Pittsburgh is back in action tonight and they will be hosting the Winnipeg Jets. This should be a competitive game for the Penguins. The Jets have a good complement of skilled players. Up front they boast Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler, Patrik Laine, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Kyle Connor. A formidable group of talented forwards. However, their defense is in shambles. Dustin Byfuglien is pondering retirement, Jacob Trouba was traded away, Tyler Myers left via free agency, and Josh Morrissey got hurt in warmups the other night (Morrissey will play this evening albeit a little dinged up). Without a talented back end the Jets forwards run the risk of not getting the puck on their stick with speed. We might not see them at their full powers. Also, the Jets have been on the road exclusively since the season started. They ran the gauntlet in NY/NJ and will wrap their trip up tonight in Pittsburgh. This is as favorable of a matchup as the Penguins are going to get against this Jets team.

The Penguins aren’t in great shape themselves. This is the first game they will be without Evgeni Malkin and Nick Bjugstad in its entirety. We are going to see the kind of strategy the team will implement to overcome the loss of two of their top nine centers.

With that said I had some questions that I had planned on answering yesterday before the Malkin news broke. Here are those questions

Which Penguins are the real Penguins: the team that came out against Buffalo or broke out against Columbus?

— Nick Case-ket (@Nick422) October 7, 2019

The truth is I don’t know, you don’t know, none of us know. Even without the injuries to Malkin and Bjugstad we wouldn’t have a good feel for anything until around the 20 game mark. This also applies to the Sabres and Blue Jackets. We just don’t know who these teams are yet. I think we will start to find out more about the Penguins when they play Vegas, Colorado, and Tampa Bay which will happen within the next 2 weeks or so. Although, the Malkin injury muddies the water so much. They aren’t the same team without him. If Malkin can come back in about a month we may have to wait until the beginning of December to get a good feeling for what this team is capable of.

Same question I asked you on Saturday: Are the Sabres this good?

— Brian Kleinhans (@briank203) October 7, 2019

So this questions was posed before the Blue Jackets ran over Buffalo outshooting them 44-18 last night. At the time Buffalo had an xGF% ~65 and a PDO of 1040. No, I do not think they are that good because even the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings weren’t that good. There is reason for optimism in Buffalo in the sense they are leaving behind dumpster fire status and entering feasible playoff team if everything breaks right. Their problem is the division they play in. Three playoff spots are already taken (TB, TOR, BOS). Can they outpace Montreal and Florida? There is a reality where that happens. It won’t be easy, but it really helps that the team has some capable puck movers on the back end after years of toiling with guys who struggled in that area. The Rasmus Ristolainen trade will be key. It’s no accident the team has acquired Brandon Montour, Colin Miller, and Henri Jokiharju all within the last year to play the right side. If they can get an impact forward from a team who believes in Ristolainen it will go a long way in balancing the Sabres scoring depth. Sabres are better and should fight for the final playoff spot in the Atlantic.

What’s the maximum sweetener you would include to totally offload Jack Johnson contract? Whether it’s a player, a prospect, a pick, whatever.

— Deesh (@deesh138) October 7, 2019

I would have traded last year’s first round pick. No offense to Sam Poulin, but his impact on the Penguins win now window will never equal that of eliminating Johnson from both the ice surface and salary cap. I’m not as willing to do that right now because there isn’t as much opportunity to pursued players as there is during the draft and free agency. With Malkin’s injury there is no immediate cap crunch or pending roster moves to acquire an impact player so the best thing they can do is not play him and that doesn’t cost any assets. Assuming the Penguins season doesn’t tank and their first round pick isn’t in the upper half of the draft I would revisit trading the first round pick next offseason before the draft and free agency. Who knows maybe another poorly run team bails them out before then.

How long will they carry 8 defensemen on the NHL roster?

— Joshua Carns (@CarnsJoshua) October 7, 2019

Well Josh, I think it is actually nine. They have:

1. Kris Letang
2. Justin Schultz
3. Marcus Pettersson
4. Brian Dumoulin
5. Jack Johnson
6. Erik Gudbranson
7. Chad Ruhwedel
8. Jusso Riikola
9. John Marino

At this point I think they should give John Marino some minutes or send him back down to WB/S so he can actually play a little bit. Not really sure what to do with Riikola because I don’t think he is a guaranteed upgrade over Jack Johnson. It appears Chad Ruhwedel’s default setting is collection an NHL paycheck for never playing hockey. They can feasibly keep all nine at the moment because cap space isn’t an issue. Should they? No.

How can we fix the PP assuming 71 is healthy

— Jimmy Dunphy (@JimmyDunphy1) October 7, 2019

They need to play to the strengths of their personnel. Sidney Crosby should not be playing the left half wall. He should be on the opposite side or down low. Evgeni Malkin should be at the right circle or up top. I think the Penguins best success will come from Malkin getting a ton of shot volume. This will create chaos and force teams to overplay him up top. This will inherently create east/west passing lanes because the top PK player will overextend up top. The biggest key no matter what system they run is to let the PK dictate their choices. There are 2v1’s to be had you just need to identify where they are and attack them. Player movement by the Penguins is the easiest way to force their hand. Being stagnant and stationary is a recipe for failure.

Is sitting Schultz and Galchenyuk from PP1 the right idea to keep their contracts lower this offseason?

— gmjimbo (@CToad3) October 7, 2019

This should never be part of the equation when choosing player deployment. It is an asinine thought process.

Did you play hockey year round as a youth?

— Joe H (@Brrockland) October 7, 2019

I did not. My on-ice schedule for the most part was late August to Mid-April and that is realistically all it should be for youth players. I played baseball in the summer and the differentiation was incredibly helpful for me playing both sports. Burn out factor is real and I think way too many youth hockey organizations are pushing the kids too hard ie year round. It isn’t beneficial.

I was lucky my neighborhood had a ton of hockey players so we did play a lot of street hockey in the summer. That was by choice and not something forced. I would also recommend what we did and that is playing street hockey with a tennis ball. If you can handle a tennis ball with ease a puck is a cake walk.

Thanks for reading!

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