Penguins Get A Slide This Year

The Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017. They tried to win their third straight Stanley Cup in 2018 but things did not work out for the Pens as they lost to the Washington Capitals in the Eastern Conference Semifinals as the Capitals won four games in the series and the Penguins won only two games in the series.

Almost every single NHL team in the league, except for the Penguins of course, had one goal in mind which was to make sure that the Penguins would not win a third straight Stanley Cup. I kind of had a gut feeling that the Penguins were not going to win it again this year with the loss of Marc-Andre Fleury. Like let's be real the Penguins won the Cup in 2016 and 2017 because they had two solid and I mean two solid goaltenders that helped the Penguins win games. This season Fleury was drafted by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft and because of that the Penguins now had only one good goaltender.

But when I did watch the Penguins other goaltenders play during the regular season in Casey DeSmith and Tristan Jarry they were not bad at all. Mike Sullivan definitely had the choice this postseason to have DeSmith or Jarry play and give Murray a break but he decided not to. It could have been the lack of the experience those two had or maybe it could have been because of something else.

We also have to remember that the Penguins did lose a lot of players in the 2017 offseason unlike the 2016 offseason where the Penguins barely lost anyone of their players except for defenseman Ben Lovejoy. Like this offseason the Penguins lost Chris Kunitz, Trevor Daley, Nick Bonino and Matt Cullen. And all four of those players made a difference during both the 2016 and 2017 postseason where the Penguins won the Stanley Cup. I also still hate that the Penguins traded Ian Cole to Ottawa during the middle of the season for two other players and some third round draft pick. Like Ian Cole was a good defenseman for the Pens. He would later get traded again during this season as Ottawa traded him to Columbus.

When the Capitals player Evgeny Kuznetsov scored the game winning goal in Game 6 to give the Capitals a series win the Penguins defenseman Kris Letang was once again behind the play because he was playing offense and not staying back. I am sick and tired of Letang always skating up to the front of the net trying to score. Like dude you are getting paid millions of dollars to stay back and play defense not playing offense. Yeah I see if Letang just happened to be behind that one time when Kuznetsov scored the goal then I would just be upset that he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time but he does this all the darn time. If Letang really wants to play offense he should go up to Coach Sullivan right in front of his face and say that he wants to play offense and tell him how he is not having fun playing defense. You might say to me something like "BY defenseman can score too and there is nothing wrong with Letang trying to score a lot." And I would agree with you that defenseman should try to score but not skate ALL THE WAY up infront of the net to score like very often. Like from the net to the blue line in a zone is like 64 feet away. I see if Letang is skating up from the blue line and skates 10-15 feet away from the blue line and then tries to score then I would be okay because he could easily catch up but when he is 50 feet away from the blue line with only one defenseman in the back that is not fine whatsoever. Other NHL defenseman shoot from far away and score because they practice doing that a lot like Drew Doughty and PK Subban. I have a lot of respect for those two as they do not skate right up in front of the net to try to score and how they both try every single time to shoot from far way and they score a lot because they practice a lot but both of them know in their heads that the priority first is to play defense and if they get a chance to score they will try but don't skate that far up in front of the net.

Sooner rather than later the Capitals were going to beat the Penguins in the playoffs because the Pens could not beat the Capitals forever. For the first time in a while Penguins fans have to think about how the Penguins can get better again as Head Coach Mike Sullivan and the Penguins will have to get back to the drawing board to see how they can win another Stanley Cup again in 2019. That's why I would let the Penguins slide this year and expect great things from them next season.