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 Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins?

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PostSubject: Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins?   Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins? EmptyTue Jan 09, 2018 11:18 am

For all of you who do not view the Pittsburgh Penguins and captain Sidney Crosby in a positive light, could have bad news for you.

The team's record was just a tad over .500 at the halfway mark of the season. Part of the reason was that the Penguins piled up 12 one-goal losses -- nine in regulation, two in overtime and one in the painfully awful shootout.

For a while recently, the Penguins were not in a playoff spot. The current two-game winning streak has them back in the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.

Still the record was a bit surprising since advanced statistics on www.corsica.hockey and elsewhere were positive. So there was some bad puck luck involved.

Arguably the worst luck I've seen personally on TV for the Penguins occurred on what proved to be the winning goal for the Rangers midway through the third period of a their 4-3 victory in Pittsburgh on December 5.

A pass by Rangers' forward Pavel Buchnevich deflected off Penguins' D Kris Letang and into the net, going over the shoulder of goaltender Tristan Jarry and snapping a 3-3 tie.

Buchnevich, skating up the right wing, crossed the blue line into the Pittsburgh defensive zone and tried a saucer pass the puck to his left. Letang was backing toward the goal.

If you just saw the puck going into the net and not the deflection off Letang, you probably would think that is was a goal-scorer's goal since the puck entered the net at the upper 90 of the right post.

The Rangers' rush that resulted in the goal starts at around 4:57 of the video.




This loss was particularly galling since the Penguins outshot the Rangers, 44-29, hit a number of goalposts and could not defeat Rangers' backup goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. (Lundqvist was out with flu.) The final shot off a post was by Penguins' F Evgeni Malkin with just a few seconds remaining and an extra skater on. Big Ben struck 1. But the game did not go into overtime.

No doubt the Penguins' D has been bad. Letang is virtually useless as a defenseman. And the team badly needs a legitimate center for the third line.  (Malkin recently was moved down to center the third line.)

But there was reason for me to have optimism Sunday night. The Penguins won their second straight game for the first time in a little more than one month by rallying to defeat Boston, 6-5, in overtime.

This followed a 4-0 shutout of the reeling Islanders.

Boston came in as one of the hottest teams in the NHL. The Bruins were riding a five-game winning streak and were 14-4 in their last 18.

But for me, it just wasn't the fact that the Penguins won. It was the way they won.

After earning a 3-1 after the first period, the Penguins coughed up the first four goal of the second to fall behind, 5-3.

Exit starting goaltender Jarry. Enter Matt Murray.

The first key point came when Evgeni Malkin scored with less than four seconds remaining in the second period to cut the deficit to 5-4 and give the team optimism heading into the intermission.

Then, early in the third, Riley Sheehan got loose down the left wing and scored the tying goal unassisted at 2:54. The goal resulted from a wrist shot from maybe 10 feet on an acute angle that beat Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask under the left arm on the short side.

The score stayed the same until what for me could be the BIG turning point of the season occurred with just 1:01 remaining. Penguins D Jamie Oleksiak slashed Brad Marchand on a breakaway. A penalty shot correctly was awarded. Murray made the save.

The play is shown in the video below. Marchand tried to deke left to right. But he made his move too close to Murray.



Then, Malkin gave the Penguins the big win, firing a shot over Rask's left pad at 2:51 of overtime. The goal capped a nifty tic-tac-toe sequence involving Malkin and Phil Kessel that ended up with Malkin alone on the doorstep.

Here is that video. And I find it hilarious that the video I selected from YouTube includes commentary from a fellow Penguins' fan watching on television. Yes, he got excited!!! Can't blame him. I got excited as well.



I am a big believer in individual plays changing a team's fortunes. Let's see if I am correct in this case.
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Morganwigge
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PostSubject: Re: Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins?   Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins? EmptyWed Jan 10, 2018 12:34 pm

As one who has his finger on the pulse of the NHL, what's your take on the success of the Vegas Golden Knights? Specifically, how the hell are they doing what they're doing?!?

Coaching? Goaltending? Magic beans?
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PostSubject: Sorry for late response THIS IS IN PROGRESS   Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins? EmptyMon Jan 15, 2018 3:08 pm

Hello, Paul. Just picking this up.

Great question. My take is that the NHL governors made the rules much more favorable for Las Vegas than they have for expansion teams in the past. The result was that there were some REALLY decent players available. On top of that, I think the players assembled have blended well together.

