2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

nocera
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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby nocera » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:30 am

This season was incredibly forgettable. I have a feeling the offseason will be just as forgettable. I doubt we'll see any major changes. Nobody in their right mind would take on JMFJ's contract.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:30 am

No, I don't think so.
I'm a Sully fan and I think he's one of the few with the personality and ability to stick around longer than the standard 3-4 years and still get a message through. I know you know Xs and Os better than I, but I saw no adjustments.. he was out-coached badly

nocera
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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby nocera » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:34 am

You can't adjust stupid. Penguins had way too many players who were playing stupid.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:35 am

also v true

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:40 am

I loathe the inevitable re-signing of Garrett Wilson.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Dickie Dunn » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:45 am

On the pregame I heard Trotz talking about his fourth line, which he said isn't really a fourth line, but an "identity line"; they know who they are, they know the best way for them to play, and they just go out and do it. I don't think the Pens have that anywhere in their lineup. Sid's line is typically Guentzel and a collection of randomly rotating moving parts, Geno's line is Phil and rotating parts, the third line is the more talented leftovers, and the fourth line is a geriatric team mascot and two other guys because you need to have 18 skaters dressed. There's no identity anymore. This team needs to figure out who they are, how they want to play, and build that.

I think Phil's gone. Horny is still useful if you put him with a center that can produce offense. I'm not a fan of Bjugstad's game. McCann has been a great find but I don't know where he fits best in the lineup, largely because Jake is better on the left than right. I'd let Simon stay if HCMS pinky promises not to put him on Sid's line. ZAR and Blueger are useful pieces. Rusty is better as a third liner than a first liner. Cullen and Wilson should GTFO.

The defense is probably the bigger issue. Dumo is fine, Pettersson is young and smart, Letang is as dumb as the day he was born, JMFJ sucks and is signed forever, Olli is still a pretty smart young defenseman but seems to be on the outs with the coaches and is probably their most useful trade piece, Schultz is fine but needs someone to cover for when he's dumb, Gudbranson makes too much money and we probably saw the best he has to offer, Riikola is still a person who exists.

I don't know what they'll do, but I'm hoping for some significant roster turnover that adds more speed and youth.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:56 am

the fourth line is a geriatric team mascot
Doing my best not to bust out laughing at my desk

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby mikey » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:02 am

No, I don't think so.
I'm a Sully fan and I think he's one of the few with the personality and ability to stick around longer than the standard 3-4 years and still get a message through. I know you know Xs and Os better than I, but I saw no adjustments.. he was out-coached badly
I'm not sure that "adjustment" is the right word here. I know that's a popular term, I know it's a buzz term that a lot of folks use to describe a way that coaches convert "losing" into "winning"...and that's not wrong in some ways, right? That's a thing for sure. In game, in series, in season, "adjustments" is a broad term that encompasses a lot.

So two points on that, briefly...
1) It's difficult to make big sweeping changes in a very short time. Big sweeping changes are the ones that get noticed by fans on TV. The Penguins switch up in the 1992 Patrick Division Semifinal is a good example. Big change to their game. Those usually take a lot of practice to accomplish. There's a lot of lead-up time to do that...to get the understanding, the timing, the right personnel to do it, etc. Because everything you do, affects something else, right/

I'll use me as an example...for my group this year we had two forechecks installed...one from the beginning, and one I installed around the one-third mark, maybe one-half...there needed to be space for two main reasons: one, you don't want to confuse players as to where they'll be in each one by doing them back to back. Two, this affects our retrievals, it affects our breakouts, it affects our in-zone structure and timing, etc. so all of that stuff needs to be ironed out...

Our 2-1-2 swing has this expectation, this timing, this rhythm, this is where our RD will be on a turnover, this is where our F3 swings to if the puck is 50/50 or better, this is where he goes if it's 50/50 or worse...blah blah blah...

Then I have a 1-1-3 that's on my call from the bench...we have a code word for it that I bellow out in certain situations...and with that, we have this kind of regroup, we get this kind of swing underneath the puck, we get this pick in this spot, etc.

If we're losing in a playoff game or series...I can't just go into the room and draw up a 1-2-2 and expect it to work...even though probably every player has played it in at some point in their life...it will be disjointed, there's more to it...it's not a video game, you can't just put chicken nuggets and kraft singles in a bowl and mix it into chicken cordon bleu...you might get lucky and get something edible, but chances are you're making a mistake...

2) I'm not sure how much of our failure was tactical (I don't mean that to read as "none of this was coaching") and how much of it was execution...how many passes did we just out right miss...how many times did we actually convert zone entries and exits that were afforded to us, as rare as it may have been...I think a lot of players played poorly...I talked about players overplaying the game, Letang and Rust in game 1 over-skating pucks, etc. This looked like we were working on one of those ship in a bottle things but after gassing a case of Four Loko...look at Bryan Rust in game 4, and he had a good game 4...but that shot attempt with about 3 and a half left...it was 15 feet wide and it rimmed out...it wasn't even close...that was a shot from the slot and it missed by 15 feet, he had no idea where the net was...

And like I've said, you run out of fingers pointing at who to blame here, right? There's just too much to go around, so I don't want to single out Rust or Letang or this thing or this play...but just by way of example, this was a poorly executed series. 2013 was a matter of being out-coached for sure. 2019 puts a lot of blood on players' hands, but the coaching staff has a part in this for sure...

