Penguins Gameday Preview: Oct. 28, Fixes the Penguins Need & the NHL's Top 10 Dirtiest Players
Welcome to the THW Pittsburgh Penguins Substack newsletter, with all the latest from our team of Penguins writers.
Today we look at tonight’s (Oct. 28) game against the Ottawa Senators, issues the Penguins need to address in order to start winning again, and the Top 10 Dirtiest Players in the NHL today.
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Now on to the good stuff…
Penguins Gameday Preview: Ottawa Senators 10/28/23
October 28, 2023 by George Majchrzak
Thursday (Oct. 26) night’s game at home had all the makings of a potential disaster for the Pittsburgh Penguins. They had been struggling mightily, dropping three straight to the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, and the Dallas Stars. They were making second period collapses a habit and were not getting any offense from the bottom six forwards. Meanwhile, the Colorado Avalanche entered the game 6-0, the team’s best start since 1985-86, when the franchise was still in Quebec.
Tonight (Oct. 28), the Ottawa Senators are in town. A week ago, the Senators looked like they had everything going their way. They entered their Saturday, Oct. 21’s game against the Red Wings, having won their previous three contests and had a 4-1-0 record. They dropped that game to the Red Wings and then followed up by losing to the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Islanders, three-straight losses to conference rivals that saw the Senators tumble to near the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
What the Penguins Must Fix to Start Winning
October 28, 2023 by Mike Cranwell
Several years ago, I was the head scout of a junior hockey team in Ontario. I was in my 20s, and between playing the game at a fairly high youth level and seemingly constantly studying it (thank you paper versions of The Hockey News and its Yearbook), I knew what a depth chart was.
The junior team I was working for started the regular season with six wins in seven games, a 6-1 record. We were in first place. It was magical, and we were dominant.
Our top scoring line was good for two or three goals each game.
Our third line was our league’s version of Detroit’s famed late 90s line, The Grind Line. They skated fast, forechecked relentlessly, hit everything that moved, and were both intelligent and engaged defensively. So tough to play against.
Our goaltender was one of the best in the league. He was large, filled the net, tracked the puck well, cut off angles, and moved well in the crease. He was tough to put a puck past.
Our defense was led by one of the few true number-one defensemen in this league. He played 30 minutes a night against the opposing teams’ top lines, and as you can see by our record, he did a pretty good job of shutting them down. Simultaneously, he drove the offense. He quarterbacked our top power-play unit.
Then, he broke his wrist.
You likely know what the echo here is. It’s the same in a hockey ops room as it is in the media and from fans: “Next person up.” At this point, the player directly behind this defenseman on the depth chart was playing well against second lines and borderline dominating third lines. We were confident that he would be fine and the team would be. We thought we’d be fine.
Were we ever wrong.
While our top scoring line kept scoring, they were exposed as one-dimensional players who were allergic to coming back into their own zone and really engaging.
Our third line was broken up with the thought being to spread that depth across multiple lines and have players who can have a true impact on the game on every line, on every shift. In breaking up that line, we found that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Every defenseman who moved up the chart to play a larger role got caved in, plain and simple. And our goaltender – I mean, the wheels fell off. Pucks that he had a clear view of got past him. He didn’t track the puck as well to get into position. When the puck was in tight, he didn’t move around in the crease as well as we thought. Without our top defenseman, more pucks got to the net, and more pucks went in.
We lost, and we lost, and we lost. Game after game. If memory serves, we lost six straight before winning again. It took two months for the player to return from the broken wrist, and while he was still a very good player, he wasn’t the same.
They were good, but not the same.
Across the team, the magic was gone.
At that point, for the first time in my life, I truly, actually understood what a depth chart was and what it meant to ask a player to play a role beyond his capabilities.
Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into Pittsburgh’s current depth chart and see if we can pinpoint why the team is off to a troubling start.
Top 10 Dirtiest NHL Players
October 14, 2023 by Eugene Helfrick (Updated Archive)
Hockey is played hard and fast. Athletes will hook, trip, face wash and pester to gain a winning edge. Like all sports, hockey has official rules and unwritten rules. It also has a code of respect. And there are many players that blur the lines between the two. Or cross them entirely. They can be downright dirty.
These dirty, unsportsmanlike, and sometimes dishonorable players take every liberty they can on vulnerable players. They’re seemingly incapable of delivering clean body checks on a regular basis. They take cheap shots, run smaller players, and blindside unsuspecting peers, igniting an intense and impassioned hatred. In short, they have earned their spots on our list of the most hated players in the NHL.
To get on this list, it’s not about being hated but despised. It’s more than Philadelphia Flyer fans hating their nemesis, Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins. These are players that are despised for the way they play the game, as it is often reckless and can cause long-term injury for what should be nothing plays.