Penguins/NHL
The Blueline Dilemma
Last season the Penguins coaching staff decided around early January that the best way to win in the playoffs was developing a defensive mindset to go out and win games 2-1.
It led to a generic offensive brand of hockey and more defensive responsibilities on the centers and a big focus on forwards providing consistent back pressure to tighten the Penguins gap structure in the neutral zone.
A deeper team offensively in 2015-2016, will the Penguins actually be able to get away with playing a run and gun type style with the personnel they have on their backend?
Two burning questions right now for this group:
1. How soon into the season before the coaching staff has to dumb down the system again like last year to limit issues in their own end?
2. How long will they actually be able to stick with a top pairing of Olli Maatta – Kris Letang?
Penguin coaches and the management team determined this summer the best way to defend is to be able to go get the puck and move it.
“I look at compete, skating and puck movement,” Mike Johnston said of what he looks for out of his defensemen.
It sounds like a great plan until reality sinks in that the Penguins success defensively is going to be so heavily dictated by the commitment of the forwards playing all three zones.
At somepoint it’s bound to happen where it becomes one or the other for the Penguins. Try to go out and win 5-4 most nights, something the NHL doesn’t allow with how games are called now and so heavily coached, or tighten up their system defensively to off-set a weak blueline.
The Penguins have a potential gem of a top pair in Olli Maatta – Kris Letang but for the coaching staff to get away with Maatta – Letang as a top pair, an adequate No. 2 pairing has to emerge.
If a Paul Martin or Matt Niskanen was still around, then as a coaching staff you could certainly count on being able to keep Maatta – Letang together for the long-haul.
Some in the media continue to talk up Derrick Pouliot and Ben Lovejoy as the Penguins likely No. 2 pairing. Let’s just say that scenario would have opposing coaches licking their chops on any given night.
“The Pouliot kid is a train-wreck,” an Eastern Conference scout said of Pouliot’s play in his own end. “He has no grasp of the position, his head looks to be spinning a 100 mph.”
Pouliot did nothing in the rookie tournament or in camp so far to dispel those type of views some NHL types OUTSIDE of Pittsburgh have on him.
“Young defensemen making an impact in this league at 20-21 years old are sound defensively first and then the offense starts to come a few years down the road, a former NHL assistant coach said. “Thinking he’s [Derrick Pouliot] going to be [Erik] Karlsson and the ‘O’ will outweigh the defensive mistakes just isn’t being realistic.”
Kris Letang and Olli Maatta are great examples of that. Letang didn’t top 35 points until his fourth full NHL season. He was averaging nearly 20 minutes per game during the Penguins Stanley Cup run at age 21 in 2009 because he could play his own end very well, not because he was the offensive player he is now who averages over 0.70 points per game.
Olli Maatta is so good at a young age because of how well developed he is defensively and was at 18 years old. That’s why the Penguins need to be patient with Pouliot.
Learning from Mike Sullivan down in Wilkes Barre who is regarded as an excellent teacher could be a great thing for Pouliot’s development
WHO EMERGES WITH IAN COLE?
The Penguins developing an adequate No. 2 pairing starts with Ian Cole. He’s a question mark on how he’ll handle top-2 pairing minutes but some in upper management believe Cole is Matt Niskanen 2.0 and we’ll find out soon enough.
Someone outside of Maatta-Letang-Cole, though, has to step up in a big way.
It’s not going to be Lovejoy, it’s certainly not going to be Gonchar.
Can it be Brian Dumoulin? Adam [hide] Clendening? Clendening and Cole remain intriguing as a possible pair and it will be interesting if they see time together again Saturday afternoon.
It would give the Penguins their best chance of having a puck moving pair at all times with their top-2 lines. Clendening lacks the size that Dumoulin has but he plays with more of an edge and is a better puck mover and retrieves pucks more effectively.
And when it comes to Rob Scuderi don’t close the door on him just yet. If he sticks around, the coaching staff is destined to turn to Scuds because they trust him.
Let’s just say that Simon Despres trade still stings.
MORE BUZZ
— Conor Sheary’s disappointing night vs the Red Wings saw him bumped from the Varsity practice group on Friday. Scott Wilson was bumped up to practice with the main group. Important game for Wilson Saturday afternoon.
— Less buzz about Oskar Sundqvist this camp as the Penguins want him playing meaningful minutes in Wilkes Barre, but the Penguins really liked his game Thursday night. Chance for him to still make a late surge.
— Make or break game for Bryan Rust vs the Blue Jackets. Strong Candidate to be among the next round of cuts and sent to Wilkes Barre I’m told. He hasn’t made the type of push in camp the Penguins were hoping to see.
