Penguins Mid-Season Spectacular - Hockey Jesus

Hockey Jesus: It's time for the mid-season spectacular! It's time to talk some hockey with the Hockey Jesus. Welcome to the porch, people. Come on in. We're gathering as the porch plays the music. All right, sports porters, welcome to the midseason spectacular with me, your hockey Jesus. I'm here going solo. We're here to talk all things Pittsburgh Penguins hockey and how they're doing here in the first half and how we're going to be able to pull off a playoff berth for the second half after not making the playoffs last year. It's going to be really important for sports porters everywhere to gather round and figure out how we can get to this playoffs. So where are the Penguins now? Right now they are currently ninth in the East. I know they're sitting, you know, fourth in the Metro, but you got to be in the top three positions to get the seeds. Then after that, it's all about points. Right now, the Pittsburgh Penguins have 48 points.

They're only one point away from Tampa Bay, who currently sits in the eighth and final spot for the playoffs. Look, as we start going down the stretch here, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be talking a lot more about points, who to beat, why it's important. The ever stupid and incredibly dumb loser point always comes into play around this time of season. I actually, you know, I have to confess, you know, since I am the hockey Jesus that I thought this was the all star break. Technically, it's not, but I've never seen where the Pittsburgh Penguins basically have five days off in a row, kind of midseason like this. It's kind of weird. Like, I just assumed that it was going to be the All-Star break. But actually, the All-Star break, they play four more games. They're out in the West, Vegas and Arizona. They come home to play Florida and Montreal, and then they get a little bit of break for the All-Star game. So it's actually the first weekend in February, the All-Star break is. So I'm, I was a little, uh, discombobulated there, but nonetheless, it's still not going to affect my analysis where I think the penguins are and where they're going.

Look, I did some, I did some stat work and I have to tell you like of the teams that are out of the playoffs now, look, Pittsburgh penguins only have 113 goals against. And you say that means nothing to me. I don't look at these goals against, well, I can tell you that their goals against is goals against goals against is second of all teams that are in the playoff. Basically in the playoff hunt. I put everybody in there except for I don't have Ottawa in the playoff hunt. I do have Buffalo in their New Jersey's in there. I don't have I don't have another team. Oh, Columbus. I don't think they're going to. I don't think they're going to be there at the end of the season. So I didn't put them in the analysis because I'm only looking at teams who are in the hunt or basically already in the playoff spot, already in the playoff spot, by the way, would be the Rangers, Boston, Florida. The hated Philadelphia Flyers, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto, Detroit, and like I said, Tampa Bay is currently sitting in that last spot. But if you look at the Pittsburgh Penguins at 113, only the Florida Panthers have have less goals against. And let's just talk about the goalie situation at the beginning of the season. I said, you know, somebody's gotta become the alpha. It's gotta be one or the other. I think I might have been a little bit wrong there. I think that Ned Needlenose Ned. Mr. Nedeljevic, he's really come on and has really pushed Jari to keep that number one position. I think at times Jari's the number one guy. I also think at times that Ned is the number one guy. It's hard to really know who's going to be good on a given night. But one thing about Jari is, you know right from the bat if he's going to be terrible. And that could pose problems down the line. But look, their goals against have been spectacular. Where's their goals against? Right here. Pittsburgh's goals against, 9-16. The only team that has a better save percentage is Boston at 9-18. So you cannot fault the goalie situation that's happening right now. The goalie situation has been pretty golden for the Penguins. Their goals against have been a lot lower than I was expecting. And that's really what's keeping them in the race right now. And I think, honestly, I think that's got a good chance of continuing. I don't see Jari, you know, you always you always say barring injuries because any time at any place, anybody could get an injury. Right. Um, but barring any injuries, I think those two are going to be a good tandem and better than average, uh, going down, uh, going down the stretch here in the last second half in the second half of the season. So I really liked the goalie situation. I'm very surprised that, um, the defensive pairing has, uh, has allowed, um, the goalie situation to thrive. Look at the beginning of the year when we brought Carlson in and you know, you're like, Carlson's got to learn to play with Graves. And with Tang and Pedersen going to have to learn to play together. Look, some people think that that Pedersen actually should have been an all-star. I don't actually, but I do agree that Pedersen has really learned to play better with both with Tang and Carlson when he's had to play with both, um, much better than Graves has. I would say, you know, I look at these, these rankings, these grades, they'll give players like somebody gave Graves an F.

