Wednesday Grab Bag 1.23

We have reached the unofficial “midway” part of the season: the all-star break/bye week. As it stands today, the Penguins sit in the second wild card spot, four points up on Buffalo (also on ASG/bye week) and five back of the Islanders (yes, the Islanders) for first in the Metro.

Their first half has been, in a word, inconsistent. Some nights the Penguins look like they’re ready to win their third Stanley Cup in four years and others they look like the playoffs just might not be for them. Some of that is effort, some of that is roster composition and some of it, believe it or not, is that other teams in the National Hockey League are good.

Let’s start with the bad news: The Penguins seem to be a team that at time is completely disinterested in playing defense or doing anything on the defensive side of the puck. Who knows why, maybe it’s a veteran team knowing the season doesn’t really start to matter until December-January, incompetence, whatever, but that has to change. Priority number one in the second half, lead up to the deadline, should be either acquiring a 3C (read – moving out Brassard) or getting another big-time winger and riding with 87-71-15-7 as your center depth.

The good news: Goaltending has seemed to have stabilized with Murray coming back hotter than ever, DeSmith proving to be a reliable backup/short-term starter, Crosby continues to dazzle, Guentzel is proving worth every penny, Letang is having a Norris-caliber season (more on that in the links) and the special teams have been about as good as they need to be.

Since we last spoke: The Pens battled against a surprisingly good Arizona team, winning 3-2 in OT and then bet it all on red in Vegas.

Sid and Letang are heading to San Jose for the All-Star Game.

Let’s roll.

Links

The Good

I thought about making a one-link section called “The Great.” It was simply due to reading Pensblog Overlord Jeff’s long read on how good Letang has been this year.

TL;DR: Just give him the goddamn Norris Trophy already. He’s Canadian, PHWA, isn’t that enough?

By god, they’ve done it! The Oilers have actually done it! Pistol Pete Chiarelli has been fired by Edmonton. Good thing they did this before he signed a 30-year old goalie to a three year deal that pays more than his best defenseman and has a limited NMC could do anymore damage.

Peter Chiarelli FIRED despite having helped build a first place team #Isles pic.twitter.com/y0tbrgOukF

— 𝐈𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐱 (@IslesFix) January 23, 2019

From one blog to another, props.

Listen, it’s the right move so we have to give credit where it’s due, but at the same time, why wait? Why now? He took what should’ve been a no-brainer, slam dunk contender and set them back at least three years. That’s three years of McDavid wasted. Can’t wait for Kevin Lowe to be the next GM and do the same shit.

Our friends over at PensBurgh ran some of the numbers on potential deadline targets for the Pens and GMJR. Worth your time.

Video games and eSports are the future. It’s nice to see the NHL finally dipping their toe into the water. No better person to kick that off than JT Brown, as well.

The Bad

It doesn’t quite fit into “bad” territory yet, but it’s flirting. The Flyers could be damaging the development of Carter Hart. The Flyers? Botching a goaltending situation? Well, knock me over with a feather!

Unless Ferland is strictly a rental, it may be smart for GMJR to stay away.

Cameron Gaunce, you may not remember him too well, but he was part of the 2017 Stanley Cup. He had his Cup ring stolen. Gaunce is now with the Lightning’s AHL affiliate the Syracuse Crunch and he spoke about this via a conference call with reporters, which takes us to The Ugly….

The Ugly

…imagine calling a conference call “an exclusive.” Now, we’re just some bloggers and don’t have a paywall, but it seems like you’re doing a disservice to your reader that gives you their money to blatantly lie to them. At least you didn’t use Instagram comments as a source….wait…

Numbers

Standings

Now that we are into 2019, and about at the true midway point of the season, this section now includes the wild card races. In the interest of fairness (and my sanity) the four teams in the race for wild card will be included. Full standings can be found here.

Metropolitan

Atlantic

Wild Card – Eastern Conference

Central

Pacific

Wild Card – Western Conference

Player statistics

Points

*Sidney Crosby T-9th with 57

Save Percentage

What These Numbers Tell Us: Nikita Kucherov is on pace to beat the best offensive season in salary cap era and that is gigantic. Appreciate the talent. The NHL, like every other professional sports league, is a copycat league. If teams like Tampa continue to put a premium on players like Kucherov, other GMs will follow suit.

We have to talk about Calgary. Even with a player like James Neal slumping the way he has been, they’re still for real. Even with goaltending in flux, they’re still for real. Not to mention they’re in the same division as the San Jose and Vegas.

While it’s absolutely true that the Islanders are on a complete and total PDO bender, there might not be a better division for them to be in for said bender. Aside from the Caps, no team has really been any level of consistent for long stretches. If they’re in the Atlantic, they’re likely not eclipsing Tampa, Boston, Toronto; Central is dominated by Winnipeg and Nashville and we just talked about the Pacific. They’re going to come back down to earth, but banking points when the Caps have lost six straight and the Penguins cooled off, it’s going to go a long way for getting a team that was supposed to finish in the basement into the postseason.

The Week Ahead

Sid and Letang have the All-Star Game and Skills Competition Friday and Saturday.

Skills Competition – Friday 9pm

All-Star Game – Saturday 8pm

Following the break, the Pens have the Devils at home Monday. They started hot, but they have completely fallen apart lately. It might be time for another team to rescue Taylor Hall from a bad situation.

Know Your Enemy: Pucks and Pitchforks

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