Official GDT: Pens @ Leafs 4/8/24

[Southern Fan]

Sullivan is lying and he knows the Pittsburgh media won't call him on it.

I think he was banged up from the abuse he took in the third and felt he would hurt 3 x 3. When they showed him sitting on the bench before overtime, no one was working on his skates. Maybe gamesmanship, not a lie.

Bet he would have been in the shootout lineup.

[FLPensFan]

I'm truly flabbergasted by their inability to A.) fix the power play at least enough to become mediocre; and, B.) see their horrible 3-on-3 play and take measures to improve it (again, to at least mediocre). This isn't an aging team issue. Couple those major issues with their penchant for blowing 3rd-period leads (although some of that is down to both the above, since a power play goal here and there gives them a regulation win versus an overtime loss), and they have left 10-15 points on the table. Take just half those points (heck, even 5!) and they have clinched 3rd place in the Metro.

I've been impressed with their grit the last couple of weeks but it will be a shame if that is wasted by their absolute inability to fix these glaring problems.

Decided to look into the PP a bit more to see just how bad things are:

--First 10 games (Oct 10th to Nov 4th): 19.4%, 15th overall. Of note, through 9 games, they were at 14.8%. Game 10 was vs SJ, they won 10-2, scoring 2 PP goals, which boosted their PP% by almost 5%
--Games 11-20 (Nov 5th to 27th): 4%, 30th overall (over those 10 games). An absolutely disgustingly horrible 1 for 25 over those 10 games.
--Games 21-30 (Nov 28th to Dec 19th): 17.7, 21st overall
--Games 31-40 (Dec 20th to Jan 12th): 14%, 27th overall
--Games 41-50 (Jan 13th to Feb 14th): 11.1%, 27th overall
--Games 51-60 (Feb 15th to Mar 6th): 24.2%, 14th overall
--Games 61-70 (Mar 7th to Mar 25th): 7.7%, 31st overall (2 goals in 26 chances)
--Games 71-78 (Mar 26th to Apr 9th): 12.5%, 27th overall (8 games played only)

Season to date, they are 14.3%, 31st overall with only Philly below them. 7th most PP opportunities in the NHL this season, 252 chances, only 36 goals.

[Antonio]

Minus what, 11shg? I mean the opponents shorthanded goal percentage is almost a third of our power play percentage. That's insane.

[yinzer69]

Fans: play the young guys more!!!
Sullivan plays young player (DOC in OT) in important situation- results are bad.
Fans: Why did you have DOC out there in that situation?!?!?

Fans want their cake and eat it too.

This very same thing would of happened to Sullivan's replacement. Penguin fans are a fickle bunch.

[FLPensFan]

Minus what, 11shg? I mean the opponents shorthanded goal percentage is almost a third of our power play percentage. That's insane.

11 SHG against. Only Montreal has allowed more at 12 goals.

Another negative to note. Last night's TOI:
--Puljujarvi, 5:34, 6 shifts all game
--Bemstrom, 5:28, 6 shifts all game
--Puustinen, 9:09, 11 shifts all game

Still not rolling the 4th line enough...except for Jeff Carter, who got 12:35 TOI and 17 shifts.
Bemstrom, Puljujarvi and Carter were out there for the Matthew Knies goal. Carter lost the faceoff, and Carter didn't tie up Knies in front of the net. That was the only shift in the 2nd period for Bemstrom and Puljujarvi...and they played only 2 shifts in the 3rd period.

Carter, who lost the draw and failed to tie up his man, got 11 more shifts after that. To give Carter some credit, that was the only faceoff Carter lost all night, as he was 6-7 in the circle. But the failure to tie up his man is the kind of laziness we've seen in and out from Carter much of this season.

[yinzer69]

replace Carter with Poulin and that same scenario happens...is it ok since a young guy made the mistakes? Could we ask a for a review saying since it was young player's mistake the goal shouldn't count.

Defensive laziness is something we have seen out of just about every Penguins forward.