I don't think he's that bad, but I do think that he needs to figure out. I mean, the good thing about Graves is he's he's got good awareness on the ice. He has that long stick and he can poke pucks away from players coming down the ice. That's good. But he's got to learn to play a little bit more physical in the front, and he's got to learn how to get the puck out of his hand just a little bit better. His skating skills aren't great, so he's not going to be able to skate it out like Letang or Carlson does. Frankly, a lot of people don't. Carlson and Letang are the only ones who really can make that happen. But I can tell you that if Graves can get it together, that defensive pairing will be a lot better. I am not a big fan of, uh, Pierre, Olivia, Jason, Joseph POJ. I don't think he belongs in the starting lineup. I'd rather see Shay in there. Ryan Shay, who played the beginning of the year and hasn't seen a lick of ice in the last, uh, 15 games. I'd rather see him in there, but they're going to give him a shot. Look, Roo, Roo. It has been pretty good until John Ludwig comes back. He's on, um, he's still on IR. So he's going to be out for a little while yet. Um, Don't know his injury upper body injury. So, you know, you can decide what that means elbow shoulder lung Heart who knows?

I mean upper body injury could be anything with these guys But until he gets back there, they lose a lot of I hate to use the term physicality. They they lose that physical Ability of somebody to be able to knock guys into the corner and just take pucks away from them through brute strength and They don't have that on the ice now, and that could be a problem until they get him back because they're going to be playing against the likes of, you know, Dallas again and Winnipeg, who's a lot faster. The Kings. These are bigger teams and that's could be a problem for them in that situation. So hopefully John Ludwig gets back soon and they can sure up their defensive pairs. But Ruido's been fine, but I think they're going to have to. They're going to have to keep Let's hope, once again, this is barring any injuries. If something happens to the top pair, you can't replace a Letang, you can't replace a Carlson, you probably could replace Graves. Um, but you don't want anybody to get injured at this point. And that's why you have so many defense. Um, and that's why it's important probably to keep POJ and, and not make him, uh, any trade bait or honestly his value isn't very good anyway. So his trade, uh, his trade value would be very, very minimal.

Let's talk about the offense. So here's where the penguins really need to pick it up. Look, right now their goals for of the 14 teams that that I think are in the Eastern playoffs, their rank, they rank 11th in goals for. I did not see this coming. You know, especially look, Sid's off to a great start. 26 goals. 46 points. I mean, let's go. I mean, the first line is incredible. I think him and Jake, you know, Jake's also got 46 points. He's got a little bit more assists, little less goals. And you know, they keep bouncing who's on the right wing there. Sometimes it's Raquel, sometimes it's rust. It doesn't really seem to matter, so I think whoever needs help on that secondary on that second on the second line. I think that's what Sully's been doing, so I think that first line. They've been incredible. Sid's been carrying the team at times, but they're going to have to get some better secondary scoring. So who's on the second line now? Gino, clearly everybody knows Gino's on the second line. He does have 36 points. He's played in all 42 games. I guess that's pretty good for him. The thing that I'd like to see more with Gino is a little bit more consistency. He really, he really just takes games off and he takes parts of games off entirely. And I just hate that, you know, I was, by the way, if you listen to me, um, on, uh, the sports porch, I do an analysis after every game. And I said, there's gotta be something wrong with the pens app. There's no way Gino didn't have shot a shot on goal, two games in a row. And that is true. He definitely had shots on goal in the last game that they played against Seattle. I think he had three or four shots on goal. So I either was looking at the app wrong or said it wrong, or maybe I was thinking Gino is garbage. Gino's far from garbage. I think Gino is going to be great.

