The Penguins went into Calgary and played a decent game. They did not come out with the two standings points they were looking for. Pittsburgh had an xGF% of 69.41 which is about half a percentage within their best performance of the season. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh allowed the Flames to tie the game in the last minute and were unable to muster up enough goals in the shootout and they were left with a single standings point. It is the type of game you look back on in April if you are trying to eek out points. This is the first loss of the season to a team who did not make the playoffs last year breaking the trend thus far.
Mike Sullivan did not make any changes to the goaltending. Alex Nedeljkovic was given his second consecutive start and played well in defeat. Tristan Jarry was a healthy scratch for the second game in a row.
For better or worse this does happen with goalies in the league who go on to find their way back and have very successful, long careers. “It’s how they handle this stretch that will define it. And that’s what we’re looking forward to from Tristan
We’re not going to leave our roster shorthanded.” Notes that Blomqvist can “go down and play” in AHL. Says Jarry and Nedeljkovic would only go to AHL on conditioning assignments
It’s a competition.” “We have to do a better job in front of them, there’s no doubt. “And one of them has to step up and grab it. I expect one or two of them will
We can do what most probably want you to do at this time, which is turn your back and throw baby out with bath water — and people will argue he’s been with organization a long time and it hasn’t clicked
I would say the if you look at goalie that won Cup last year, and 13 or 14 months prior he was backing up for the Panthers. — on a long term deal that people were criticizing as well
They certainly aren’t babying Jarry at the moment, but also don’t expect him to be sent down to the AHL. Blomqvist is going to be sent down when the team feels as though Jarry can give them a start. The Penguins are in an interesting spot with the goaltenders heading into their game against the Oilers. Do you give Nedeljkovic three starts in a row right out of the gate? Do you throw the rookie into the fire against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl? One thing I wouldn’t do is put Jarry in there for that game. He can sit out this trip. I’d rather see how the rookie does in that spot as it sounds like he is destined to the AHL soon anyways.
While Sullivan did not make changes to the goaltenders for the Flames game he did switch up the defense pairs. There’s no magic answer for this. They are short at least one top four defenseman on the left side and that’s even before you take into consideration Marcus Pettersson’s slow start to the season. Matt Grzelcyk is not capable of playing a proper top four defense role. Heading into last night he had the lowest xGF% among regulars at 43.90. The issue of course (aside from signing him) is that Ryan Graves isn’t a candidate for that type of role, either. To Ryan Graves’ credit he has been fine on the third pairing to this point, but you don’t pay someone 4.5M to be fine on a third pairing. Kyle Dubas’ free agent spending has a lot to be desired at this point in time.
It's a long shot and it will take weeks and months of quality play in the AHL, but an NHL spot on the left side of the Penguins defense is there for the taking for Owen Pickering if he can take the next step in his development. I wouldn’t rush him and I also wouldn’t be hesitant to give him a look if he is showing the proper gains in WB/S. It’s way early in the season and this will be a developing situation to keep an eye on.
I think the fourth line has been as good as it has been in a while. When you look at the cap hits allocated to the line it almost has to be. The Hayes-Glass-Acciari line takes up about 8M of cap space and when combined with the other spending you can understand why the Penguins don’t have a great chance at the playoffs.
When the Flames tied it up late in the third period I wasn’t feeling great about the Penguins picking up the second standings point. Last year they were really really bad at the 3v3. Last night I thought they were very good in the overtime session. They can’t afford to go back and forth and up and down the ice. They aren’t a good enough skating team to trade chances that way. Instead, they were very deliberate and kept the puck even if it meant doing the annoying leave the offensive zone and loop back around again tactic. They don’t have a choice it has to be like that. As for the shootout they just don’t have an edge like they used to. Marc-Andre Fleury was/is an all-time great in the shootout and Crosby and Malkin for whatever reason aren’t very dynamic or successful as you would think. Hell, Malkin isn’t even in the top five shooters anymore and the last time Crosby probably deked on a shootout was the Jose Theodore moment in his rookie season. It feels like even Kris Letang has cooled over the years after being really good in the shootout. For now, I would lean into Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust because they just seem to have better success.
It was a tough result against the Flames and things aren’t going to get any easier tomorrow evening. It will be another uphill battle for the Penguins when they face the defending Western Conference champions.
Thanks for reading!
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