The Pittsburgh Penguins continue to bank much needed points as they defeated a directionless Minnesota Wild team 7-4. The score was way closer than the actual game. Minnesota needed to score three goals in the final five minutes for it to even look like a competitive game. This was a great game script for the Penguins.
Sidney Crosby finished with a goal and an assist for the second consecutive game and he now has three goals and eight points in only five games. He’s doing his part to drive the team towards success. It isn’t only the points. When Sidney Crosby is on the ice the Penguins control 58.08% of the shot share. When he’s off the ice it dips to 49.4%. I’ll say this though, 49.4% isn’t as bad as it could be considering the depth players the Penguins are throwing out on the ice.
Crosby even remembered you are allowed to deke on a breakaway
I think when Crosby is in the moment he can let his instincts take over and when there is a shootout situation it gives him too much time to concoct a plan. That plan is usually the quick release snapper through the wickets. Selfishly I wish he would flash his deking skills more often. It is one of the very few complaints I’ve had of him over the years.
Some of those depth players had some special moments last night. Both Adam Johnson and Sam Lafferty scored their first career goals. Lafferty actually registered his first career point on the Johnson’s first ever goal. Cut the puck in half?
Brandon Tanev has at least one strength through his first five games as a Penguin and that is drawing penalties. He now has six and has yet to take a penalty. For a team lacking scoring depth on paper right now the more cracks at the power play the better.
Patric Hornqvist has three goals through five games and the team is really going to need him to hover around that 25 goal mark he has for the team in the past this year. Hornqvist is up around the net doing his usual stuff and last night he was able to get his stick on a Guentzel feed to push the puck past the Devan Dubnyk.
Kris Letang keeps on propping up the defense. His impact has been even more impressive than Crosby. When Letang is on the ice the team controls 61.75% of the shot share compared to only 46.4% without. The Penguins aren’t very good when he isn’t on the ice at the moment.
The John Marino hype train is full steam ahead, but the early returns aren’t very good. He has a CF% of 42.86 and an xGF% percentage of 43.06. There are two things working against him right now. His small sample is highly volatile and the highly volatile sample has been spent predominately with Jack Johnson. We aren’t going to learn anything meaningful with his current deployment. Having Gudbranson or Marino play their off side would be more productive than what they are currently trying to do. I think the swell of optimism for Marino stems from him doing things that stopped taking for granted. It’s weird now seeing a bottom pairing defender for the Penguins actually close down a gap or two and join the play for a rush. Seeing a defenseman make a tape to tape pass as opposed to launching it high and off the glass or a flipping a bouncer to space in the neutral zone. I think some people forgot that bottom pairing players were allowed to do basic things right. The standard has been so low in recent memory it has warped reasonable expectations.
Bill Guerin was between a rock and a hard place. There are only 31 general manager jobs in the league. When one of those teams shows interest and you are still chasing your first opportunity it is a really hard thing to pass up. I think he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. The Minnesota job is like jumping on a live grenade. You are going to sacrifice for others. I don’t know how one person can dig them out of the swamp of mediocrity they find themselves in. They were going to have a down period even before Paul Fenton screwed things up even more. Guerin could hypothetically be a good GM and still find himself without a job in a couple years. If he isn’t good this kind of situation is only going to expose that even more.
Pittsburgh will get a chance to redeem their poor showing from the other night against the Jets today. Both teams were in action last night. There hasn’t been any confirmation, but it is likely Tristan Jarry will make his season debut as the Penguins backup today. This is another good opportunity to rack up some points before the tougher stretch of the October schedule is here. So far so good for the Penguins.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»