OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Trip McNeely
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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby Trip McNeely » Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:22 am

I actually think this is a decent team if the D was healthy
Ehh. I think it’s a decent team of healthy AND it’s stars are playing up to their potential. I seriously have my doubts about that outside of Sid

MR25
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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby MR25 » Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:26 am

Apparently Malkin didn't really workout in the offseason because gyms were closed in Russia.

But I agree with mikey's assessment. GMJR completely **** up the roster, realized he was going to have to face the music because we traded away a likely lottery pick, and decided peacing out was a better option than getting himself fired.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby Morkle » Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:34 am

I mean, wasn't that always going to be the problem though? The chickens we're always going to come home to roost, and there'd be limited picks or developed players in the pipeline.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby mikey » Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:37 am

I actually think this is a decent team if the D was healthy
Explain your position...

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:41 pm

I actually think this is a decent team if the D was healthy
Explain your position...
mikey, thank you for this opportunity.

(cover your eyes for this one) - Kapanen is better, faster, and a better fit on this team than Horny is. Putting him in a top 6 role instead of Sheary is a drastic upgrade.
- Tanev and Blueger appear to have upped their games, though it's early. Jankowski appears to be better as a 3C than McCann was.
- Having 4 competent top 6 wings allows our secondary guys to be secondary guys and not look out of place on Sid's wing. Our bottom 6 can actually score right now, it's nice.
- Assuming Dumo and Letang eventually play to their normal abilities, our top 4 of those 2, Marino and POJ is pretty good imo. Between Ceci, Matheson, Riikola and Ruwhedel we'll have a bottom pairing more competent than the one Jack Johnson was a part of last year.
- We don't have Jack Johnson anymore
- We don't have Matt Murray anymore

Thank you.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:42 pm

however right now our d-corps is just a mismatched pile of dog sht so none of the rest really matters. need to get healthy

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby faftorial » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:50 pm

I actually think this is a decent team if the D was healthy
:thumb:

willeyeam
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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:50 pm

This also assumes Geno eventually is at least "kind of good." If he continues in the current form we are going nowhere fast. And maybe that's what happens

Trip McNeely
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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby Trip McNeely » Fri Jan 29, 2021 2:03 pm

This also assumes Geno eventually is at least "kind of good." If he continues in the current form we are going nowhere fast. And maybe that's what happens
I agree with everything you said

The problem is Letang Geno Dumo and to an extent Guentzal have been poop this year. If they don’t pick it up, this team is worse. If they do, this team is better

I’m still on the trade Letang and/or Geno while they are still worth something though

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby mikey » Fri Jan 29, 2021 4:59 pm

I actually think this is a decent team if the D was healthy
Explain your position...
mikey, thank you for this opportunity.

(cover your eyes for this one) - Kapanen is better, faster, and a better fit on this team than Horny is. Putting him in a top 6 role instead of Sheary is a drastic upgrade.
- Tanev and Blueger appear to have upped their games, though it's early. Jankowski appears to be better as a 3C than McCann was.
- Having 4 competent top 6 wings allows our secondary guys to be secondary guys and not look out of place on Sid's wing. Our bottom 6 can actually score right now, it's nice.
- Assuming Dumo and Letang eventually play to their normal abilities, our top 4 of those 2, Marino and POJ is pretty good imo. Between Ceci, Matheson, Riikola and Ruwhedel we'll have a bottom pairing more competent than the one Jack Johnson was a part of last year.
- We don't have Jack Johnson anymore
- We don't have Matt Murray anymore

Thank you.
The board thanks ulf for his explanation.

In order:
Better? Unclear meaning. Faster? Yes, I'm faster than Hornqvist. Better fit? That assumes we have a structure and a goal in mind. I guess maybe better stated, what teams are playing in a way where you go, "You know what would really fit in with our mold? Patric Hornqvist!" Hornqvist is glue. Valuable glue. Hot, valuable glue. He fits anywhere because he makes himself fit.

Kapanen is likely better than Sheary, yes.

Narrowly, and I don't mean to be technical, but Blugers is our 3C right now. The choices of having Jankowski and Blugers as our third line center options is not championship material for me. This also goes back to the "better" comment about Hornqvist vs Kapanen. McCann is more technically skilled than Janko and Blue, is he a better 3C...? Possibly not.

The rest of that is various shades of agreeable.

##

Historically, this team has kind of followed the Theory of Five core method...

One very good or star goalie, one very good/star d-man, three very good/star forwards. Obviously, there's variations to this. I prefer to have two strong d-men, for instance. But whatever, that's the deal. And then you ensure you get 5 points every 4 games. One should beget the other. When you add a sixth player or more, that's usually when you start speed-bagging teams (Hossa in '08 for instance, we went 12-2 on the East side - each time losing a game when already up 3-0).

With various roster losses and the seemingly imminent deterioration of Evgeni Malkin...not to be dramatic, but that is likely to happen as he works on 35 years old...we really don't have a strong core to build on.

I like Jarry, but we'll see...Letang is a goat here, but I have time for him. He's a #1 d-man in this league. Crosby. You could argue that Jake Guentzel carries some weight, is he a gamebreaker? Probably not. But he falls under the "very good" framework. He did have like 13 in 10 without Crosby last year, but he also got to play with Crosby-less Malkin, who we have come to know and love...but let's count him.

So your core, the spine of the team is: Jarry -- Letang -- Crosby - Guentzel - Malkin.

There's not a single other player in the organization that comes close to breaching that for me either.