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It’s sad that, at 41, Gonchar still runs a power play better than Kris Letang ever has
When you reply to a comment, that mini thread should push to the top. Really hard to have conversations in this new format. You suck D!
This new format sucks on heavily commented on articles. Hard to read new comments vs replies.
Wasn’t near a tv at all today after 1:00. Did Dumo show signs of improvement?
Yes he did. Still wasn’t great but much better than first game. Pouliot on the other hand was a complete train wreck in his own end again.
Just think, if not for the 3 goals scored during Sestito’s 5 minute penalty the Pens would have won 2-1 tonight. Now that’s how you discourage teams from running your stars, nothing says don’t do that again like 3 free goals.
There we go mid season form . Zacktoff couldn’t stop a bullet at a strip club. Second of course jd1974 lets go into the shell lets lose a lot of players to injuries after run ins. Didn’t hurt us last year at all. Actually the unfulfilled potential of this franchise occurred from the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh when the face the franchise (Crosby right or wrong) was run and no one responded and nothing was done to bring backbone to the lineup. Not rent a goon but a Tocchet/Stevens type player. You of course realize we have two legitimate NHL… Read more »
And explain to me how having Sestito on the roster prevented the hit on Maata or stopped the Blue Jackets from hitting everything that moved the rest of the game? The correct answer is that it didn’t. The hit on Maata still occurred and our star players are going to continue to get run as much as possible the rest of the season, the only effect that Sestito’s action had were costing them the game and making the fans feel good because a meathead fought someone and got revenge. It did absolutely nothing for preventing those type of hits happening… Read more »
jaydogg his actions did prevent the late hits anymore. Hits are part of the game. Late hits shouldn’t be. We always disagree about the value of having a non pussy penguins. It spoke volumes that no one that was on the ice even skated over to bark at Gallant. Sestito being on the roster for at least exhibition games is a smart decision.
Murray to replace fleury Yoda with the countdown somewhere in his basement
St blurry is hanging out with the pope.
Sprong just continues to impress me more every time he steps on the ice, I would not be surprised at all if he puts the organization in he same situation they were in with Maata where he basically gives them no choice but to keep him in the NHL.
Agreed. He is a hell of a find.
I hope he stays, just makes the depth even stronger.
Good job Sestito!!!! I like it
Who wouldn’t enjoy costing your team 3 goals being a meathead? Sounds like a recipe for success to me.
You realize its exhibition and the only victory is to come out of it with your main players intact. Shit there wasn’t even betting line on this game. And Zacktoff couldn’t stop a bullet at a strip club.
Say bullet at a strip club one more time.
A bullet in a strip club. That’s right you’re in Norfolk. Shoot out at local strip club in Stowe township this past weekend. How about he couldn’t stop a shot from anyone from Columbus how’s that. 🙂
The only reason they got out of the game with their main players intact is pure luck, as it always is. Maata got blasted after the whistle and could have easily been injured on the play and having Sestito on the roster and him going after Dubinsky could not have prevented the injury to Maata if it would have happened.
Idiot.
Any rumors
There’s something we’ve never seen before, Sid dogging it on the backcheck leading to a goal against.
Yes but that would mean Rutherford is a perfect trader.
Cole/Depres would be solid.
Depres makes like 1.2 million more than lovejoy so it would have costs us Eric fehr but there was enough quality veteran forwards on the market that we could have grabbed someone on a pto and vet min
If we didn’t nab Cole for Bortuzzo then not doing the Depres trade would still leave us short a defenseman
Though Depres looks more like a bonfire 3 then Cole who seems like a 4/5
Or he could have only made the Bortuzzo trade and we’d have a Despres/Cole 2nd paring which I think most would be more than happy with.
That’s an awful second pairing lol
The fact that you disagree with it makes it look all the better. Where’s Sam?
That line has been used a lot on here. Mainly in regards to you lol
I think Cole looks more like a #3 than Despres, who is still best when playing 15-18 minutes per game which is more #5 toi than it is #3 toi.
I love how people can make shit up to try and make a point. Cole looked real good and may continue to impress. Despres still had his issues even in Anaheim but no one wants to pay attention to these little facts
You talking about Ian soft serve Cole right?
Agreed. I think people are misremembering Despres.
It amuses me how so many put so much stock into pre season. Good players play bad, bad players play good. That’s what happens when you have such a diverse amount of talent on the ice. But fire the coach, trade everyone and sell the team!!! Go Pens!!!
The best part is how people only gauge the bad. The good that happens is almost immediately shot down.
