- OK, it was obvious that the Pens just didn't play well enough against the Flyers and I agree with much of the criticism of the Pens in this thread ..... Guentzel looks like he is avoiding contact, Rodrigues is a 4th liner who should not be playing on the 1st line, Geno looks out of sorts and not contributing with the question of whether he is in rapid decline or is not ready yet with the lack of pre-season practice time and exhibition games, the defense has not cleared the slot, is not physical enough, too often out of position, some of their pinches have resulted in odd man breaks especially when the forwards don't cover up, Letang has lost a step, Jarry was just bad, we have a lot of problems ..... but ......
- Although we lost both games, there were long stretches in both games against the Flyers where we dominated and this is confirmed by advanced stats ...... our CF% for the two games was 57.66% and FF% 60.41 both of which are really good for puck possession which often is thought to correlate with winning hockey ....... our xGF (expected goals for) was 3.34 and xGA (expected goals against) 2.58 which means based on the number and quality of shots in those two games, we were expected to score more goals then the Flyers ...... that they outscored us means either we didn't finish our chances and they did and/or their goalie made the saves and ours didn't ...... we actually had 17 high danger (grade A) shots and the Flyers 16, so we had our chances.
- Let's take a look at the goalie stats of Jarry to see just how badly he played or was it his defense being bad that was the main problem for him ...... I'm not going to use GAA (goals against average) nor SV% (save %) which are dependent on how both the goalie and the defense plays but use advanced stats, GSAx (goals saved above expected) and dSV% (delta save %) both of which indicate how the goalie is playing independent of how the defense is playing ( the goalie can still be playing well even if his defense is playing poorly and vice versa)...... GSAx is a cumulative stat that represents the number of goals allowed by a goalie compared to the number of goals that an average NHL goalie would be expected to allow for the same number and difficulty of shots ( GSAx = number of goals expected against an average NHL goalie on the same number and difficulty of shots minus the number of goals given up by the goalie) ...... dSV% is the goalies SV% minus the SV% an average NHL goalie would make on the same shots the goalie faced ...... these advanced goalie stats tell how a goalie is performing compared to how an average NHL goalie would perform against the same shots which makes it independent of how your defense is playing ...... a positive GSAx or dSV% means the goalie is performing better then the average NHL goalie and a negative GSAx or dSV% means the goalie is performing worse then the average NHL facing the same shots (again this is independent of how the defense is playing) ...... before today, 35 goalies had played in an NHL game this season ...... Jarry's GSAx was a minus 5.44 (35th out of 35 goalies) and dSV% a minus 12.82 (34th out of 35 goalies) ..... Jarry was basically the worst goalie in the NHL after Friday's games ..... also, Jarry save % on high danger shots was ~40% and Hart's ~86% ...... so although the defense was bad, Jarry was also very bad independent of how the defense played.
- Things I'm watching that might make the team better ......
1) Kapanen to replace Rodrigues as RW on the 1st line ...... ? when Kapanen will be ready and up to par but he should upgrade that line hopefully a significant amount which would make the team better.
2) Jarry needs to start playing like last season ...... hopefully, he and the goalie coach watched some film today and worked on his game ...... needs to get back to basics ...... in analyzing the 9 goals he gave up in the 1st two games, there were 4 or 5 he could have played better ..... there were problems with angles on a couple goals, too deep on a couple, got behind on the play a couple times, bad technique on one and bad rebound on one ...... these problems are correctable for him ....... I would be shocked if he didn't play a lot better soon which would help the team enormously.
3) Malkin ...... the question is whether he is in rapid decline and/or just needs more time to get his game together with the short pre-season and lack of exhibition games/practice time ........ he may be declining but I think he will play better then he has so far.
4) Not sure what to think about Jake but the way he is playing you have to wonder if he is still hurt ...... hopefully, he is healthy or gets there and finds his game again ..... that would really help the team.
5) We are still adjusting to new coaches and systems regarding the PP and PK and with limited practice time pre-season, I think with time both special team units will get better.
6) Need more structure and discipline to prevent odd man breaks especially when the defense pinches ..... this has been a problem for awhile, hopefully, new coaches can get the team to improve on this.
7) Then there is the defense which has been really poor and will be the biggest problem to improve ...... we aren't physical enough for sure but there are some things that may help somewhat ....... we need to improve our positioning/assignments in our own end ...... we need the forwards to back check and help out more in the defensive end ....... Letang's skating has lost a step and you see what looks like further decline in his game so it may be time to decrease his minutes and increase Marino's minutes instead (we'll have to see what Dr.
vonYinzer says about this, hehe) ...... I'm not against trading Letang during the season but only if it improves the team ........ might have to try some of the young guys like P-O Joseph ....... we could consider a trade but don't have a depth of assets now to offer ..... they weren't great but I thought the 3rd defensive line played better in the 2nd game, Matheson was better and I think it may have been because of his new partner (Ruhwedel) who played pretty well ..... of course, when Chad Ruhwedel is playing better then your 1st line defense, you are in trouble !
8) My guess is that we won't make the playoffs as the team has too many weaknesses and the East Division is really tough, but It's too early to count them out yet IMO ..... if we don't make the playoffs, then there is no question that it's time to rebuild (this is going to occur sooner then later anyhow).
SORRY for the long post.