What the f... are they doing with Ric? Play him...

[Pens4Life]

scratch Melichar,Cross,Gonchar...

[Eisbahren]

When someone says "Play me or trade me, " and he still gets scratched every night, the writing is on the wall. Keeping Jackman off the ice at the moment probably increases his trade value to the Pens.

[puckad]

He'll likely be traded before the Trading Deadline. It's too bad cause Jackman is far from the worst defenseman on this team. Him and Therrien don't go along I guess.

[Pens4Life]

i think there isnt much better d-man righty as him in the league,who are also under 800.000 dollars.

[NIN]

If Cairns isn't going to do his job on the ice, then I would much rather see Jackman in the game. Neil breaks his stick accross Melichar and Cairns does nothing. I know he was not out on the ice at the time, but he had Neil in his hands during a scrum shortly after that and did nothing!!

First of all Melichar should be able to fend for himself. You dont send your goon out there to put the team shorthanded to "protect" guys like Melichar. If your burly stay at home defenderds need burly stay at home enforcers than you gotta real problem with your team toughness.

Secondly Jackman is around the top 5th in the NHL in scoring among defensemen over their past 100 games played. so 800k and 5 mil and no drop off in production on the power play or for that matter defense. Gonchar gets more ice time and better defensemen to play with to help him so why not Jackamn?

[puckad]

Neil breaks his stick accross Melichar

With Melichar out of the picture, Cairns should see more ice time. Maybe he talked to Neil about punishing some of his defensive partners=)

[netwolf]

I'm not going to fault Melichar for not fighting Neil. He'd have gotten destroyed. What good would that have done?

[MrKnowNothing]

Jackman is terrible. He doesnt create offense on his own. Playing him doesn't do anything but add a good shot from the point when he is on his game.

He is so bad fundamentally that it is the equivalent of having Recchi defend the point. I won't even go there about even strength.

People need to just face the facts. This team blows. We have Crosby, and that's about it. Fleury is good for some big saves until the team just allows too much to be thrown at him. Some of the young guys will occasionally contribute, but that is it.

Whether Jackman is in the lineup or not is inconsequential. The only reason he might be worth trading is to try to get him some trade value in order to pawn him off on some team for a pick or something.

[td_ice]

Jackman is terrible. He doesnt create offense on his own. Playing him doesn't do anything but add a good shot from the point when he is on his game.

He is so bad fundamentally that it is the equivalent of having Recchi defend the point. I won't even go there about even strength.

Imo, you nailed it.

[jmh70]

Of course Jackman is a liability at even strength, but which defenseman on this team isn't? IMO they all are.

Putting him in the team would add offense without decreasing the team's defensive capabilities (if that is even possible).

[MrKnowNothing]

Worth noting that Jackman nets the PP goal to tie it today, and has had several of his PP shots hit the net, which seems like an impossibility for other players to do. One of the shots generated a goal IIRC.

I agree that it isn't though it will really make one bit of difference defensively whether he is in the lineup or not, but my point about Jackman has always been that the original reason he was scratched is that he is just hopefully atrocious 5 on 5. He was constantly making fundamental mistakes when Edzo scratched him.