Pens vs. Dallas Stars

Hey folks,

I've started a blog just because Bill complains about me filling up his Twitter feed.  So here goes:


So the Pens lost 5-2 tonight to the Dallas Stars.  Not a whole lot of positives to come out of this one but I'll try.


- Penalty Kill:  The penalty kill played pretty well tonight.  Stars went 0/5 on the power play.  Brent Johnson only faced 5 shots and had to make a couple big saves, but you have to expect facing tough chances on the PK and Johnny stood on his head (at least on the PK).

- Fights: The team stood up for each other tonight.  TK's fight against Jamie Benn was textbook.  TK didn't have to win, but he did his job of defending his superstar linemate.  Crosby fight?  Yep, Crosby fought Matt Niskanen.  I don't know what set off Crosby but I liked it.  The only thing I didn't like is that Kris Letang fought Brendan Morrow.  Someone needed to take an instigator penalty on that.  Bob Errey said it best (holy crap, Bob Errey was right?!), Letang should not fight after a hand injury.  Noone went after Morrow in the game and I didn't like that either.  I lost some respect for Brendan Morrow tonight after that display but he's a Star so I don't see him that much and quite frankly don't care.

Obviously in a loss there a bound to be more negatives than positives.  Here they are:

Power Play:  What happened?  The power play was unstoppable in the first 7 games of the season and now they can't buy a goal.  In those first 7 games, if they didn't score, they at least had a ton of chances.  That 5-on-3 was awful.  It was so predictable, just like last years PP.  Crosby one-timer, Malkin one-timer, Goligoski one-timer.  Where's the movement?  I'll get into what made the PP so good early on in another post because I don't have enough time to put it down now.

Defense: I haven't been very vocal about the defense of this team but it's not very good at all.  I don't mean just the defensemen, the team as a whole.  HCDB's defensive philosophy is to play a puck-possession style of offense.  There are nights it works and there are nights it doesn't.  Tonight it didn't.  Defensive zone coverage needs to be stressed in practice.  On the second goal, Big Z was battling 2-on-1 down low.  Gogo should have come down to help him out but stood in front of the net when Brad Richards was off to his left for the easy one-time goal.  Malkin was on the ice for it and stood around the point area, because of his reps at wing.  I'll get into that in a bit.

Brent Johnson:  First bad game for Johnny tonight.  The Robidas goal he wants back.  The Leif Eriksson penalty shot goal he wants back.  HCDB has ridden the Johnny wave to a 5-1-1 start, but did the magic wear off? Tonight won't be a good indication of that.  If Johnny plays poorly next game, I'm willing to believe Fleury will get the nod of confidence for the majority of season.

HCDB:  I don't think this was a well coached game tonight.  After Dallas jumped out to a 2-0 in the first 10 minutes, I think it's a good idea to call a timeout and get everyone situated.  I also didn't like that Geno wasn't on the wing tonight.  If that's going to be the long-term place for him, leave him there.  Let Letestu or Comrie or Crosby center a line with Geno on it.  Yeah, Letestu and Comrie aren't Jordan Staal, I get that.  But he'll be better served to play wing the whole time rather than moving to wing when Staalsy comes back.  And I feel that Fleury should have played the third period.  What was Johnny going to gain from playing there?  Absolutely nothing.  Put Fleury in during garbage time, let him build his confidence for Friday, see where it goes.

Tonight could have gone better.  Most of this seems knee-jerk after a poor performance all around, but the PP really needs to figure out what it's doing and fast or this team will continue to perform inconsistently.

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