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:08 am

"briefly"

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:10 am

Yeah I'm not arguing any of that. I just felt like I watched 240+ minutes of the same thing of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Breakout = chip up the boards, guy skates into the trap right inside the blue line, chips it in, Isles retrieve, move the puck up and 3 on 3 or better. Every time. A lot of blame and can't pin it on any one or two or three guys but man

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:14 am

So if you can coach two different forechecks why can't Sully?

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby mikey » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:26 am

We ran different forechecks...we were 1-2-2 down the stretch a good bit, we didn't start there.

The thing is, it wasn't really our forecheck that was the issue...it was exits and entries, our retrieval strategy wasn't great...

Ya know, I shot this over to Ryan Whitney last night too, watch how our breakouts like to go - and they're really good, I like it a lot, I've stolen pieces of it myself...but look at a lot of these scenarios, we get the outlet, we slow up, we let speed go over the puck in an adjacent lane, then we find a two-lane, one- or two-layer pass through the NZ to get a clean entry wide. I'm over simplifying for purposes of the discussion.

Well, here's the thing about that...the Isles came in and banged and crashed....we got out of it, and then we slowed up a good bit and it just allowed the Isles as a five-man unit to come back through the middle and muck up the works for us at the attack line...this was furthered by how poor our passing was throughout, we weren't able to generate any speed with rushes or passes through the NZ...so yeah, there's a case there that maybe we could have done something different there, sure...and that would have been pretty major surgery...I think something not too hard would have been to become more of a cycling offense, less of an organic rush team...that's a change I might have gone to...try to engage some of our bigger players, and attack that pretty poor defense...we didn't and here we are...but I don't know if that erases the result...the what-if always favors the dreamer...

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby nocera » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:27 am

Image

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby mikey » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:28 am

Watch your toes!

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:32 am

What we saw this series is what plagued them all year, they got shut down in the neutral zone. The power play was the absolute worst at gaining the zone, especially with that nonsense of Phil or Kris skating the puck up with the other three standing at the blue line. Then the guy with the puck would just dump it back when one forechecker came forward. It lead to so many odd man breaks. Just feel like if they had tried to make corrections throughout the year we wouldn't have gotten dummied like they did. Not saying they'd win but getting swept with the talent difference is a cause for concern.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby MR25 » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:43 am

Didn't really help that they scratched the 3rd puck-moving D man in favor of Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbranson.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Trip McNeely » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:55 am

I think Malkin needs to realize he’s on the wrong side of 30 and needs to step up his offseason regimen and possibly change his game a bit. He wasn’t able to really beat anyone with speed all year and constantly relied on cutting to the inside at the blue line. And it rarely worked.

He’s a competitor and I expect a great year from him next year though. I don’t think he’s hit a wall. But in a year or two, especially if we look like we are headed towards a short run in the playoffs, I would see what we could get for him, rebuild, and aim for another cup in Sids twilight years

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:57 am

Nah. Geno and Sid are Pens for life. If they play a few years past their prime and they suck and the team sucks as a result, whatever. They earned it.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:57 am

Consistent line mates might help Geno too.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Pavel Bure » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:15 am

Nah. Geno and Sid are Pens for life. If they play a few years past their prime and they suck and the team sucks as a result, whatever. They earned it.
I hate this line of thinking. It’s currently why Hornqvist got a bit too much money for a bit too long of a term. The NHL isn’t a business where you should ever pay guys for services rendered (it still happens constantly). If they don’t like that they can go elsewhere. It’s a business of winning not of saying it’s okay to suck now cause you were good in the past.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Jim » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:17 am

The biggest personnel error that the big red machine Detroit Red Wings made was that they held onto all of their stars until those stars completely fell apart. Malkin needs to be asked for a few teams he would be okay going to, and Letang's list needs to have calls made.

If you want to make a statement in commitment to improving then you don't flip 3rd pair and bottom 6. Instead, you suck it up and do want needs to be done.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby MalkinIsMyHomeboy » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:18 am

the number one item on my wishlist is a Trevor Daley type acquisition. A well-rounded, mobile defensemen. He doesn't have to be an all-star, but just effective, smart and a leader

I have no clue who that'd actually be or if that's realistic, but I think Daley was among the most important players in our back to back cup runs

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:18 am

Nah. Geno and Sid are Pens for life. If they play a few years past their prime and they suck and the team sucks as a result, whatever. They earned it.
I hate this line of thinking. It’s currently why Hornqvist got a bit too much money for a bit too long of a term. The NHL isn’t a business where you should ever pay guys for services rendered (it still happens constantly). If they don’t like that they can go elsewhere. It’s a business of winning not of saying it’s okay to suck now cause you were good in the past.
I didn't say overpay. They've been loyal and paid under market value. If they stay a couple extra years for the appropriate price, I'm okay with it. My real point was I don't want to ship Geno out after one questionable season

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby Morkle » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:23 am

The only two I ever consider keeping in that scenario are Sid, and Malkin. Moreso w/Sid than Malkin. I do think there needs to be a conversation about what Malkin wants if anything to open up his eyes a bit.

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2019 Penguins Offseason/Draft Thread

Postby mikey » Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:25 am

Nah. Geno and Sid are Pens for life. If they play a few years past their prime and they suck and the team sucks as a result, whatever. They earned it.
I hate this line of thinking. It’s currently why Hornqvist got a bit too much money for a bit too long of a term. The NHL isn’t a business where you should ever pay guys for services rendered (it still happens constantly). If they don’t like that they can go elsewhere. It’s a business of winning not of saying it’s okay to suck now cause you were good in the past.
I get it. But it just doesn't really work this way...not just in the NHL, but in a lot of lines of business...

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