I think he needs to get Riley Smith back in healthy. Riley Smith is based. His status right now is out. It's not even I.R. It's just plain old out. That means he probably broke his collarbone if you saw that hit. Oh, hey, Brad, how's it going? I see Minnesota won Tampa Bay nothing. Yeah, I can't believe they're still they're still playing games. I totally botched up that all star break thing, but hey, the pens are at the midseason close enough to the midseason point, so that's why we're here. Thanks for that update though, Brad. Appreciate it. And I think that D.O.C., Drew O'Connor on that second line has been a good boost of confidence for Drew O'Connor. I think he's a great, I think he can be a good player. Being up there with Geno and showing that he can score, really important. I think putting him on that second power play also is a good idea. And I think Russ adds an element to that second line right now that's really making Drew O'Connor go. So I think it's an OK line until Riley Smith gets back. My guess is he's not going to be back probably until middle of February, maybe the end of February. Look, by that time, you're talking about the trade deadline, trade deadlines right after the March 7th game against Washington. So I think it's going to be important to get them back by the trade deadline. So you're kind of adding, you know what they say, you're adding. I don't even know how to say it right. You're not adding somebody by trading somebody. You're getting somebody back from the injury bug.

So that'll be good to get him back. I think that'll make that line go better. Look, until then, the third line's really, really been struggling. Lars Eller and Pustanen don't seem to have too much synergy. They don't seem to be able to get it together. You know I like Pustanen. He's got seven points in 17 games. Just to put that into perspective, Jeff Carter has seven points in 36 games. So, it's clear that Pouston definitely can score points. Most of his are by assist, by the way, and you've got nobody else who can finish on that line. So, I don't know that putting him up there on that line makes sense. I don't know. They're going to have to figure out something on that third line. I actually think they should probably bring up Sam Poulin. They sent down, well, put on waivers Zahorna. I think he cleared today. But either way, so horn is not going to be up there and he was OK. He was doing OK, but he hasn't finished. He hasn't scored a goal in like seven games or 12 games since he's been since he last scored. So I think it made a lot of sense to. Um, to send him down, bring somebody else up though. They have to bring somebody else up. And I think the person they need to bring up is, um, is Sam Poland. They got to give him a shot. This kid, um, has been down there for so long. He's lighting it up down there. I think it's time to give him a little shot, see what he can do. Maybe he's on a third line. Look, they got calling white on that left hand side. He's only played one game, so I can't make any judgment call about him. And the fourth line, look, I've seen grades on this fourth line go as low as Fs, D minuses, D pluses in some cases. It is true they don't score enough points. When they do score, the Penguins are basically undefeated. So when the fourth line scores, it really makes a big difference. And I think Carter's been okay. I mean, you know, I maybe I was dissing him a little bit there for only having seven points in 36 games But he doesn't get a lot of ice time He's out there killing penalties and he's out there for face offs on some some cases Look, no, Lachari on the face off circle is incredible and he's winning a lot of draws In fact, the Pittsburgh Penguins are number one in Or number one, is that right? Yeah.

Number one in faceoff percentage right now in the Eastern Conference. Pretty impressive. They sit at 55.1. Next on the list, I think, are the Rangers at 54.5. So it's always really close. Some of these are exactly the same. There's a lot of 51.3s. I don't know why. That seemed to be a popular number for faceoff wins. Maybe because people want to be on the positive side, not the negative side. Um, so I think that the, you know, having a char in there, the wind face offs good. But what do you do at the face offs is really the important thing. And that leads me to the power play. I've got to take a drink of this tea before I talk about the power play or I will lose my voice. Yep. So let's, let's get there. Let's go to the power play. Look, power play 11th. it's only the 11th of the 14th. There are actually worse power plays out there. And you want to know whose power play is worse than the Pittsburgh Penguins? That's right. The Philadelphia Flyers. The Philadelphia Flyers. power play sits at 13.3. Is that right? No, it's worse than that. It's 12.2 and the penguins are at 13.7. The caps are also behind them too at just at 13.3. This is when I did this statistics the other day. They may have changed a little bit between now and then. But the bottom line is those power plays are horrible And the fact that Philadelphia is in fourth is in second place in the metro with a power play clicking at twelve point two percent That's pretty incredible for them that and they do it they do it a little bit different than we do it But they do it on the penalty kill their first in the penalty kill so they they may allow a lot of power plays, but their penalty kills really good.

