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Started By
Message
re: Unofficial NHL Season-Long Thread: Puckheads Unite!
Posted on 11/19/14 at 3:59 pm to Baloo
Posted on 11/19/14 at 3:59 pm to Baloo
Well off the top of my head you said the Pens bottom six was still terrible, when it's near the top of the league in production.
You also said their PK wouldn't be near as good as last year, and it's better.
You also said the Pens were a worse team this year than last, not the case either. This team is significantly better in pretty much every phase of the game.
It's okay though, nothing personal, I understand the hate causing poor judgement and resulting in a biased opinion.
I like how you ragged on him all year last year but haven't said a word about him now that he's in a Capitals Jersey. Goes both ways bruh!
You also said their PK wouldn't be near as good as last year, and it's better.
You also said the Pens were a worse team this year than last, not the case either. This team is significantly better in pretty much every phase of the game.
It's okay though, nothing personal, I understand the hate causing poor judgement and resulting in a biased opinion.
quote:
I do like how you now slag on Orpik after talking about how great he was when he worse a Penguins jersey
I like how you ragged on him all year last year but haven't said a word about him now that he's in a Capitals Jersey. Goes both ways bruh!
This post was edited on 11/19/14 at 4:27 pm
2
Posted on 11/19/14 at 4:27 pm to UltimateHog
This is why it's hard to hate on Orpik:
quote:
In fact, when Orpik learned that Maatta had been diagnosed with cancer and told he would need up to a month to recover from the procedure, Orpik predicted he’d be back in two weeks.
“I don’t have enough good things to say about the kid, to be honest with you,” said Orpik, who saw Maatta enter the NHL as a 19-year-old rookie with the Penguins last season. “He’s probably as humble and as ego-less as they come.
“He just works hard every day. It’s strange to say someone 19 years old can be a true professional, but he really is. That’s hard to find, especially now. You see a lot more kids coming up now. I don’t know whether it’s social media, but you see a lot more entitlement. I’m not afraid to call it cockiness. And this kid has none of that.”
quote:
“He’s confident in his abilities because of his work ethic and preparation,” Orpik said. “I think everybody was surprised at the amount of success he had. I think everyone thought he would achieve it, just not that quickly.
“I mean, he played with a torn labrum in his shoulder for most of last year. Even the Olympics, people thought that would scare him, the big stage, but he enjoys those moments.
“He’s as respectful a young guy as I’ve ever played with and probably the best work ethic from a young guy I’ve ever worked with. He’s just a nice kid.”
Posted on 11/20/14 at 10:47 am to UltimateHog
quote:
Well off the top of my head you said the Pens bottom six was still terrible, when it's near the top of the league in production.
They have as many even strength goals as Joel Ward by himself, so let's slow down on tops in the league. Steve Downie is a PIM machine, already at 60 PIM, which is just horrible. All three players on the third line are possession black holes with RelCorsi's in the negatives and both wings in double digit negatives. Sutter is at least at -8.31, making him the msot productive bottom 6 forward. That's awful, BTW.
this team is still extraordinarily top heavy, and it's hiding a lot of weaknesses with extreme puck luck. You're never as good as you are when you're winning and never as bad as you when losing. The Pens are on a 9-1 stretch, which is great, and only a good team could go on a run that great, but they also have a PDO of 1070 right now (PDO measures puck luck, 1000 is league average). The highest PDO ever measured for a full season is 1020, so right now, the Pens are off the charts. Their puck luck will even out, as it always does (Nashville also needs to worry, BTW).
quote:
You also said their PK wouldn't be near as good as last year, and it's better.
I don't remember ever making a prediction on how their pk would do, as that kind of thing is pretty variable and hard to predict. They were at 85% last year and they are at 88.4% right now, which is essentially a wash this early. They were ranked 5th last year, and they're 4th this year.
quote:
You also said the Pens were a worse team this year than last, not the case either.
No, I said they are probably brought into the pack because I thought the rest of the division was better. Columbus has been decimated by injuries, who knows what is wrong with the Rangers, and the Caps have not seen their record catch up with the massive turnaround in their underlying stats.
The unit I criticized was the defense, as I'm not sure how they got better by losing Niskanen and Orpik and adding Ehrhoff, who is a real good player, but is just one guy.
And honestly, their defense is showing the same issues as the forwards: stars and scrubs. Maatta and Letang are killing it, but all of the other blueliners are underwater on RelCorsi. Martin and Scuderi are both in double digit negatives, which is shocking to me. Martin's too good a puck mover to be getting killed this badly on possession.
This team still reminds me of the firewagon Caps. Incredibly top heavy, suspect goaltending, terrific special teams, and an offense first philosophy. BTW, the stat I referenced about the highest PDO ever... it was the 2010 Caps. They even have that in common. I thin kthey are better than that Caps team, which had a truly putrid defensive corps while the Pens' is closer to an awesome top pair backed up by about league average (giving Martin the benefit of the doubt that he'll bounce back, while I think some of their positive performance is unsustainable, so is this negative -- Martin's a better player than his numbers indicate right now).
But compared to the other top contenders for the Cup, the Pens are a flawed team. And they essentially have the same flaws they've had for the past five seasons. They are a lot better than a lot of the league, but the demand in Pittsburgh is to compete for the Cup, given that they have two of the best players in hockey on their team.
In the past 5 seasons, they've made the ECF one time, and lost in the first round twice. The question is: is this team closer to winning a Cup? And the path through the East looks a lot easier as the Bruins have taken a massive step backwards this season, but the Pens look a lot weaker on paper than the Western contenders. It doesn't mean they absolutely can't win the Cup, the easier playoff draw will help, but they aren't as constructed as well as the Hawks and Kings (or even the Blues), and I don't think they've fixed the fundamental flaws on the team that have caused them to fail each of the past 5 years.
They've been re-arranging the deck chairs, but this is essentially the same team it has been the past 5 years. Maybe it will work this time, sixth time is a charm and all that. But I'm skeptical.
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