[ncm7772]

Thoughts on the team through the first 1/3 of the season?

As a Pens fan, I'll give my opinions.

GOOD:
- Team is doing well, record-wise.
- Offense is scoring enough, for the most part.
- First line (Crosby/Kunitz/Dupuis) has been solid the past 8 or so games, after a fairly poor start.
- Defense has been playing well. Still some breakdowns here and there, but MUCH less ugly than the last 1/3 of 2011-12, and the abomination that was the 2012 playoffs.
- Both MAF and Vokoun have looked good. I still think Fleury let's in too many softies and his rebound control is awful as usual, he's stolen a couple games this year.
- Paul Martin. Dude, where was this the past 2 seasons?
- Neal's shot. Other than that, he hasn't done much.
- PP is OK. They still pass the damn puck too much, and there have been some games early on where it was abysmal, they've scored a PP goal in 8 straight, so they're doing something right. If they'd actually shoot the dman puck more, they'd probably have a 5-6% better conversion rate.
- 8-2 on the road. That's pretty darn good. And with how pathetic the fans in Consol Energy Center sound, I wouldn't mind all their games being away from home.

BAD
- I do think MAF has played well, but I think they're using him too much. He has shown in the past that he gets exhausted when facing a heavier-than-usual regular season load. His stats show that the few regular season games he plays, the better his playoff performance is. Vokoun needs to play more.
- Malkin. Yeah, he has set up plenty of plays, but come on. 3 goals in 16 games? He needs to be better. His last 5 games have been particularly frusterating to watch. And to exacerbate this, he takes so many stupid retalitory penalties.
- The whole Malkin line. Malkin/Geno/Scrub (whoever it is on a given night) has combined for 2 even strength goals. Pathetic.
- The defense has been decent, but they still have a tendency to let dudes sit WIDE open in the slot. I just don't get that.
- Penalty Kill. It hasn't been BAD, but the Pens have been near the top of the league the past few seasons in PK%, and they're hovering around the middle thus far.
- The team very rarely plays w/ passion. I'd day around half the time, if not more, they just go through the motions, other than the 4th line. Was nice to see some fire and drive in the 3rd period vs Buffalo today.
- Bylsma needs to be fired. His system simply doesn't work vs top teams. They did absolutely nothing vs NJD. Yes they beat them 5-1 two weeks ago, but benefitted from a poor game out of Brodeur.
- Tyler Kennedy. Dude is just abysmal this season. Just bad.


I could go on a little more, but I won't. Just want to share my thoughts, and see other's thoughts.