And it also, um, it also does a really good job of scoring on their power play. I mean, their penalty kill fires are number one in, in, in, in that category. So what my, what's my point here? My point is, is that the penguins have some really good statistics. My apologies, sports porchers. I'm getting over a cold. As you could probably tell, and I've got this cough, so I've got a. Mute the mic every now and then so I don't cough in your head. So what do the Penguins have to do? Excuse me again. The Pittsburgh Penguins basically right now it's hit at 48 points. What they have to do is They have to find a way to get the 98 points. I think that's the magic number. Looking at it last year, 92 points got you in. And I think it's going to need a little bit more this year. So I think in order to do that, what do they have to do? If you sit at 48 points now, really what you have to do is You can't go on any really long, uh, losing streaks and looking at the results. The penguins haven't been on a three game losing streak since back in October. So they've done a pretty good job of, Oh, by the way, I should say point streaks because they have had a four, four loser games at a row. Remember when they played Philadelphia and Tampa Bay and Florida, they went on that Florida trip. But they did get two loser points out of that. And unfortunately, that's what you're going to have to look at. Um, when you, um, when you're, when you're going through, uh, the season, you're going to have to be like, well, you got to gain a point somewhere.

And so what's going to have to happen with the penguins is they're just going to have to continue to get points, um, and not go on long streaks without gaining no points at all. That sounds easy to do, but it's really kind of hard. I mean, I'm looking at their schedule in the second half and I think the big, I think the big push for them will be this big, this big home push from February 18th to February 25th. They play four games at home. They play, uh, the Kings, which are really good team in the West. Then they play the Islanders, uh, the, the Canadians and then Philadelphia. Look, that's going to make or break what they do. I think at the trade deadline, if they can win those games or most of those games, let's say they win three out of four there. I think they're going to be in good shape because then after that, they got to go on the road. They're going, they're heading out West after that. They're going to Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton. And they actually do fare better in the West, believe it or not, when they're on the road. I don't think they're going to sweep the West. I actually have them only winning one game on the West Coast games. For some reason, they seem to have Calgary's number. And who knows?

Seattle's not that good. They could also win that game. But I think these are these are the types of games when you think about the season coming up. You think of it in chunks, at least that's what I do when I look at the games. And I think that that's really going to that's really going to be what they do at the trade deadline. I actually don't see them making a trade at the deadline unless Riley Smith's out long term. You know, there's this talk about I and I have to address this. There's this talk about Jake Gensel getting traded. I just don't believe those talks. I understand why you would trade Jake Gensel, but I don't understand why you would trade him now. If you think that this team is going to make the playoffs. And by the way, what's the number? I think they need to have, um, 70, 72 points. They got to have over 70 points, uh, by that March 7th game, after that March 7th game in order for them not to be trading, uh, people at the trade deadline. I think if they're there, they definitely have a shot at making the playoffs for sure. It gets hard. Don't get me wrong. I mean, we play a lot of teams towards the end of the season, like in our division. And that's where we've struggled in the past. And I think that's something that, um, I think that's something that the penguins as an organization is going to have to address. But as long as you're getting good goaltending every night. I think they'll find a way to get the goals they need. And that's what they really need to focus on. Look, I talked about the power play briefly. I've said this a thousand times, so I'm only going to say it one more time.

The power play needs to find a point person. They need to put two people on the wings, one person behind the net or two people near the net. Ideally one person right in the freaking crease and then one person that pops out to take it could be that person in the crease to take that shot in the slot. And you got to have somebody who can take it as a one timer. Gino has not been doing it on the wing and you know what, whoever they have on the other wing, whether it's Sid or Gino or even, even rusty, I've seen do this. They'll pop out to the blue line and they'll get like a running start so that they can gain momentum to go to the net. I've never seen any other NHL team do this that way. They need to abandon that philosophy. Hopefully they're working on that this week and we're going to see a brand new power play. But that's what it's going to take. If they're going to if they're going to get more goals for it's going to have to come through through special teams. And that means the power play. I don't think they're going to get a lot of shorties, although I do like Russ playing the penalty kill minutes. But I don't like Russ playing the penalty kill and also being on that second power play. I think that's too many minutes for Russ. But you know what? If he's going to play the second and I think that's why they have him on the second line. I think that's probably what they're doing. More special teams for Rusty. He is a threat, definitely, to score on a penalty kill. Absolutely, 100%. I think he's probably their biggest threat. Drew O'Connor, maybe a little bit too, but… Not, not the greatest. Look, the other thing the penguins do is they shoot the hell out of the puck. I think they're, uh, let's see shots, shots, shots. They're, they're actually tied for second, um, with shots. Um, so they definitely shoot, shoot the puck. They just need to get a little bit more accuracy. And I actually would like to see them shoot more one timers as opposed to, you know, stopping the puck and then, and then getting a wrist or when the goalie is already in position. I think the surprise shots are probably more important than just shots as a whole.

