re: Puckheads Unite! Season Long NHL Thread

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Need to build on that period to win this, I'm not convinced the wild can't throw up a 3 spot in a period.

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The Penguins have looked largely terrible from the moment the puck was dropped against these same Stars two weeks ago in Dallas. They’ve looked directionless, disinterested and, yes, disgusted with some of the decisions being made behind the bench.

But they’re 3-4, hardly grounds for firing a coach.

So why even broach the topic, right?


I mean, hey, it took the Blue Jackets going 0-7 with a ton of talent to get Todd Richards fired. Other teams get off to slow starts. Other teams find a way out. It’s all too often, especially in the NHL, that smart, competent coaches get tossed as knee-jerk reactions.

Well, there’s also this, and you’ll want to take a deep breath first: In the Penguins’ past 27 games, dating back to last season and including Stanley Cup playoffs, they are 8-19. They’ve averaged 1.63 goals per game. They’ve scored more than three goals in one — count ’em, one! — of those 27 games. They’ve been held to one or zero goals in 14 of those 27 games. The power play has converted at 12.5 percent. Their shooting percentage is 4.9 percent.

I mean, a team with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and now Phil Kessel can’t score.

It also can’t defend particularly well.

Or skate up the ice as a collective.

Or gain the opponents’ blue line.

Or muster a forecheck lasting more than four-tenths of a second.

Or shoot.

Or score.

That, my friends, is grounds for firing a coach.

And if the Penguins’ next two games — at Nashville (6-1) and at Washington (5-1) — go the way that the NHL standings suggest they should, it might be case closed. I can’t imagine how Johnston survives that, not with all that’s preceded it, not with how precious every point will be in the playoff race and — don’t forget this — not with the franchise up for sale and Mario Lemieux watching his payday of a lifetime shrivel up before his eyes.

People above Johnston are displeased. I can tell you that unequivocally.

And they should be.

Chris Kunitz, at the risk of picking on one guy, now has one point in his past 26 games. It was a goal in Game 2 against the Rangers, for you hockey historians. He has no points in his past 13 games, including nothing to show for the current season.

There’s a very real possibility he’s done in the NHL at age 36, even if Johnston can’t or won’t accept it. The legs have been long gone. The hands are following.

But there he was again Thursday, logging 19:37 of ice time. Most of that was on the first line. Some of it was on the top power-play unit. On one second-period power play, he stayed on the ice for 1:38 and left Patric Hornqvist, a superior player and competitor in every way, sitting on the bench.

In a game in which Dallas struck twice early, Kunitz had more ice time through two periods than Malkin. That’s indefensible. That’s insane.

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4-0 on the road trip, 6-1-0 to start the season.

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