Pens Tidbits

[HometownGal]

Originally Posted by steelpride12

The biggest obviously im looking for is that the Pens must sign Gonch. Without him our defense suffers even worse and the PP goes to the bottom of the league!

Absolutely. Serg is the glue that holds that D together and I'm not going to throw him under the bus because he gave up one puck last night. Amazing how people want to scapegoat both him and Fleury for last night's loss when it was the entire team not looking like the Pens we know and love, along with some phenomenal goaltending from the youngin' Halak and some blood, guts and grit shown by the Canadiens. Serg is also a quiet locker room leader. It was he, in last year's SCF against the Wings, who told his teammates in the locker room after Game #6 - "it aint over yet".

I'm all in favor of getting rid of Eaton. I just haven't been that impressed with him since he got here and I'm still not, though we do see some flashes of brilliant play from him once in a blue moon. We definitely should keep Leopold and my jury is still out on Letang and his outrageous contract based on "potential". I also wasn't all that impressed with GoGo and McKee is as good as gone imho.

P.S. XT - I know you don't want to hear this, but I believe Cookie is a must keep for a whole variety of reasons. He's more than earned his roster spot and I thought he had a pretty good playoff stint.

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by HometownGal

P.S. XT - I know you don't want to hear this, but I believe Cookie is a must keep for a whole variety of reasons. He's more than earned his roster spot and I thought he had a pretty good playoff stint.

If the Pens keep Cooke, I guess I have no choice but to accept it. But he's going to HAVE to cut out the douchebaggery he is known for. No more deliberate attempts to injure, no more starting crap and then running away, no more turtling when it comes time to answer the bell (which I admit he was better at this season). If he does that, then I'd be fine with him staying.

[SteelCityMan786]

Alexei Ponikarovski-Good Bye. He is not the 2nd Liner that Malkin needs.
Bill Guerin-Sign him to a 1 year deal if he wants to stay. He has had great
Ruslan Fedotenko-Let him go
Matt Cooke-Sign
Sergei Gonchar-Sign for the right price. They need him on the Power Play
Mark Eaton-Sign Him
Jay McKee-Bring Him Back
Jordan Leopold-Showed signs he could be useful in the future
Max Talbot-Keep Him
Tyler Kennedy-Keep Him
Nick Johnson-Let Him Go
Chris Connor-Keep Him

Cut'em all, and trade Staal for Colby.

[zulater]

I'd like to see them give Alexei Ponikarovski another chance next season. Let him be here right from the start and I think he might prove to be ok. Plus we gave up a pretty good young player to get him.

[zulater]

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/PIT/1993.html

Remember what it was like having wingers?

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by zulater

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/PIT/1993.html

Remember what it was like having wingers?

Yeah, and that team ended up doing exactly what this team did - lost in the 2nd round to an inferior opponent, except the 1993 team won the President's Trophy and was easily the best Penguins team ever, making their upset an order of magnitude worse than the Pens' upset this year. There were also 7 fewer teams in the league then, meaning more available quality talent, no salary cap and salaries in general were a fraction of what they were today.

In other words, it ain't that easy to put together that type of team nowadays with a salary cap in place, and you can't just snap your fingers and bring in a Rick Tocchet or Kevin Stevens or Joe Mullen without breaking the bank. That doesn't mean the Pens can't still bring in a couple of serviceable wingers who will produce better than Fedotenko or Ponikarovsky.

[HometownGal]

Originally Posted by zulater

I'd like to see them give Alexei Ponikarovski another chance next season. Let him be here right from the start and I think he might prove to be ok. Plus we gave up a pretty good young player to get him.

I'd like to see Poni be given another year to prove himself, as well. I believe he and Geno can make some magic on that line if they have the opportunity to play together outside of playoff hockey. Poni wasn't here all that long before the post-season and Geno was out with an injury so they really never got a proper chance to gel.

[KeiselPower99]

I would like to see both Leopold and Poni come back.

[zulater]

It really aggravates me seeing the 7th and 8th seed face off in the Eastern conference finals.

I guess more than anything else what bothers me about this years playoffs is the sense of a missed opportunity. Going into the playoffs I had doubts about whether we were good enough to beat either the Capitals or Devils. I honestly thought we would beat them, but I thought there was a great deal of uncertainty based on what we saw during the regular season. But when the Divils and Caps went down in the first round I started to think the road was paved straight to the Cup finals. Oh well show's what i know?

Still my sense is the better team lost. For whatever reason with very few execptions the Pens as a team just didn't show up for game 7. Outside of Jordon Staal I can't think of anyone I would say had a good enough game. And you can't say they choked, the team is too well acomplished to be accused of that. It's just that collectively they came out tight, dug too huge a hole and could never get themselves out of it. We can do a woulda, coulda, shoulda all day long and it doesn't cahnge anything. We're still home to watch two inferior teams play for the right to represent the Eastern conference in the finals.

It really does suck, and we can just hope that it serves as proper motivation next year. .