The Pittsburgh Penguins’ practices this week have been lively, active, and intense competitions for the players who remained behind while the best of the room were named to their country’s Olympic teams.
So, there have been no line rushes of note or sharp tactical adjustments.
However, the notes that are important are that Evgeni Malkin looks healthy and certainly engaged, at least when his team wins the drill and does not have to do pushups.
Assistant coach Nick Bonino is a pretty good goalie.
And this group really enjoys each other.
Goalie Interference
The Penguins have been on the wrong side of at least three goalie interference calls, one of which involved Rickard Rakell making a concerted and successful effort to avoid going into the blue paint, but still seeing the goal nullified.
And so it was both sad and fitting to see such an important game in the Olympics decided by an interference call. If Canada didn’t get the tying goal, the pressure may have built to an unsustainable level, leading to a loss.
Sure, my Canadian friends and readers (I love you folks, really) have argued with my view. But it was pretty clear, or at least easily arguable, that Brad Marchand initiated the contact with defender Erik Haula from the crease and the resulting contact with goalie Juuse Saros was a direct result of the contact he initiated.
Marchand went to the crease unimpeded. He could have left unimpeded but chose contact. That he fell over Saros after being contacted by Haula–as part of the contact he initiated–is when Saros didn’t have enough time to reset and focus on the puck.
No goal, right? Wrong.
Would the call have been made if the teams were reversed? I refuse to dip into the conspiracy theory that both referees were Canadian and it was a hometown call, but I will posit this:
The calls are so subjective, so untethered from rules, that they’re purely human judgment calls. The emotion of the moment, the feeling of justice, absolutely factors into how humans in the competitive arena see it. And since Canada was pounding away on Finland, the goal just had to count. They deserved it.
And that’s really the rule, it seems; what should happen, not what happened.
I’ll put $20 on the table that goalie interference plays a big role in the coming Stanley Cup Playoffs, and we could see the Stanley Cup Final turned on a GI call. It just always happens that way.
Mike Sullivan Irony
Team USA has started slowly in most of the games. But that’s not the Sullivan irony that smacks at Penguins fans.
Sullivan and the Penguins parted company in part because Sullivan wasn’t on board with a rebuild. That’s not the whole story, but even general manager Kyle Dubas seemed to admit that Sullivan thought it could be done quickly, and Dubas was hunkering down for a long process.
The irony is not even that as Sullivan left for the New York Rangers who were in win-now mode, but are now facing a rebuild.
Many Penguins fans were cheering or chanting for the team to tank for Gavin McKenna. Trade everyone, lose, get a high pick and get on with the tortuos rebuild. And Penguins fans were pretty close to angrily unanimous that Sullivan had to go.
As the wonderful readers from Prince Albert whom I met in Edmonton said, “The only thing I really disagreed with you on was Mike Sullivan.”
And that’s phrasing the overall fan angst politely (In fairness, I did write that Sullivan needed to be re-examined and should not be safe after last season).
No, the real irony of everything is that the Penguins are winning, the Rangers are losing, but if the Penguins had kept Sullivan, their three-year spiral toward the bottom would have most likely continued because nothing would have changed.
If fans wanted to tank for McKenna, they had a better chance if the team kept Sullivan.
Now that’s The Gift of the Magi level irony.
Penguins Prospects Stuck
After last weekend’s trip to Wilkes-Barre, it appears to be a rebuild divided against itself. There are prospects playing for the WBS Penguins who really have nothing left to gain at the AHL level.
Rutger McGroarty, Avery Hayes, and Tristan Broz need NHL ice to take their last steps in development.
McGroarty has played solidly in his NHL action, but has been frustrated by the lack of finnish. He’s had scoring chances, but those pucks were buried in the goalies’ pads.
Hayes impressed coach Dan Muse. Full stop. It would be the least surprising news if Hayes were recalled following the break. After the Kingerski curse wreaked havoc on WBS last weekend, Hayes had another hat trick in the following game.
There is some debate if I’m allowed to cover another WBS game because the team did earn a point Sunday after a brutal loss on Saturday that earned the players “a good talking to” by coach Kirk MacDonald.
However, Broz is truly blocked, at least for this season. And probably next season. Sidney Crosby, Tommy Novak/Evgeni Malkin, Ben Kindel, and Blake Lizotte are entrenched in the middle.
Broz is one of the prospects who could be better off in a trade package.
Ville Koivunen badly needs to work on conistency. He needs to bring his best more often. Even at the NHL level, Koivunen showed he can disappear quickly and stay gone for an extended period of time. However, when he’s engaged, he’s unquestionably a middle-six NHL winger with some sandpaper and hands.
For some fans who asked about Melvin Fernstrom, he was OK. MacDonald put him on the top line, and he showed some offensive abilty, but he also turned the puck over several times, including a couple of times to avoid contact.
2023 third-round pick Emil Pieniniemi was also a mixed bag; not fast enough to be an offensive defenseman, but not physical enough to be a stay-home defender. He’s OK in his first
Owen Pickering is the great question in the Penguins prospect pipeline. He’s much bigger. His face shows the results of eating five-meals a day for years and he’s up to about 205 pounds, or more. He just turned 22, and is only in his second professional season, so there’s time. But it feels the organization has cooled on his potential and he is approaching that uncomfortable time frame of a third pro season in the minors in which an NHL future becomes perilous.
Pickering lacks identity, meaning he has not yet picked a lane for his career development. He’s got the size to be a good shutdown defender, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders, but his game seems stuck between roles. He, too, needs to be more consistent, but also with tighter gaps in the D-zone.
Marcus Pettersson was 23 and on his second team before it all clicked. The view here is that Pickering would do well to emulate “The Dragon” as much as he can. That game would suit him well.
As MacDonald noted, such is the progress of player development.
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