PHN Blog: What the Penguins Proved, What Fans are Missing with Zegras

Mike Sullivan didn’t sugarcoat things or dangle a carrot for his team to improve. The Pittsburgh Penguins head coach said he loved his team’s effort after the OT win in Minnesota and was similarly happy after the Penguins’ loss in Colorado.

The thing Mike Sullivan would change when the Penguins rematch Colorado on Tuesday?

“The result,” he said flatly.

The Penguins went toe-to-toe with Colorado, the best team in the NHL in their 3-2 loss… Colorado earned their 104th point of the season and scored their 99th third period goal to beat the Penguins.

Yet, the Penguins had more scoring chances (30-26), fired 40 shots on goal, and carried the play for large stretches of the game.

New Pittsburgh Penguins Lines

Sullivan decided to experiment with the lines on Saturday, and his experiment had mixed results. He moved Jeff Carter from center to Evgeni Malkin’s RW. The bullies took that line’s lunch money, lunch box and popped them twice. The Malkin-Carter combo gave up two goals and was vastly outshot, 15-4.

The third line with Evan Rodrigues and Teddy Blueger had chances. Oh did Rodrigues have chances, but the invisible plexiglass shield, which exists only when he shoots, kept him off the score sheet. He had a 50-foot breakaway and a great rebound chance, but a goose egg on the score sheet.

I’ll take a third liner creating those chances. They will eventually hit the twin. Right? ….right?

The Penguins’ fourth line was not much of a factor. Anthony Angello drew in and the TV audience may have never known. Brian Boyle didn’t make much of an impact either, and the fourth line played about seven minutes.

“I thought it was just a really good hockey game. It was a well-played game on both sides. You know, we had a lot of looks. We had a fair amount of chances. We would normally convert on some of those, but they played extremely well,” Sullivan said. “Also, it was a real competitive hockey game. I just thought it was a real good game on both sides.”

However, it was the Penguins bugaboo of only the first line creating offense. The Sidney Crosby line was again stacked with Bryan Rust and scored both Penguins’ goals.

On the positive, the Penguins played very well, overall. More importantly, they must take the lessons learned and apply them to the New York Rangers on Thursday and the Washington Capitals on Saturday.

“I don’t really know the stats, but just a feeling–it felt like we were in their zone a lot more than they were in ours and felt like we had more chances than they did,” defenseman Mike Matheson said. “So yeah, I think we probably deserved to win that one. Right now, they’re looking like the best team in the league in terms of points. So I think it’s a good step in the right direction for us to know that we’re competing against teams like Minnesota and Colorado.”

The Metro Division four-point games are the ones that really matter. As intense and heavy as the games against Minnesota and Colorado were, they lacked a certain importance and desperation that only divisional games bring. The scrums, the extra hits, the ill-intent; can the Pittsburgh Penguins play in the middle of that circus?

The Tuesday rematch against Colorado will be fun. The Thursday puck drop against the Rangers will be the tell-tale.

Side note–the photo showing Mark Friedman clearing the net is a nice one. I’m curious if Sullivan is going to stick with him. Anyone who clears the net is an upgrade.

Fans are Getting it Wrong:

The other big issue this weekend was the lack of punishment for the actions and words of Jay Beagle. The Arizona Coyotes forward absolutely flattened Anaheim Ducks scorer Trevor Zegras and punched him for another “Michigan” goal.

Social media howled when the AZ broadcast used the words “skill it up” to describe the transgression.

“That’s the problem with these young players. You wanna embarrass guys? You wanna skill it up? You better be prepared to get punched in the mouth.”

Coyotes broadcast applauds Jay Beagle cross-checking Trevor Zegras/beating Troy Terry senseless. Embarrassing commentary pic.twitter.com/1AfenuTRkL

— Nolan Bianchi (@nolanbianchi) April 2, 2022

Yes, the Arizona broadcast got it right. If you want to embarrass people, be prepared. In baseball, they throw at your head. In football, they twist your knee in the pile. In hockey, they punch you square in the face.

Do you think Mario Lemieux or Wayne Gretzky couldn’t flip the puck onto their stick and carry it? Sidney Crosby?

The players didn’t do it because it’s an insult to the game–it’s game-changing in several bad ways. Let me explain before you react: How is one supposed to defend the “Michigan”?

Suddenly, we have players playing with the puck above the ice. You can’t poke check it. Can’t block the shot. The goalie can’t read the shot. It takes the hockey out of hockey.

The only ways to defend it are to whack the stick, which is technically a penalty, or physically bulldoze the player while he attempts the move.

Never mind that players will be playing with sticks raised above the waist. If you take this to its logical next steps, players will use it to spin away from defenders in the neutral zone, get an extra step on the breakouts, and ways I can’t fathom.

Players will have to defend in kind. You’ll have players jousting over the puck. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. In this case, literally.

The NHL didn’t punish Beagle for assaulting Zegras because that was the old-school way to deal with guys who tried to outsmart the game. I was wrong a few months ago–Lemieux didn’t “Michigan” early in his career in Boston. Instead, he flipped the puck over the net, off the goalie, and into the cage from behind the goal line.

He was promptly leveled with malice.

Either the NHL will have to make a rule against playing with the puck above the ice, or players are going to decide if they want it in the game. Who knows, maybe things have changed, and the players want that stuff.

I don’t like it, but it’s not “my” game. It’s not the fans’ game, either. It’s the players’ game, it’s hockey’s game.

The move has the potential to be like Michael Jordan playing above the rim in the NBA. Now, it seems the game is played above the rim. The NBA changed, and not really for the better. Short-term excitement became a long-term weakening of the game of basketball.

I played basketball almost daily during those years (I couldn’t drain a jumper to save my life). Overnight, the game went from chasing Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson’s no-look passes, reverse layups, and fadeaway jumpers to an obsession with dunking and going over people.

This may be the NHL’s moment like that.

The NHL likes frontier justice. It keeps everyone in check. The league was never going to punish Beagle for doing their work.

For better and worse, that’s the situation. Before you excoriate the league or Beagle, look at what comes next and decide if it raises or lowers the quality of hockey. I think it lowers it…but I’ll still cover it every day.