This jersey that I spotted at the game last night just about sums up my feelings. It was a brutal loss that brought the boo-birds out in our second home game. The forecheck yet again was nonexistent, we saw dozens of lazy passes, and the power play . . . LORD the power play. The first unit couldn't generate anything - no open looks, no unexpected passes, no sustained possession - aside from a whole mess of supergreat SHOOOOOOOOT cheers from the fans (spoiler alert, when they did shoooooooot, it got blocked). The second unit features Tyler Kennedy as the primary playmaker, so you go ahead and guess how that turned out.
The Penguins' woes with the man-advantage were exacerbated by the Islanders' own power play, which basically set up a couch, a coffee table, and a couple of Barcaloungers in the Pens' zone and made themselves at home. The Penguins penalty kill, ever the gracious host, welcomed them in with open arms and stationary legs. And this:
That's John Tavares in the circle, by far the Islanders' most dangerous scorer. Somehow, he was open for this shot at least three times over the course of two second-period power plays, both of which resulted in goals. And when I say open, I mean, there isn't a Penguin on his side of the ice. And I used my Photoshop diagramming skills to illustrate that he had approximately 85% of the net to shoot at. In this case, Tavares chose to rocket a one-timer directly at Marc-Andre Fleury's face, and Fleury ducked the hell out the way.
Apparently the boos that rained down as the Penguins steadfastly refused to take advantage of a five-minute major penalty to Colin MacDonald (who was handed a two game suspension today) did not fall on deaf ears. Word out of Penguins practice today is that Byslma will be moving Malkin to the point and shifting Neal down low, which is all well and good except for the fact that it takes our best scorer (Malkin) away from his favorite spot (on the right half-boards). I guess we'll have to hope that Malkin will be able to create space at the point and eventually fade toward his spot, and that we won't just give up infinite short-handed goals.
Problematizing things even further is the fact that Matt Niskanen is out for 2-4 weeks with a "lower body injury," eliminating one of our top offensive defensemen from the power play discussion. While I'm on it, the whole vague, cheeky "lower/upper body injury" thing is truly frustrating. The fans would like to know what is actually ailing injured players, but coaches find it strategically beneficial to give out the bare minimum, only disclosing where the injury occured vis-a-vis some imaginary bodily equator. Why? Because if they said "so-and-so has a fractured ankle," they fear that opposing players will target those areas. In which case, what is wrong with us? Don't get me wrong, I love hockey, but when coaches have to withhold information for fear that other players will use that information to willfully reinjure another human being? Yikes.
Perhaps the most worrisome thing to take from the Islanders game is the Penguins' inability to bounce back. After struggling to find a rhythm and falling behind, the game quickly devolved into "Geno or Sid need to save the team, let's have them try to bust into the zone 1-on-2 and do something magical." Sure, sometimes they are going to do something magical and score an unbelievable goal, but the majority of the time the puck is going to drift harmlessly into the corner boards, and the Pens wingers won't be close enough to put pressure on the opposing defense. The flip side of Sid and Geno putting the scoring burden on their own shoulders is the feeling that, if those two can't create a goal, no one will. That's what we call in the blogging world a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to go back to generating scoring by attrition, by sending forecheckers in waves and wearing down the opposition. Until that happens, we're a two-headed monster without a leg to stand on.
Anyway, long story short, this game sucked. The Penguins have a lot to work on, and Pens fans will just have to keep on hoping that this is all due to "lockout rust," as opposed to "systemic flaws in the make up of the team."
A few bright spots from last night: Dustin Jeffrey, who my girlfriend's dad told me played really well in Croatia (above), was finally active, and got a lot of run on the wing with Malkin and Neal. He's going to get the chance to stick on that line, especially if he keeps playing like he did last night. He made a lot of solid plays, and no jaw-droppingly bad plays (which can't be said about, for instance, Malkin and Crosby), and overall looked good - ZAGREB good.
Kris Letang was the team's most dynamic player. He looks good. This is an ongoing theme.
I - and the rest of the ticketholders who stuck around for the final horn - appreciated the urgency the Penguins showed to spoil Nabokov's shutout. Dupuis' put back was a hollow goal par excellence, but it was nice to cheer for something. This is what we've been reduced to.
