Penguins/NHL
NOTEBOOK BUZZ
— Rumblings, Musings, Opinions —
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High Attempts/No Finish: Pittsburgh’s 2-0 loss to the Seattle Kraken Thursday Night was another classic example of Pittsburgh’s lack of finish ability coming down to not being a team that prioritizes sustaining offense of being a presence in the net-front/heavy traffic areas. Personnel/System issues, this is a multi-year problem that isn’t going away especially when you’re primed to lose your best pure goal scorer via trade or free agency. Pittsburgh can’t keep living in this world of ‘we carried play and didn’t get lucky bounces tonight’. If the system isn’t going to change, someone in the management team has to start prioritizing different style of forwards who has some nastiness on the edges and gets to the tough areas…….
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Malkin Cooked?: Evgeni Malkin is done as a legitimate second line scoring center 5 vs 5. Say what you want about Ron Hextall but he had the right idea leading into 2022 summer that Pittsburgh needed to bring in a Vince Trocheck type centerman to play behind Crosby who the Penguins planned to make a strong play for before higher up’s pushed to resign Malkin. Malkin with 2 goals in his last 23 games, if the Penguins are serious about trying to re-tool next season and be an improvement over this season, they have to figure out best way to utilize Malkin and use him more as a third line type forward. He needs sheltered and figure it out how he can help you on the power play again. Management has to start thinking of ways to build a new second line next season from personnel/style of play. 5 vs 5 Malkin’s numbers are right around last season in that 0.55 – 0.57 per game range. It was just last season he cooked on the power play with 36 power play points that inflated his numbers.
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Rumblings: Is Pittsburgh back to the drawing board of searching for a youngish top-pairing LH D? Penguins GM Kyle Dubas is said to have kicked tires on Flames LH defenseman Noah Hanifin prior to the 2023 draft but things never got serious as Pittsburgh wanted to hold onto assets for an Erik Karlsson trade and believed they could sign Ryan Graves in free agency, a route they obviously ended up going. Graves is now seeing third pairing minutes and had just over 12:00 of ice time last night at ES and has five years to go on his contract. Pittsburgh To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!
— Reilly Smith is disinterested in Pittsburgh, has not meshed well with teammates and looks nothing like the player he was in Vegas where he at least had a pulse on the ice. Yet Smith’s market has been described as a red-hot with the deadline a week ago. Pittsburgh has multiple [hide] offers on the table for Smith. It’s time of the year for misinformation but Smith’s market has been described as being in the second rounder + another asset range, though, Pittsburgh had gone into talks exploring roster player for roster player type deals around the disappointing Smith. It will be a stunner around the league if he is not moved by Friday…….[/hide]
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Elliotte Friedman dropped a bombshell on Thursday the Vancouver Canucks and Carolina Hurricanes trade talks surrounding Elias Pettersson had reached advanced enough stages where it put the Pettersson camp in a corner ‘where come to the negotiating table or be traded in classic Jim Rutherford fashion. Rutherford does not mess around and won’t get bullied. The Penguins were likely going to be tied to this in one way. Had the deal gone deal, there is a lot of noise Pittsburgh and To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!
Anytime Penguin fans see Jared McCann it brings up nightmares for many. All of the power brokers in the organization were at fault on that debacle. Mike Sullivan, though, was widely believed to be the final decision maker on protecting Teddy Blueger as the seventh forward. The old regime relied heavily on Sullivan during that process since they were newer to the team. What’s fascinating with McCann is how so many others overlooked acquiring him that summer when he was available basically for free. Dubas acquired McCann in Toronto just to protect Alex Kerfoot.
Goals Scored Since 2021/2022 Season | Jared McCann 92 Goals – Alex Kerfoot 33 Goals………
Buzz: The Reporting on Omar Khan discussing the quarterback situation Thursday at the Combine has been something. There were comments from Khan where you could feel they are 100% in on Kenny Pickett, Matt Canada was more of the problem, Mason Rudolph will be resigned after he explores free agency for a hot minute and there’s not going to be a real competition to start the season…….. There were other comments from Khan where you feel trading for Justin Fields or signing Russell Wilson for example is still largely at play………..Don’t be stunned at a Diontae Johnson signing this summer. The Steelers live by the moto they can always find wide receivers, but Arthur Smith is said to love Johnson and the Steelers are internally worried George Pickens could go off his rocker at any time……. To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!
