Time to Come Home

[Bowser]

After a year away and the NHL lockout seemingly over, I thought today would be a great day to return to LGP!

Now, it is time for Malkin and others to come home to Pittsburgh and get ready to win this thing.

Penguins Depth Chart

Forwards
1st: Chris Kunitz - Sidney Crosby - Pascal Dupuis
2nd: ? - Evgeni Malkin - James Neal
3rd: Matt Cooke - Brent Sutter - Tyler Kennedy
4th: Tanner Glass - Joe Vitale - Craig Adams
Bench: Eric Tangradi - Dustin Jeffrey
Minors: Beau Bennett - Paul Thompson

Defensemen
DP: Brooks Orpik - Kris Letang
DP: Paul Martin - Deryk Engelland
DP: Matt Niskanen - Ben Lovejoy
Bench: Brian Strait
Minors: Simon Despres - Joe Morrow - Dylan Reese - Robert Bortuzzo

Goaltender
Starter: Marc-Andre Fleury
Backup: Tomas Vokoun

Questions

1 - Can Penguins General Manager Ray Shero accept going into the season with those options for the second line left wing? If not, how many general managers are going to be open and willing to trade a quality player right at the start of this abbreviated season?

2 - Does anyone think the Penguins have the defensemen to change what happened in the playoffs last season? I'm not sure I can stomach watching Martin, Engelland, and Lovejoy taking up 15-20 minutes per game.

3 - Has Dan Bylsma watched enough video and to make the necessary adjustments with the defensive scheme?

4 - What changes is he going to make with the penalty-killing unit?

5 - Will Bylsma finally figure out a system to make sure Crosby and Malkin can co-exist on the same power play unit?

6 - Is this the year that Malkin and Crosby get an opportunity to play the penalty-killing teams?

7 - The free agent signing of Vokoun is huge with a shortened season, what does his presence mean for Fleury and can the franchise goalie bounce back after a horrendous performance in the playoffs?

8 - Biggest question of them all, can Crosby stay healthy and keep the concussion problems as a thing of the past?

https://twitter.com/EricBowser

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

Glad you're back Bowser. Hope you stick around.

[penny lane]

No place like home! Thrilled that LGP.COM will be a penguin hockey place once again.

First I need to see which Sutter is now a penguin.

I have concerns in short season about Coach Dan.

I do want to see Evgeni get his own power play unit.

I surely hope the short season cuts away all of the enforcer crappiness.

Flower & T Vokoun; they 've got to get the pens off to a fast start.

[Fire0nice228]

That defensive unit makes me vomit

[Nizzy]

NIZZY'S BACK

REPORTING FOR DUTY SIR

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHERES EVERYONE AT???

[Kaizer]

1 - Can Penguins General Manager Ray Shero accept going into the season with those options for the second line left wing? If not, how many general managers are going to be open and willing to trade a quality player right at the start of this abbreviated season?

yes

2 - Does anyone think the Penguins have the defensemen to change what happened in the playoffs last season? I'm not sure I can stomach watching Martin, Engelland, and Lovejoy taking up 15-20 minutes per game.

yes

3 - Has Dan Bylsma watched enough video and to make the necessary adjustments with the defensive scheme?

no

4 - What changes is he going to make with the penalty-killing unit?

more grinding

5 - Will Bylsma finally figure out a system to make sure Crosby and Malkin can co-exist on the same power play unit?

grind

6 - Is this the year that Malkin and Crosby get an opportunity to play the penalty-killing teams?

grind?

7 - The free agent signing of Vokoun is huge with a shortened season, what does his presence mean for Fleury and can the franchise goalie bounce back after a horrendous performance in the playoffs?

fleury sucks, obviously

8 - Biggest question of them all, can Crosby stay healthy and keep the concussion problems as a thing of the past?

yes meat

[DelPen]

Niskanen will have to be top 4. Not sure how they will be paired but bortuzzo, strait, engellend, lovejoy and despres round out the bottom 2. Considering the lack of any depth up front I think we see 8 defense.

Bennett makes the team. He's just too got a shooter and Dupuis is also fine in the top 6. Adams or Tangrad on the 4th is fine.

[Nizzy]

LoveJoy Gone
Kennedy Gone

Depres takes Lovejoy's spot
Tangradi will fit in with Malkin + Neal, and Bennett can play on the 3rd line or put Dupuis on the 3rd and give the Rookie Crosby's wing.

Young mans game.

[The Snapshot]

Not sure whether either was hurt or not, but on my way home from a tournament in Binghamton last night I stopped and watched the Baby Pens and Despres and Strait were scratched. I would think they are definitely coming back to Pittsburgh.

Bortuzzo and Beau Bennett both looked very good. Bortuzzo skates really well at his size and he was extremely physical every shift. Most impressive though was his ability to skate the puck up the ice. He looked great.

Bennett looked very agile and was not physically overmatched against some pretty big D and forwards on the Sharks side. Made a lot of nice plays with the puck.

To start right up where I left off, Tangradi was a waste of ice time last night. He chips the puck in the corner numerous times, goes in on their D for a retrieval, yet fails to take the big hit that is there for him. He also looks gassed after one play like that. He will NEVER be an NHL regular so I wish folks would just stop even considering him. Warren Peters is more of a prospect than him, and he is an AHL bum.

[The Snapshot]

LOL at Tanger for having to turn right around and fly home from Russia. Nice timing.

[TheHammer24]

Awesome, Bowzer. Good to see that name around.

I think the Penguins will try to get a #4 Dman through a trade for a guy that has one year left on his contract (like Gonchar). We have a ton of cap space, and no new cba repercussions until next year.

If we can't do that, I think you'll see Despres in D #4. He's the only one with the talent and pedigree to handle those minutes; we'll just have to deal with the mistakes a rookie will make.

As for offense, I'm sure Shero will explore a trade like I mentioned above. Without that, though, I would expect Bennet to play with Sid/Dups, or Tangradi with Malkin/Neal. Tangradi is too slow to play on a Sid line. Not great options, but we don't have a lot of choices.

An aspect people hadn't considered, is we have two compliance buyouts, and we do not have any bad contracts that scream for it next year. We could trade for a bad a contract, use him this year, then buy him out next year.

[FreeCandy44]

WB

[penny lane]

LOL at Tanger for having to turn right around and fly home from Russia. Nice timing.

maybe he can ride back with Evgeni and Sergei.

[DudeMan2766]

[dman66]

I'm happy about the Vokoun signing too, but is anyone worried about how he will perform in a more uptempo system? Everywhere he has played has been a D first mentality, even Washington last year.

[DocEmrick]

I'm happy about the Vokoun signing too, but is anyone worried about how he will perform in a more uptempo system? Everywhere he has played has been a D first mentality, even Washington last year.

I hear he wears a rug of the ice then on the ice when his helmet flips off exposing his bald head ala newman trying to compliment a girl who bought the hat

[netwolf]

A big day for Erics returning to LGP...

[relantel]

Re #6 - I sure hope so. I'd like to see them get a shot at a sizeable number of SHGs. Hell, if Staal could get 7 as a rookie, that's still as many as 87/71 have combined.