[VA Fan]

I am not sure I totally blame the coach for what happened in overtime. What I do find interesting is that per Sullivan’s post game press conferences he sounded like the coaches have talked about maintaining possession and wearing the other team down in overtime. Crosby in his comments also talked about the fact that they lost possession and could not get it back.
Are the players not good enough in 3v3? Are the players just ignoring the coaches? Is our offensive approach causing us to give up to many break aways? Do we have difficulty playing man on man defense? I am not sure what the specific problem is. But it seems like something that the team is going to have to figure out because we are missing out on to many points.

[Pitts]

Sullivan is lying and he knows the Pittsburgh media won't call him on it.

I think he was banged up from the abuse he took in the third and felt he would hurt 3 x 3. When they showed him sitting on the bench before overtime, no one was working on his skates. Maybe gamesmanship, not a lie.

Bet he would have been in the shootout lineup.

He was shown on screen during the 2nd or 3rd period messing with his skates. It was also stated to that effect in the broadcast. Not everything is a Sullivan conspiracy theory.

[Southern Fan]

Sullivan is lying and he knows the Pittsburgh media won't call him on it.

I think he was banged up from the abuse he took in the third and felt he would hurt 3 x 3. When they showed him sitting on the bench before overtime, no one was working on his skates. Maybe gamesmanship, not a lie.

Bet he would have been in the shootout lineup.

He was shown on screen during the 2nd or 3rd period messing with his skates. It was also stated to that effect in the broadcast. Not everything is a Sullivan conspiracy theory.

He was on the ice for the DOC goal. Doesn’t take 20 minutes to fix a skate. Hopefully they can fix his skates before Thursday.

[Admin]

[FLPensFan]

replace Carter with Poulin and that same scenario happens...is it ok since a young guy made the mistakes? Could we ask a for a review saying since it was young player's mistake the goal shouldn't count.

Defensive laziness is something we have seen out of just about every Penguins forward.

[Coffey Break]

replace Carter with Poulin and that same scenario happens...is it ok since a young guy made the mistakes? Could we ask a for a review saying since it was young player's mistake the goal shouldn't count.

Defensive laziness is something we have seen out of just about every Penguins forward.

It's nice knowing that Mike Sullivan himself is lurking around on this board atleast!

[yinzer69]

"But the failure to tie up his man is the kind of laziness we've seen in and out from Carter much of this season."

you called out Carter specifically and no one else...you can leave your smug smart ass memes in the Gulf of Mexico.

[FLPensFan]

"But the failure to tie up his man is the kind of laziness we've seen in and out from Carter much of this season."

you called out Carter specifically and no one else...you can leave your smug smart ass memes in the Gulf of Mexico.

You have a bad tendency to pull out one piece of a post and completely ignore the rest of it, as you did here. Time to activate special board features.

[Sigwolf]

You have a bad tendency to pull out one piece of a post and completely ignore the rest of it, as you did here. Time to activate special board features.

If you hadn't already done it, you waited too long...

[FLPensFan]

You have a bad tendency to pull out one piece of a post and completely ignore the rest of it, as you did here. Time to activate special board features.

If you hadn't already done it, you waited too long...

Yeah, I get that sense now...

[Antonio]

Oh, you still see certain posts? Waaay behind the curve there.

[Guinness]

This might be an occasion where Sid's superstitions cost us... It's was just a game or two ago, I believe, that he had a skate issue and the commentary was, if I remember correctly, that he uses an older model of skate that doesn't have some kind of a quick release blade that is quick to fix. For his they have to take the entire bottom of the skate apart to fix it. I don't really know - most of the playing I did was pick-up games on inline skates. So someone correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Maestro]

"But the failure to tie up his man is the kind of laziness we've seen in and out from Carter much of this season."

you called out Carter specifically and no one else...you can leave your smug smart ass memes in the Gulf of Mexico.

You have a bad tendency to pull out one piece of a post and completely ignore the rest of it, as you did here. Time to activate special board features.

It's been awhile since I used the foe button but nice to know it's still there when needed.

[DelPen]

It’s a shame Sid had a skate issue. But that’s the reason why Sullivan couldn’t start him. It’s still not the reason why he didn’t start him because he hasn’t been recently. Eller and DOC were out there regardless if Sid could go or not.