Bryan Rust can't beat the Blue Jackets' Elvis Merzlikins or Cole Sillinger on a forehand wrap attempt Tuesday.
The Penguins have sunken from surging to should-be-purging with the flipping of the calendar, having lost all four games since New Year's Eve in Detroit. And it sure isn't just about Tristan Jarry or the goaltending in general.
I cover Jarry in this column. I'm covering the rest right here.
With these three slices of wholly unsolicited -- and I'll bet unwanted -- advice:
1. ENOUGH NIETO
Look, the 4-3 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets here tonight at PPG Paints Arena was blah on lots of levels, but nothing, not even Jarry, was as blah as the fourth-liners.
Left to right, Matt Nieto, Blake Lizotte and Noel Acciari were outshot, 6-1, while on the ice at five-on-five, and were the team's only line with negative possession metrics. Now, they were out for half of the team's defensive-zone faceoffs, per the norm, and that always weighs such metrics down. But it doesn't excuse easily eyeballed overall play: Two total hits, two total giveaways, zero takeaways and ... well, what else?
Separating Nieto's that much easier. He's got a goal and two assists in 21 games, he barely registers a blip visually with anything he does and, when he's on the ice, the Penguins have produced only 39.6% of the shot attempts, the lowest such figure on the team.
Well, the convenient answer for a while was that the overall penalty-killing was excellent. Which it was. But it's a measly 6 for 11 in these four losses -- a game-defining 0 for 2 in this one -- and, truth be told, it'd been trending poorly for a couple weeks leading into this.
I asked Mike Sullivan after this game what's happened.
“A lot of it just boils down to details," he replied. "It’s anticipation, playing on our toes. I don’t think we’re pressuring collectively as well as we were, so we’re giving them time and space to operate. That’s part of it. We’ve had opportunities to get clears and we don’t get them. That’s part of it. At the end of the day, a lot of it boils down to details that we’ve let slip here on our kill.”
Yep. And guess who's primarily responsible for the light pressuring and the lousy clears:
Yikes and a half. That's Nieto with the feeble attempt to flick the puck out of the zone and, as long as I'm at it, that's Acciari making himself as small as possible in the middle of the box to allow the Blue Jackets to tic-tac-toe, and that's Marcus Pettersson, who wasn't exactly excellent on this night, too late to defend Dmitri Voronkov.
Pettersson's a mainstay, though. Nieto shouldn't be. He's been a spare-part type for years, and he's (commendably) fresh off two major knee surgeries, and yet his place in the lineup's been pretty much cemented since his return, presumably for the penalty-kill.
What if that kill's now a shortcoming?
2. RESUME THE ROTATION
Part of what made training camp and Kyle Dubas' summer-long assembly of the roster so intriguing was that it was aimed at creating real competition. Not just in Cranberry but beyond.
Especially up front, the outlook was that forwards would have to keep fighting to show that extra fire the Penguins had been missing most of last season and, if they didn't -- poof! -- off they'd go across I-80 to Wilkes-Barre or wherever else. Whereas, similarly, those in the AHL would feel that the opportunity in Pittsburgh would be as real as it gets at that level.
OK, where is it?
Is it even remotely fathomable that Nieto's bringing more to the Penguins than absolutely anyone in the minors? Or, for that matter, Jesse Puljujarvi, who rotted first in the press box then on waivers for a month, before finally suiting up again last night?
Exhibit A of how this should work: Anthony Beauvillier, who'd achieved precious little for the better part of two months, was set to be the healthy scratch for this game. He suited up only because Evgeni Malkin became a late scratch due to injury, and, just like that, Beauvillier established a presence all over the rink with a team-high four hits as part of the Penguins' highest-performing line on the evening alongside Cody Glass and Michael Bunting.
Hunger's brought about. Desperation. A belief that each shift for-real counts. The kind of thing that could help the Penguins avoid comatose first periods like the one tonight.
What prevents Dubas from preserving such a rotation?
If it's that Sullivan has too much of an affinity for Nieto and/or Acciari, that's when Dubas can point to that placard on his office door, the one with the dozen or so official titles on it.
3. THINK BIG
I won't take this one too far, since it was one sample size of 19 whole shifts, but man, did I like what I saw of the newly assembled third line of Drew O'Connor, Kevin Hayes and Puljujarvi.
They outshot the Blue Jackets, 6-2, while on the ice, and out-attempted them, 18-10, including producing both high-danger scoring chances. They chased, banged and scrapped all night, and they even had the defensive play of the game with Puljujarvi's dogged trackback and stick-lift to strip possession at the Pittsburgh blue line.
Do. Not. Break. This. Up.
At least not right away. This team would benefit in countless ways from three dudes at 6-3, 6-4 and 6-4 flying around, in all candor, even if they don't score much. And they look like they will.