That’s because realistically there should be no bad. That’s like raving because Sid scores 6 goals in an ECHL game but ignoring the fact that he got beat 8 times and was -2. He should dominate in a game at that level so actually doing so shouldn’t be a surprise but he shouldn’t be getting beat by players at that level so him getting beat is much more alarming.
I understand that. I just don’t think much of an opinion about good or bad performances can be made until the teams start icing a roster close to actual NHL caliber.
The preseason offers plenty of opportunities to gauge where players are at if you know what you’re looking at. I would never base an opinion off of any single preseason game but if a players is routinely struggling with aspects of his game throughout the preseason schedule it is pretty safe to assume there is/will be a potential issue once the roster are void of the lesser players and consist of nothing but NHL talent.
Gonna be a big game for Dumoulin today, it’s quite possible that him being a burning dumpster fire was a product of being paired with Gonchar but I saw a lot of individual mistakes in that first game that shouldn’t be effected by your partner, things like losing board battles and drifting out of position and missing coverages. Hate to make assumptions on small sample size(which I think happened with Dumoulin being handed a spot this year) but after 1 game Clendening has jumped Dumoulin & Pouliot on my depth chart.
I personally want pouliot to start in ahl. He needs more time to develop. Plus he’s the only one that’s not waiver eligible.
Were you at the game Jaydogg? cuz if you weren’t you might of been the only person who had a decent feed to see all these little intricate mistakes you are talking about….Inquiring minds would love to know!!!
Watched it on channel 19 and my coverage was fine.
Jay has a 200 foot 4K television. He’s practically on the ice.
Trade Scuderi as soon as you can. You need the cap room in case none of these young guys develop to get a 3/4 defenseman. Who knows if anybody would be willing to take him after his riding the pine for so long. Sounds like he is getting a little irritated with the local media and fans that want to dump him, maybe he is more willing to waive the ntc now.
for as bad as scuderi is, he still might be their 4th best defenseman. that blue line blows! the pens need him.
I’m not too concerned with upgrading the team and winning from October to January. In my eyes, October to January is about finding out if Dumo, DP, Clendenning etc can play. Scuderi in his current state should not be taking playing time away from the young guys.
Fron hearing DK talk about Scudei’s comments after the Detroit game, it doesn’t sound like Scuderi is willing to accept anything but a top 6 role.
I agree that he shouldn’t be taking time away from the young guys from October to January but he provides a nice security blanket between October and January if a few or all of those young guys don’t cut it, then he can be dumped at the deadline when an upgrade is available. Dumping him now does nothing but eliminate any backup plan if the young guys do fail.
Trading him now does more damage than good, the added cap space is worthless right now because there is no one out there to use that space on as an upgrade and even though Scuderi’s game has regressed and isn’t an ideal fit in MJ’s system, he’s a steady pressance that can be plugged into the lineup if any of the young guys implode. After not moving him in the off season when the extra cap room could have been used to upgrade the lineup, their best course of action is to keep him as a security blanket until the… Read more »
Doug Murray cut by Calgary again. Help is on the way!
Despres trade stings for sure. ID be completely comfortable with him in the top 4.
Get ready for the backlash of all the Rutherford thumpers defending that trade.
Who defends that trade? Haven’t seen anyone defend that trade.
I think he’s referring to people like myself who aren’t bent out of shape over the trade and called it meaningless depth move.
The trade only stings because in true Penguin fashion they go to extremes trying to solve problems. Sure forward depth was an issue but they went way overboard bringing in forwards to solve that issue and ignored solving the secondary issue of soldifying the top 4 defense. Both issues could have been solved in the offseason by taking a balanced approach to rebuilding the offseason but in my opinion they were once again more concerned with the PR and pander to the fan base by making decision that the fans would be excited over and not the decisions that put… Read more »
Jay did you get my invite for fantasy I sent yesterday? I sent it to the address you emailed me with a few months ago.
You guys think st blurry was hung out to dry in years past and always used that as one of his excuses when he would train wreck…..well just wait until this year when he really is hung out to dry! That blue line is garbage. I’m not kidding when I say the pens can easily miss the playoffs.
No dominant team in the east. Any team can go from 1 to out of the playoffs.
What a fucking idiot… minus Letang and Maatta and you pretty much have the same group that was in the playoffs last year… where MAF did all he could to keep us competitive and the forward group failed to help out at all lol. Team would probably do well for itself to nab a Hamhuis type at the deadline but there will be a lot of growing from some D this year. Bumps in the road sure… missing the playoffs? unlikely
Holy negativity batman
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