So, sports porters, this is what I'm saying. The Pittsburgh Penguins definitely could be a playoff team. They're only one point out of it at half. And when I looked at them at the beginning of the season, I definitely had some things wrong. I thought they'd score more goals. I didn't think that the goals against would be as low as it is. So that's a big surprise in a positive way. I don't think the talent has changed to allow them to score more goals. You know, Carlson, I thought maybe would be more of a goal scorer or more of a playmaker. And he will be that if you let him be that way on the on the power play. And I think that's probably the best thing to do. Just let Carlson be the playmaker on the power play. and get a better structure where you got more guys near the net. You're going to be picking up pucks. The other team's going to get tired. You're going to get secondary chances, and that's what it's going to be. The other thing I said that they need to do, and I think they haven't really found this person yet, is they need to find somebody in the bottom six to be that goal scorer. I think they actually have Drew O'Connor available to do that.

I thought he played great on the third line. And I also think that, uh, boosted in is, um, another, uh, great asset down there. And if they bring a pool in, I think between the three of them, I think they might do enough, but they got to get more, they got to get more offensive zone time for the fourth line. They got to get more points from the third and fourth line. If, um, the penguins are going to get any more secondary scoring, that's going to be, that's probably going to be the best thing that can happen to the penguins in the second half. Well, there it is. Sports Porchers. It's your hockey spectacular. I'm optimistic that the Penguins can do this. I don't look of the teams that are in here. Who do I think are pretenders? That's this is a good question. And let's finish. Let's finish on this note. I actually think Tampa Bay is a pretender. Look, their goals against right now, their differential, they're a minus three, which means they give up more goals than they actually get by three goals. I think they're a pretender philadelphia. Eh, they could still be there detroit Probably will be there too But I think these are the teams they're going to be battling against toronto I think toronto is definitely a a top three in the in the atlantic So I don't think they're going to be battling them for that for that wild card spot if that's where they end up look They've already beaten Carolina, so they've shown they can beat Carolina. They've kind of played even with Philadelphia, and they've played even with the Caps. I think this team definitely is right on that bubble with all these other teams. They've already beaten the Islanders twice, which is pretty amazing because the Islanders have usually had their numbers. It's going to come down to, you know, beating Montreal team. That's going to be out of it. They play him three times.

If they can be, they play him three times. That's right. Three times in the second half. If they can beat them all three times and, you know, they can take care of the likes of the senators and they don't trip up on these, on these, you know, as, uh, our technical director likes to say trap games. If they don't, if they don't trip up on those, I think they'll, they'll easily make the playoffs. They won't be playing on that last day when they play the Islanders on the aisle for a playoff spot, hopefully between April 11th, 13th and 15th. They're clinching a playoff berth and not having to worry about doing that on the island. So my prediction for the Pittsburgh penguins are. I think Sidney Crosby remains in the MVP candidate talk for the remainder of the season. I don't see him slowing down. Once again, barring any injuries. I don't see them trading Jake Gensel. I don't. I don't see that that's going to be possible, and I see the Pittsburgh Penguins with the power play where the likes of Carlson is. Just making unbelievable plays, and that's what we'll be talking about on the porch. Thank you so much for enjoying the spectacular. I hope you got a little bit out of it. If you did, leave me a little comment. Let me know you liked it.

And you know I'll be back Saturday night because the Pittsburgh Penguins are in Las Vegas. My boss is actually out there to watch the game. So, um, I think, uh, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens out there. I expect them to take either one of those games, the Vegas game or the Arizona game. God, I wish I was going to that Arizona game, but hey, sports porchers, you know where you can get your hockey talk. It's right here on the porch. Come back and get it after every game. Hear me, the hockey Jesus. So until then, sports porchers and Pittsburgh Penguins fans, Keep the faith and let's go Pens.