We're competing against: Vasilevskiy -- Hedman - McDonagh -- Point - Stamkos
Rask -- McAvoy -- Marchand - Bergeron - Pastrnak
Samsonov -- Carlson -- Ovechkin - Backstrom - Kuznetsov - Oshie/Vrana
Hart -- Provorov - Couturier - Giroux - and at least one of those other skaters, maybe two.

That's a lot of weight on Jarry, that's a lot of weight on an old core, and that's a lot of weight on Guentzel.

So, the depth needs to fill in around it and be strong...and I'm not convinced of that...just eyeballing it, what do we really have...?

Guentzel = 1 LW* (support) - untested away from a HOF center
Crosby = 1 C (impact)
Rust = 2/3 RW (support)
Zucker = 2 LW I guess (support)
Malkin = 1 C for now (impact)
Kapanen = 3 RW (support)
McCann = 3 LW (support, possibly impact for role)
Blugers = 4 C
Tanev = 3 RW (impact for role)
ZAR = 4 LW
Jankowski = 4 C probably, 3 is a dreamboat scenario
Sceviour/ERod = 4 RW/13 F

Charitably, we have five or six top-six forwards. We don't really have a third line center. We'd have a terrific 4th line, but it comes at the cost of having a spare parts third, which is sort of a silly way to view the world...

Letang = 1 D (impact)
Dumoulin = 2/4 D (support)
Matheson = 3/5 D (?)
Marino = 3/4 D (we'll see, could be impact for role)
Pettersson = 6 D (support)
Ceci = 6/7 D
Ruhwedel = 6 D (support)
Riikola = ? (?)
Weber = 7 D

Ugh, I don't know that we have enough skill back there...there's not a lot of anything back there...I don't know what that defense is supposed to do, I don't know what you want to program them to do...I guess they can mostly skate, but only Letang and Marino can really move the puck, only Matheson can sort of carry it...

Jarry = we'll see, lot of upside, but first year really being the guy
DeSmith = fringe NHLer
Lagace = minor leaguer

It trails off very quickly compared to other rosters I see...there's no young, hungry kids around...like Philadelphia introduced Konecny, Provorov, Sanheim, Myers to an older core and sort of flipped their whole script...Washington introduced Vrana, Wilson, Orlov to an older core...

Guentzel for us, sure. I think Kapanen would be the worst player of any that I just mentioned above by a significant margin...Marino might belong...but it's pretty tough...it's sliding the wrong way for me...more accurately, it has slid the wrong way...now, of course, I'd give all my $GME earnings for another Cup with Sid and I pray that it happens...but this is an "out of ideas" roster for me, and you look at how it stacks up to others, we're water skiing behind them...

And of course, I understand selling your soul for Cups, I respect the hell out of it...we're the most successful franchise since the big sleep...that's the price. Chicago should go 0-56 this year. Los Angeles hasn't played an interesting game in five years...Detroit has one line that plays 63 minutes a game and the rest of the team watches...I get it the bell tolls for thee at some point...but it's really difficult to defend the roster we were given here, that Sullivan was given here, I'm not convinced we should have fired Martin and Gonchar either...I just think the wrong buttons are being pressed, and this was the result...

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby dodint » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:21 pm

BLUF me.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby Gaucho » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:22 pm

GMJR literally had one job this offseason and he failed miserably.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:49 pm

mikey thank you for your response.

i agree for the most part outside of maybe two items.

I feel like you're not as bullish as I am on Kapanen. Which is fair, you've seen him more. But I really like this kid.. I see him being more than a 3 RW.

Also, you forgot POJ. I think he's a big reason why I'm optimistic on the D.

I'm just comparing to last season, not necessarily vs other teams. TBL beats us on paper for sure. We were 4 pts out of first in the division last year with the following IIRC

I just feel like moving on from Marleau and Horny to Kapanen and Jankowski is a decent upgrade here. And McCann on the wing. Sceviour and ZAR are there. and Rodrigues is a guy, I guess.

D we had:

Dumo/Letang
Pettersson/Marino
JJ/Schultz

That's just gross. I think POJ/Matheson/Ceci just seems like a meaningful upgrade over JJ/Schultz. Pettersson can be relied on a bit less if POJ sticks. 2nd year Marino should be better than rookie Marino. I think we got younger, faster, and a little more deep. We'll see I suppose. Though it all hinges on Geno and Letang playing better. Dumo too when he's back

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:49 pm

GMJR literally had one job this offseason and he failed miserably.
He traded Murray...

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby mikey » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:55 pm

I'm going to try to find some time next week and really isolate on POJ...you're right, I did forget him...I suppose I'm not super optimistic about him anyhow...

Kapanen I could see being a tweener 2/3. I was probably a little harsh there to strictly call him just a 3...fair enough.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby willeyeam » Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:56 pm

I'm curious what you find on POJ as I've obvi only seen him a couple games. He seems like an upgraded version of Pettersson with some physicality

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby LeopardLetang » Sat Jan 30, 2021 5:00 pm

POJ looks good. size, pretty mobile, skates with the puck and some poise, threw a legit hit. so far so good. didn't get a good look at the shot or two last night. should have rewound.

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OFFICIAL GDT: Pens @ Bruins 01/28/21

Postby The U » Sat Jan 30, 2021 5:59 pm

POJ looks good. size, pretty mobile, skates with the puck and some poise, threw a legit hit. so far so good. didn't get a good look at the shot or two last night. should have rewound.
You know POJ is new around here. A Pens defensemen throwing a hit and eliminating an opponent from the play. He needs a stern talking to.

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