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“Energy Guys” Make Their Presence Known

Introducing Another Great Post by Guest Blogger Chaiwoman:

Sean Avery’s reunion tour with his old team seemed to put him face to face with just about every guy in a black and gold uniform on Saturday.  It was a gritty, scrappy, hard-hitting, nasty penalizing afternoon game against the New York Rangers (sans the blue jerseys), as the Pittsburgh Penguins treated fans to a win largely due to their “energy guys.”

Start with the brilliant tactics of Tyler “Mr.” Kennedy, who appeared to take Avery by surprise after a couple of test hits in a match that left Avery looking puzzled and Kennedy grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  Later, Kennedy would say that he and Avery talked about and agreed “to go”.  Kennedy’s sacrifice was brilliant for several reasons:

1. He took Avery’s agitation game out of commission for five minutes, giving his teammates one less pain to deal with;
2. It generated some momentum given how the scrap developed and who it was against;
3. The Penguins’ power play three minutes later was not affected by his absence since he is not a major contributor on special teams; and
4. Though they did not score on the power play, the energy was still high, and Maxime Talbot revved up for a great feed from Ruslan Fedotenko to put the Pens on the board.

Coach Bylsma talked after the game about Kennedy’s fight and the penalties in general saying that he was not so much concerned about how many penalties they take as he is about the kinds of penalties and when they occur.  He called Kennedy an “energy guy,” and the timing and make-up of his penalty created energy for the team.

As a matter of fact, Coach Bylsma has the luxury of four “energy guys,” in Tyler Kennedy (13G,16A), Matt Cooke (10G, 18A), Maxime Talbot (11G, 9A), and Pascal Dupuis (10G, 14A) for a total of 101 points thus far.  All have a similar skating style but run the gamut in levels of agitation against opposing players.  All have had stints up on the top line with Sidney Crosby and have provided sparks at various times, chipping in goals and assists at opportune times.  All have shown their utilitarian ability to skate on lines 1 through 4 with the same intensity, effort, and yes, energy.  In Saturday’s game, three of the four energy guys contributed for 2 goals and 2 assists in the win.  This is what you need heading into the playoffs.

With Matt Cooke up on the Malkin line for a second consecutive game, he scored the Pens’ second goal off a great effort that started with a Malkin feed and ended with both Cooke and Talbot creating havoc in front of Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist.  During Kennedy’s stint in the sin bin, Bylsma moved Pascal Dupuis up onto the Staal line with Fedotenko and Staal, and the line never missed a beat as Dupuis provided his usual style of quick feet and hard forechecking.  He and Cooke also figure in the strong and now offensively-minded Penguins penalty kills.

Their energy is infectious, and something about it on Saturday permeated the entire team even sparking Ruslan Fedotenko who earned the #1 star of the game with a solid three-point performance (1G, 2A) to break out of his slump.  It should be noted that in his two assists, Feds set up the goal scorers (Talbot and Crosby) in exactly the same way with crisp, well-timed tape-to-tape passes in a quick transition.  Riding high off his own goal-scoring contribution the previous game, defenseman Hal Gill seemed to have more jump as he involved himself with confidence in a short-handed rush.  In 18 games under Bylsma Gill has registered 16 shots on goal compared to his last 18 games under Therrien (7 shots), improving his shot production almost 2-1.

Bylsma has been very consistent in his basic line format with Talbot centering the 4th line and Dupuis flanking him on one side.  However, he does not shy away from plugging these two into other situations that create offensive opportunities and aggressive defensive back-checking.  All four of these energy guys add an important layer that positions a team like the Penguins for a deep run in the playoffs.

Not Brothers, No Love: Pens 1–Flyers 3

No worries. Here’s why.

It couldn’t last. There needed to be a regulation loss under Dan Bylsma, and while many who walked out of the arena today would likely have preferred it was against someone else, it wasn’t. Given the history and loathing between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers, one would have expected much more energy in the building. The atmosphere was surreal, and the puck always seemed to be just a few inches out of reach; it wasn’t clicking. It was the antithesis of the Kings game.

Speaking from direct experience as one who was in attendance this afternoon, the fans even had an off day. It was as if the early game kept them from that all-important second cup of coffee to make everything right with the world. There were many moments when it was pretty quiet all the way around and others where it was downright cranky. Even when prompted by the usual “make noise!” admonishments from the jumbotron, the noise meter didn’t break much of a sweat.

It wasn’t that Philly’s 5-on-5 game was that spectacular, but they had three ingredients that neutralized the Pens while jacking up their frustration level:

1. Solid goaltending. Biron was in the zone and he was in a miserly mood as he absorbed shot after shot with almost no chance for a crumb of a rebound.
2. Discipline. They knew how to instigate when the refs weren’t looking–OK, maybe the refs were looking sometimes but not seeing (the boos as they came onto the ice to start the third period raised the noise meter), and the Flyers waited until the Pens visibly retaliated, drawing a whopping eight penalties.
3. Cloaking the blue line on the penalty kill. It was the hockey version of a basketball half-court press with three Flyers draping their defensive blue line while one guy cruised just ahead of them enough to agitate the puck carrier, rendering the Pens to powerless play.

To the Penguins’ credit, they did have a couple of bright spots on which to hang their helmets:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury’s play was solid even in the midst of bodies seemingly always crowding him in front of the net obscuring his view. He managed to deflect several straight line sniper shots across his bow on a zero degree line, often from deep off the right circle. At times it looked as if the Flyers were trying to slice through his cervical spine with the puck.
2. The Staal line was the most consistent of the four offensive lines today. Staal, Cooke, and Kennedy combined for 8 of the Pens’ 28 shots on net compared to a mystifying 0 (yes, that’s zero) shots on net by Malkin and Crosby combined. The third line also seemed to have the best luck of at least starting to cycle in the Flyers’ end on a few occasions. Cooke and Staal also worked well together on their PK shifts, again looking to break free and work more in the Flyers’ real estate. Finally, Staal led the team in face-off percentage today winning 60% of his duels followed by Crosby at 54%.

The weakest link remains the power play, and the fans let the team know it today. Too often it looked like the PP of old–pass, pass, pass, pass, and pass some more. Too many passes at too slow a speed. Passing is fine, but the point of passing is that it moves faster than the guy on skates so that he cannot cover his zone properly, thereby opening up shooting lanes. Not so today, and the Flyers made the Pens pay for it. Too many chances at shots were given over in favor of at least one more pass. In that respect, it is no wonder that Biron had a good day–he had all day.

It’s better that the Pens rankle a bit over today’s loss against that bitter rival, though. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they will see these guys again soon. The regulation loss is checked off the list, and now they can reset and prepare to begin another win streak.

No worries.

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