Well that didn’t go to plan. The Pittsburgh Penguins dropped the season opener to the Philadelphia Flyers by a score of 6-3. The Penguins played well for stretches of time, but mistakes by one of the new defenseman were too much to overcome.
I’m going to be honest. The beginning of the year is the toughest part of the year to do this gig. We have a one game sample, fans are amped up, and everyone is primed for overreactions good and bad. There’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to wait for the sample to get bigger. However, you can lean into larger samples from other seasons and it isn’t a leap to say Mike Matheson is going to hurt the Penguins over the course of the year like he did tonight. You don’t have to pretend like putting on the Penguins crest is going to magically change anything. He will have better games, how could he not? He is who he is, though. He’s 26 years old and will turn 27 next month. Tonight was his 300th career game. The first four goals of the game he was on the ice for three of them and in the penalty box for another. The fourth goal he was caught deep in the offensive zone and while he worked incredibly hard to get back, and almost did, it wasn’t enough and resulted in another goal. I do not believe the Penguins should be playing him with John Marino. Pittsburgh needs to go with what they know will work. You can’t afford to throw points away. Shelter Matheson-Ceci and ride the top four. There are going to be games where Matheson’s skill set gets noticed in a positive way. He’s a good shooter and skater. Tonight was as bad of a debut as you could have drawn up, though. At least he didn’t run into Crosby and injure him.
Let’s hear it for the third line. They were great and of course they would score the first goal of the season after an offseason of questioning their ability to produce offense. They led the team in CF% and didn’t allow a shot attempt against until later in the third period. Mark Jankowski kicked off the NHL season with his first goal as a Penguin tucking the puck way up in the top corner. Jankowski had 38 shots on goal last year and five total goals so this is better. Brandon Tanev took a nice backhand cross ice pass from Jankowski and put a great shot over Hart’s glove in transition. The bad news is their efforts were wasted tonight. Unlike Matheson we don’t have a large sample to draw from with these three playing together. This is going to be a something to see play out. Right now it is a terrific start. We’ll see where it goes.
Tristan Jarry was doing his best April 2012 Marc-Andre Fleury impression in Philadelphia. He finished the game with a .760 save percentage. The first two goals he couldn’t see at all because of the screen in front, but at the same time it is the NHL and you have to find a way. You can’t win hockey games when your goalie has a save percentage this bad. No alarm bells yet, this is just a clunker of a game to start the year for now.
The top six was blah and non-existent. I was expecting a lot more even if it was the first game of the year. Outside of Sidney Crosby taking advantage of Carter Hart’s brain fart there wasn’t much noticeable from either top six group. Let’s be honest, Evan Rodrigues isn’t going to be there for long. The top six is the least of my concerns about the team, but it contributed to the opening night loss.
I said the power play would be a top five power play in the league this year and as of this moment they are fifth overall in the league with six teams in game action. The power play looked rough to me and the goal Crosby scored on the power play had nothing to do with good zone time or good puck movement. They need to do a better job of getting the puck to Crosby and Malkin so they can handle the puck. It seemed to find its way to Rust more times than not and no offense to him, but it is probably better for him to see less touches than he got.
One positive I noticed throughout the game was the Penguins defensemen reading the play in the offensive zone and activating aggressively to keep zone time alive. Aggressive pinching doesn’t also have to mean risky pinching. Certainly mistakes will be made (Matheson example I listed above), but I’d rather be an aggressive team than play vanilla. There will be times where the top six benefits greatly from extra zone time.
The Penguins will look to rebound on Friday night… against the Flyers. This is how the season is going to go. It is still early, but you can easily see how the schedule is going to contribute to spicy matchups as the season wears on.
Thanks for reading!
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