Official GDT: Pens vs Isles 12/31/23

[DelPen]

Good to see Eller ending up being a good signing

[Crash66]

Good to see Eller ending up being a good signing

Agreed. He's been quite good lately.

[Antonio]

Great win from what I saw. Beating them twice in short order is great.

[KG]

Huge regulation win. Detroit lost in regulation as well.

[Crash66]

They won despite the bad Juju. Really wanted a Ned SO though

[KG]

Good to see Eller ending up being a good signing

Agreed. He's been quite good lately.

Eller and Acciari are great defensive forwards. They are a huge reason why we lead the league in face off percentage.

[Antonio]

Best signing might be Ned honestly. He's been a superb surprise.

[Take the Body Shoot the Puck]

How much different do people think things would be if we had gone with desmith and ned this year as the goalie pair? Big difference? No difference? Tiny? Do we think an extra 4m a year has been worth it?

Hard to say. Jarry has at times been incredible, and at times not so great. Would Ned be doing worse if he was carrying a heavier workload? What about that stretch where Ned was injured…we would have had to ride DeSmith.

Also, what does $4M a year get us? Maybe instead of the $1M guys we are able to resign Zucker for $5M/year, so one of him or Smith plays on the third line. Does that help our secondary scoring? Would we be getting more goals from a Zucker than we’d be giving up by swapping Jarry for DeSmith?

Lots of questions, but at the end of the day, goaltending has NOT been our issue this year. Giving up Jarry for DeSmith is a step down, and I don’t think that $4M gets us that much more scoring when our top PP sucking butt is one of the main reasons we don’t have more goals for (our 5on5 scoring isn’t bad).

[pronovost19]

Only 3 teams have given up fewer goals than the Penguins. That is pretty good defensively. I think the goaltending has been real good. This team may not score as much as we like but they dang sure are invested in playing defense.

[mariojr]

So lemme get this straight. All season, the Pens have been getting next to nothing from the bottom 6. But tonight, all 3 goals were scored by bottom 6 guys. Meanwhile, Crosby has 1 point in the last 3 games, and the Pens have won all 3 in regulation.

[Antonio]

I hate that Crosby isn't getting points but it's amazing what happens when some of the other 20 guys actually do something.

[E-Ramone]

What’s the reason for the recent solid play? Just lucky goaltending with some timely depth scoring, or is it some changes to the system that are finally paying dividends? The PP still seems bad though.

[Puck-Lurker]

What’s the reason for the recent solid play? Just lucky goaltending with some timely depth scoring, or is it some changes to the system that are finally paying dividends? The PP still seems bad though.

I am going to go with a combination of ever so slightly better defending, decent goaltending and some puck luck. Praise be the hockey gods. It's working though and the confidence can help a lot. If you play the game the right way, you *are* more likely to score, even if it's not a guarantee. And Pens have been playing harder.

PP is a very bad problem though. If that's on point, this is a blow-out.

[Take the Body Shoot the Puck]

What’s the reason for the recent solid play? Just lucky goaltending with some timely depth scoring, or is it some changes to the system that are finally paying dividends? The PP still seems bad though.

To me it’s two things:

1. The goalies have been outstanding, saving the team’s butts on several occasions when their high risk passes results in turnovers and odd man breaks.

2. Analytically, the Penguins have been a top team 5on5 all year with high expected goals for, but suffering from horrible finishing. I haven’t checked the numbers, but this could just be our bad luck reverting to average luck so that we are seeing the results that the underlying numbers said we should be getting.


But the power play is still a disaster and I have no idea why they haven’t been able to fix it yet. It still looks like 5 players on their own island instead of a cohesive unit.

[pronovost19]

On the pp, I would like to see Puustinen on pp2 in Ovi’s office spot and let him rip one timers. That cannon he has needs to be put to use. This creates problems for the other team’s pk when they have to cheat toward that spot. Just let EK feed him bomb after bomb and just tell him to rip it. Get people in front. Stamkos and Ovi have that same bomb that Puustinen has and have made a living there.

[Crash66]

Forget PP2. How about PP1. Kid can rip it and get it on net. I've seen nothing from him to indicate he doesn't belong or can't handle it. His minutes have been diminishing and it's ridiculous. I just know he's going to get the Riikola treatment and I'm going to be pi$$ed.

[Antonio]

Hey now, it's not like he has 7 points plus a disallowed goal for effectively 8 points in 10 games or anything! He doesn't deserve more ice time. He hasn't earned it by having 1000 NHL games under his belt.

[Puck-Lurker]

Hey now, it's not like he has 7 points plus a disallowed goal for effectively 8 points in 10 games or anything! He doesn't deserve more ice time. He hasn't earned it by having 1000 NHL games under his belt.

He isn't a mediocre 30-year old veteran yet. Of course he doesn't get much time!