DarthEbriate

Malakili whimpering

Wombats fly now.

Reino and Risto are in tricky positions this offseason. You can get more from a trade if you give the new team a season to make their decision (Skinner). If Reino is going to go, or if the team knows they're going to let him walk --- this draft is the time to move him, rather than just get a prospect and a late 1st at the trade deadline. These are the decisions that I don't envy GM Sheevyn. Because Sam is a really solid player and can be the 2nd line Sharp on a Cup-contending team, no problem. And once he gets a taste of the playoffs, I think Reinhart has another level of his game to unlock.

Reinhart's pressers will be fine. He was giving standard answers to standard questions and then Hamilton did the standard Hamilton-ism where he answers his own question to serve the story he's already decided he was going to write and states it in a manner that it had been a lack of effort. But if Hamilton had watched Saturday's game he'd have seen that after a sluggish/messy first, the Sabres hounded the Pens and had them reeling. Saturday was not a lack of "moving your feet". And Sunday was a continuation of the play style and tempo that we've been seeing for nearly 60 minutes/game for the past couple weeks now. A better question for the sound bites and the average person who missed watching the game live could have been --- Hey Sam, great game! Beauitful goals. On Saturday the NBC broadcast really went on how the 1-2-2 semi-passive Penguins defense really clogged up a lot of your rushes. Today, you seemed to have a lot more plays off the rush --- what adjustments did the team make today? Did the Penguins do anything differently?" That will get Reino's analyzing hockey IQ going. Give him the seed. And if the answer is "we were more willing to dump and chase on occasion" then Hamilton can write that to his intended "move your feet" storyline. Just don't provide your own answer to the question before you finish asking it.

It appears she's a RNFA. I'll see myself out.

Gotta agree with @Taro T on this one. The savings aren't worth it this offseason. Eakin can be 13th forward next year or sent down, whatever. Miller has a role as third-pairing D and his salary is tolerable. But I'd rather send Miller + 3rd to Seattle to move his salary that way (and keep the young D united). We shouldn't need the money this year. Even with the late resurgence, our RFAs not named Reinhart (Dahlin, Jokiharju, Mittelstadt) aren't going to break the bank. TBL was able to sign Cernak, Cirelli, and Sergachev all for fairly low prices last year because of the flat cap and I bet we can do similar on our key youngsters this summer. Everyone young knows to take a lower bridge, and then get ready for the cap bonanza in a few years when the new TV contracts, Seattle cash revenue influx, and vaccinated global populations crank the cap up.

It goes back to practice. At this level, you are the effort you put in and what you choose to practice. Since Granato took over, they've practiced hard and they've practiced at tempo. And it was pointed out that they didn't practice the PP for a little bit with Granato because 5 on 5 needed so much work. In the last week, it's been apparent they've gotten the PP practice time back as well. Once the RaKruStink dissipated, and we stopped blowing the late leads... well... the April splits are beautiful to behold. https://www.espn.com/nhl/team/stats/_/name/buf/split/48 Now, can we keep it up against Boston while they fight for their playoffs lives? That's the next step.

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Congrats to Toker and Pastorius!

It's our Boston playoff series week (and another 2-spot the following weekend). Let's play like it. Up the intensity, up the ante. This team doesn't need Dalton Smith. It needs to keep doing what it's been doing. Tage got beatdown by Miller, but he stuck his nose in there anyway. It needs Caggiula to show his speed and all-out-attack. It needs Casey and Victor and Bjork to keep being relentless on the forecheck. It needs Miller, Samuelsson, and Risto to keep laying hits on anyone at hand. And most importantly, it needs our team to band together when the time comes. That means if someone runs Dahlin (and he, Bryson, and Joker will have huge targets on them to get our puck-movers off their games) we address it immediately. If that means Dahlin gets up and starts wailing for the first time in his life, so be it. Or Reinhart jumping in as he used to do when Eichel would get blindsided. They'll try to bully us and get us to check out (which under RaKru we would have). Don't check out, don't back down. They wanna go, we don't care. The Bruins want to risk suspensions and injuries and put a damper on their playoffs? We don't care. We're going to spoil their playoffs this week and next. That's our goal. They're going to miss the playoffs and then Hall's #1 fortune is going to run out on them. It's time for the Bruins to end.

That was one of the most obvious and awful things about the RaKru team -- and all of last year, too. When another team pushed back, or turned it on for 5 minutes, or got a goal to tie the game... we had no response. We'd fold. Ullmark could sometimes save us, but we didn't as a team simply shrug off the problem and battle through it. That is another heartening thing about Sunday's game (these past few weeks, actually). We give up the shutout. Whoops. And now, immediately afterward, Pitt gets a power play. Under RaKru -- we're giving up a PP goal and ahead only 3-2 and lapsing back into full on Death Star mode and waiting for them to tie it. Instead, it was an easy kill, and we arguably carried play the rest of the way until 20 seconds to go.

Samuelsson stayed paired with Ristolainen until the very end. Nice.

Regulation, but yes. It's still a joke what we've been since Ruff.

Since 2/19... Twenty Twelve??? Are you kidding?

Fiddlesticks. Though if there's any Pens player that has impressed me this weekend it's been one Theodore Blueger.

Great shot kid, that was one in... a... well, of four.

Skinner with the somewhat-easier-than-normal-given-his-skating-prowess fall draws a penalty. Now let's bury this thing and go home.

Now, how do we respond to a little adversity? I like this... we need this challenge.

Blergh.

Oh. Messy decision there, Bjork. Use your speed and go up ice. Then worry about the pass.

Risto, you are clear to buzz the tower of Crosby. Fire at will.

Woooooooooo!

If we had scored there... I think Thompson might've been offsides. But a penalty because we're all over them. Nice.

Krueger. Eakin can sometimes kill penalties. You just don't want the puck on his stick. Edit: Also, Krueger was ruining our entire youth movement and blue line. Eakin is strong but not that strong.

I like this line.

Eakin, you can't let that happen, there.