THE ASYLUM
DK: Oh, it's not just goaltending
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Bryan Rust can't beat the Blue Jackets' Elvis Merzlikins or Cole Sillinger on a forehand wrap attempt Tuesday.
The Penguins have sunken from surging to should-be-purging with the flipping of the calendar, having lost all four games since New Year's Eve in Detroit. And it sure isn't just about Tristan Jarry or the goaltending in general.
I cover Jarry in this column. I'm covering the rest right here.
With these three slices of wholly unsolicited -- and I'll bet unwanted -- advice:
1. ENOUGH NIETO
Look, the 4-3 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets here tonight at PPG Paints Arena was blah on lots of levels, but nothing, not even Jarry, was as blah as the fourth-liners.
Left to right, Matt Nieto, Blake Lizotte and Noel Acciari were outshot, 6-1, while on the ice at five-on-five, and were the team's only line with negative possession metrics. Now, they were out for half of the team's defensive-zone faceoffs, per the norm, and that always weighs such metrics down. But it doesn't excuse easily eyeballed overall play: Two total hits, two total giveaways, zero takeaways and ... well, what else?
Separating Nieto's that much easier. He's got a goal and two assists in 21 games, he barely registers a blip visually with anything he does and, when he's on the ice, the Penguins have produced only 39.6% of the shot attempts, the lowest such figure on the team.
Watch only No. 83 below to see why:
Oh, you bet. Selke here we come.
So why's he playing?
Well, the convenient answer for a while was that the overall penalty-killing was excellent. Which it was. But it's a measly 6 for 11 in these four losses -- a game-defining 0 for 2 in this one -- and, truth be told, it'd been trending poorly for a couple weeks leading into this.
I asked Mike Sullivan after this game what's happened.
“A lot of it just boils down to details," he replied. "It’s anticipation, playing on our toes. I don’t think we’re pressuring collectively as well as we were, so we’re giving them time and space to operate. That’s part of it. We’ve had opportunities to get clears and we don’t get them. That’s part of it. At the end of the day, a lot of it boils down to details that we’ve let slip here on our kill.”
Yep. And guess who's primarily responsible for the light pressuring and the lousy clears:
Yikes and a half. That's Nieto with the feeble attempt to flick the puck out of the zone and, as long as I'm at it, that's Acciari making himself as small as possible in the middle of the box to allow the Blue Jackets to tic-tac-toe, and that's Marcus Pettersson, who wasn't exactly excellent on this night, too late to defend Dmitri Voronkov.
Pettersson's a mainstay, though. Nieto shouldn't be. He's been a spare-part type for years, and he's (commendably) fresh off two major knee surgeries, and yet his place in the lineup's been pretty much cemented since his return, presumably for the penalty-kill.
What if that kill's now a shortcoming?
2. RESUME THE ROTATION
Part of what made training camp and Kyle Dubas' summer-long assembly of the roster so intriguing was that it was aimed at creating real competition. Not just in Cranberry but beyond.
Especially up front, the outlook was that forwards would have to keep fighting to show that extra fire the Penguins had been missing most of last season and, if they didn't -- poof! -- off they'd go across I-80 to Wilkes-Barre or wherever else. Whereas, similarly, those in the AHL would feel that the opportunity in Pittsburgh would be as real as it gets at that level.
OK, where is it?
Is it even remotely fathomable that Nieto's bringing more to the Penguins than absolutely anyone in the minors? Or, for that matter, Jesse Puljujarvi, who rotted first in the press box then on waivers for a month, before finally suiting up again last night?
Exhibit A of how this should work: Anthony Beauvillier, who'd achieved precious little for the better part of two months, was set to be the healthy scratch for this game. He suited up only because Evgeni Malkin became a late scratch due to injury, and, just like that, Beauvillier established a presence all over the rink with a team-high four hits as part of the Penguins' highest-performing line on the evening alongside Cody Glass and Michael Bunting.
Hunger's brought about. Desperation. A belief that each shift for-real counts. The kind of thing that could help the Penguins avoid comatose first periods like the one tonight.
What prevents Dubas from preserving such a rotation?
If it's that Sullivan has too much of an affinity for Nieto and/or Acciari, that's when Dubas can point to that placard on his office door, the one with the dozen or so official titles on it.
3. THINK BIG
I won't take this one too far, since it was one sample size of 19 whole shifts, but man, did I like what I saw of the newly assembled third line of Drew O'Connor, Kevin Hayes and Puljujarvi.
They outshot the Blue Jackets, 6-2, while on the ice, and out-attempted them, 18-10, including producing both high-danger scoring chances. They chased, banged and scrapped all night, and they even had the defensive play of the game with Puljujarvi's dogged trackback and stick-lift to strip possession at the Pittsburgh blue line.
Do. Not. Break. This. Up.
At least not right away. This team would benefit in countless ways from three dudes at 6-3, 6-4 and 6-4 flying around, in all candor, even if they don't score much. And they look like they will.
Just pretend all their names are Nieto.
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