Keep in mind that the expansion free Las Vegas ownership had to pay to the NHL was $500 million. That's a lot of money. So, in return, I believe the NHL Board of Governors set the rules for the expansion draft that insured that the Golden Knights would not be dreadful out of the gate.

Will take a look at the rules for the Las Vegas expansion. And I will try to look back and see what the rules were for past expansions.

First, let's turn on the "Wayback Machine." Certainly in the deep past, the NHL stacked the deck against expansion teams, such as the 1974-75 Washington Capitals, when only has beens and never weres were available to be selected.

The 1974-75 Capitals finished the season with a record of 8-67-5. The breakdown was 7-28-5 at home and 1-39-0 on the road.

This record was right there among the worst the NHL has ever seen. Don't have time to work out winning percentages. But the 1974-75 Capitals are right there with the 1929-30 Pittsburgh Pirates and the 1930-31 Philadelphia Quakers.

In their last season in Pittsburgh, the Pirates were 5-36-3. This team, which  made the playoffs at least once, cratered.

A move to Philadelphia for one season -- 1930-31 -- did no good. The Quakers' record was even worse, 4-36-4.

Back to the 1974-75 Capitals. That one road win for the Capitals was against the awful California Golden Seals (one of six teams added in the first expansion in 1967-68 with a link to the Dallas Stars of today via the Cleveland Barons and the Minnesota North Stars) in Game 76, 5-3. This is the famous game in which the Capitals players were so stoked afterward that they went into their dressing room and ALL came back onto the ice carrying a garbage can.

The Capitals then took turns skating the garbage can, which they dubbed the Stanley Can, around the ice. You can look this up. It happened.

I can't remember for sure if the Capitals decorated the Stanley Can with toilet paper. I'll have to look at that up.

This win made the Caps 7-64-5. They didn't win again until the regular-season finale at the old Cap Centre in Landover, MD. Sadly, I was listening that night on the radio as the Capitals, led by F Stan Gilbertson (who, you may ask, yes Stan Gilbertson) with four goals in an 8-4 CLUBBING of the PITTSBURGH PENGUINS. OOOF!!!

Jeez, I was beside myself after that game!!! It was the first time a Washington player had scored four goals in a game.

(Just had to share those historic anecdotes from the "Wayback Machine.")

The 1974-75 Caps finished last in goals scored with a tiny 181 and last in goals allowed, with a whopping 446. They were last in both by a significant margin.

Expansion teams of the past ALWAYS have had this problem. Both offense and defense/goaltending is awful.

Here's another example, the 1991-92 San Jose Sharks. They also were last in goals scored -- 218 -- and goals allowed -- 359 -- by a wide margin. The record was 17-58-9 (last overall).

I believe these teams and other expansion teams over the years were awful initially partly due to the rules the NHL laid out for stocking these teams with (lack of) talent.

This is the long way to make my point that never before has an expansion team -- Las Vegas -- been able to get a quality goaltender of the caliber of Fleury in the expansion draft. Also, GM David Poile, who earlier has been the GM of Washington and then Nashville, made it a priority to draft D.

But again, the rules for the expansion draft were MUCH MORE FAVORABLE for Las Vegas than any prior expansion team. (I'll pick this up a little later today. Have to get some work done. Just finishing my lunch break.)
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PostSubject: Re: Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins?   Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins? EmptyTue Jan 16, 2018 9:14 am

Favorable rules may be the difference between fielding (icing) a competitive team versus a bad team, but Vegas, points-wise, has the second best record (!!) in the entire NHL!!!

You don't do that without magic beans.

I know a lot of bookies are worried  pale  as the betting odds of Vegas winning the Stanley Cup during the preseason was 500-1.

Related: LINK
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PostSubject: Yes you do   Potential turning point of the season for Pittsburgh Penguins? EmptyTue Jan 16, 2018 10:44 am

Paul, I'll finish my post at some point today. As far as I am concerned, favorable rules the key. It allowed Las Vegas to pick Fleury from Pittsburgh. Never before has any NHL expansion had a goaltender of this caliber. But the rules also allowed for picking up F and D who were not awful. I'll outline those rules when I continue my post.

Yes, the team has played well. Do I expect Las Vegas to continue to play at this level? No.
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