs to be put on waivers. We only paid him $700k so cut loses and bring up Jarry which is what we should have done from the beginning. I’m starting to worry about GMJR. The three moves he made in FA haven’t really panned out so greatly. He needs to make it up and get us a 3rd line center for Hagelin/Rust line.
At worst, Niemi’s play last night was uneven. He was brilliant, and incompetent at different times.
I just don’t think team has any confidence with him. You shouldn’t lose a hockey game when you score 4 goals.
I mean, that’s a nice tag line and everything, but it happens more often than you think. On the flip side, Vasi gave up 4 goals, and played quite strong. I’m not sure how their lack of confidence somehow got them 4 goals against a guy that was playing pretty well. He’s played 2 games. One game that the rest of his team pretended to show up for. Quit being so reactionary.
It’s been like that for all of his career but I don’t blame you. You don’t watch hockey. You watch some playoffs penguins hockey that’s about it
I’m going to trust my eyes over someone that started watching the NHL in 2005 after the Crosby lottery every time. I mean…you thought McDavid was in Vancouver ffs.
Seriously? You’re starting to worry about the GM that just won back to back Cups in ******* October? Jesus Christ. I can’t handle Penguins fans sometime. I’m sure you’ll be the first one in line complaining when they don’t win the Cup this year because they should win it every year! And to address your “point” about Jarry, he shouldn’t be up with the Pens. He needs to start in the AHL every night. Niemi has played in two games so far. It’s October 13th. Let’s see where we’re at in January.
Exactly. And it seems that a certain group of people look solely at the goal total to make points, forgetting about the number of ridiculous turn overs and horrific zone play orchestrated by the penguins. That game could have been out of hand in the first period. The whole game kind of reminded me of one from the 80s/ early 90s. And calling out JR is absurd.
That’s a typical pens bandwagon fan I’m sure there are more people here
Go Google more pre-2005 Penguins players, Sam.
You puss y
I knew Neimi signing was a bad one. He is athletic but has bad angles and cant stop basketballs. he has been bad for the last few years in Dallas this losses will comeback to haunt us we need a back up goalie that can get some wins. Certainly Tristan Jarry cant be any worse.
Hey guys – Yoda is back bitchingg about a new goalie – took him two games. Yogurt!
LOL this time it’s valid though…Fluery didn’t suck…Niemi unfortunately does.
Again – it’s been one game. I’m not even dignifying that Chicago game, unless we want to start talking about how bad the other 22 guys sucked too. Including Murray. Niemi might end up sucking – anyone that thinks that after one legit game is just being ridiculous.
I bet you Niemi is not a Penguin come March.
Whether or not that’s true, doens’t make you any less frantic and reactionary after one game, now does it…
Has anyone actually theorized the Sam is just DePaoli trying to “troll” us all? Grammar skills are about even, and they both hate the Penguins.
This is amazing.
Yes. I called Sam, “D” for about a year.
I think it’s cute that sam read about “Tommy B” and now wants to comment on games before 2005 when he didn’t even know the NHL existed. So virginal. So bandwagon.
You are fuckinn funny dude that I forgot to laugh. I come from a hockey city that hockey been here before even NHL was existed. Now Get lost fatso. I know you like to lie with things but this must be your worst one
Just because I caught you and your other fat buddy Npl being pens fan since 09 and the other one since 16. No need to make fake news about me but then again fake news is part of American culture. Make up fake stories on a daily basis and try to convince others to believe in it
It’s like telling people you have a real job and make good money when reality is your real job is to come on this site bother people and make money thru welfare checks and pretend you getting paid by a government job.
I’m doing you a favor – honestly, if you’ve been watching the game for longer than ten years and you’re still this dumb, what does that say about you?
Coming from a guy that brings nothing to this site other then replies to others comments with negative BS
I would put my “replies to others” up against your hard hitting 3 day old news and “black cockks matter” updates, or sounding off on hot dog carts (not to mention your pungent french B.O.) any fuckingg day, pork chop.
I wouldn’t call it much of a hockey city – they can’t put a team together – can’t win a cup in 25 years, the building is half empty, they don’t know what a center looks like – they trade defensemen away because said defenseman aren’t white. Aside from all of that – you guys are on top of things. #0CenterModel
Hey zero tool I know you and your clown buddy shitstain have been concerned about Habs scoring goals. Maybe you should be more concerned how many goals pens are letting in so far as I said this pens are playing the 90s game high scoring games Tommy B era
“Pittsburgh would struck first”
Trailed 1-0 on a goal by Koekkoek during the actual game….
Caps In 5