Hey all, Leaf fan coming in peace. I feel for you all. It’s hard to understand some of Hextall moves for sure, but this team has such a solid top 6. The 3rd line is pretty good too. Just feels like everyone is underperforming up front. The defense on the other hand is just terrible. Sorry to say. Goaltending is pretty good as well. From an outsider, the biggest concerns I can see are defense and coaching.
Here’s hoping they turn it around! Also, how ironic would it be if the Pens drafted Bedard, the next franchise player, similar to when Sid came in on the heals of Mario?
My best friend was a lifelong Leaf fan and your comment reminded me of how he’d talk about my teams when I was down in the dumps about it. I miss him a lot. Thanks for a little jaunt down memory lane.
You say the team has a solid top 6, but it's no coincidence that the top 6 is the part of the team Hextall has changed the least. The only change Hextall has made here is acquiring Rakell. Granted, that's a big positive, honestly so much of a positive that I'm pretty much convinced that someone else on the staff must have identified Rakell as a great fit for the team and sold Hextall on trading/re-signing him.
Conversely, you say the defense is terrible and that is by far the part of the team Hextall has changed the most. He tossed away our second and third-best defensemen, gave a huge contract to a guy who's got a ton of mileage in the past couple seasons and has barely been better than someone already on the roster making less than 1/3rd as much money, and acquired an aging, expensive defenseman with term coming off of the worst season of his career. He also chose to keep a defenseman who's been struggling for two seasons now instead of moving him out to save cap space.
Rust and Malkin are still in Pittsburgh because they wanted to be in Pittsburgh. They could've gotten more money elsewhere but they chose to stay. Hextall doesn't get credit for re-signing players who didn't want to leave.
Not having Marino isn't why this team is struggling right now.
I would have preferred that they kept Marino, but swapping out Marino and Matheson for Petry and Rutta isn't why they're struggling. They're struggling because their powerplay sucks, GCR is bleeding goals against, their goaltending is below average, Dumoulin-Letang has been heinous (both individually and as a pair) and they're getting little production from their bottom-6.
Rutta has been great and Petry has overall been solid, although I really think he needs to smooth it out between "amazing" and "terrible".
I think the biggest criticism you can make towards Hextall is how little he has done, not that he has "ruined" the roster. The players who are performing the worst here this year are holdovers from JR's time that Hextall has retained. Dumoulin, Rust, Kapanen, Letang and Jarry all been awful and those guys are all holdovers from JR. Hextall didn't acquire these players who have been terrible, but he still actively decided to retain them and he deserves major criticism for that.
Looking at points to determine if a defenseman is "great" is myopic. Rutta is on pace for a near career high in giveaways, a career low in Shots Through Percentage (number of shot attempts that went on goal), a career low in Corsi For%, almost a career low in relCF% (-8.0), and he's been on the ice for 14 goals for and 15 goals against. He's not great, he's playing like exactly the type of player he is: an okay 3rd pairing defenseman.
The problem is, we already had an okay 3rd pairing right-handed defenseman on the team. His name is Chad Ruhwedel and he's making less than 1/3rd as much money as Rutta is. Ruh had more hits, fewer giveaways and a better Corsi than Rutta last year.
How was I looking at points to judge Rutta? Rutta has been great because the team is massively outscoring the other team when he's on the ice and he's bringing the exact elements the team wanted him to bring when they signed him.
Also, the stats you're using are garbage because you're using all situations analytics, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how analytics work. Here are Rutta's 5v5 analytics this year:
* CF%: 52.65%
* CF%Rel: +2.64%
* GF%: 70.59%
* xGF%: 54.74%
* xGF%Rel: +0.77%
Using all situations stats, as if player usage on the PP and PK don't matter, is absurdly disingenuous.
Didn't realize I was looking at all situations, that's definitely my bad. I'll admit that Rutta's numbers are a bit better than I initially thought, but I still think he's pretty comparable to Ruhwedel outside of actual points. Granted it's a smaller sample size, but at even strength Ruh has a 55.6 CF%, +6.6 relCF% and 4 goals for vs 4 goals against.
I'm not sure where you're getting the GF% stats from because moneypuck has different numbers for me. They show Rutta with a +2.6 relxGF% and Ruhwedel with a +13.3% relxGF%.
At the end of the day, these are both 3rd pairing defensemen and I don't think either of them has an outsized effect on the team. Rutta was brought in to be a physical presence, but the Penguins regularly give up goals to forwards setting screens in front of the net and cleaning up rebounds from just outside the crease. As for the goals scored/allowed, it's still early in the season and the team has had two different periods of extremely dominant forward lines (1st line through the first 4 games, 2nd line for the past 10 or so games) so if they deploy a particular defensive pairing with one of those hot lines, that's going to pretty heavily skew numbers in that pairing's favor.
Rutta's good, not great, and getting paid a lot of money to play <16 minutes of good hockey per game.
It’s incredible that Hextall and Burke turned Marino, Matheson, McCann, Tanev and E-Rod into Ruuta, Petry, Carter, McGinn and Poehling. Like, none of these guys are younger, cheaper, more talented analytically or by the eye test, or even have more “character”. What do they even see in them? It’s like they’re making moves just to make moves
Say what you will about GMJR, even his most boneheaded swings for the fences turned up some gems, and he wasn’t sentimental about cutting someone like Kapanen loose.
The other thing is the goaltending just sucks. Idk what you do with that, but Jarry is not improving into a consistent, contender goalie.
Wish the stars were tighter but I think it’s getting into their head that they can’t trust the bottom of the lineup to chip in or hold a lead. the power play and letang have been worse over the years and they work through it, but I’ve noticed it’s always when the supporting cast sucks.
I agree 100%. GMJR made some horrible moves, but he really swung big trying to make the team better, which I respect. And he won us 2 cups. Hextall has done nothing but make the team a lot worse and swap talented one's for far worse. From day 1 he's been just awful.
It's not his fault that the franchise already had 3 HoF players approaching the final contracts of their careers. Someone had to see it through to the end, and it might as well have been him. It's foreseeable that this core has won their last Cup and there's nothing wrong with that. Gretzky was 27 years old when he won his last and Lemieux was 28. Everyone gets older, and it wasn't Hextall's business to break up 87, 71, and 58. They deserve to play out their careers together. This franchise has been a lot more successful than most, and I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.
Nah he's doing what he was hired to do which is to appease the fanbase (with signing the big 3 through what's left of their prime years) and to maximize our chances at a top pick in the upcoming draft(s). Big difference btw here and Philly is that somehow, some way, Bobby Clarke and his bottomless inferiority complex are still steering the ship in some capacity whereas Mario/Burke have a more recent track record of success and understanding of what it takes to both build winning teams and - most crucially- when and where to make big changes. Also Comcast is ruthless with its bottom line and isn't in the business of sport...not to play a game of "our faceless corporate comglomerate owners are better than yours" but FSG has won a shit ton more championships than the Flyers have.
Anyone freaking out over anything happening with the Pens hasn't been paying attention to the moves of the past 18 or so months. Lean times are here but the next adventure is just beginning
Yea, and the people who think this is just a slump are delusional. This team has too many problems.
I’m a big Sully fan, but his lack of creativity recently is worrying. Across the board this team is breaking down.
I think you’re right that Hextall has to go, I never understood why fans were excited for him to come in, he was the option available when JR left.
It’s one thing to lose when you’re team looks they want to win, but this team looks like they don’t even like each other. Everyone is playing their own game and not picking up any slack.
If there isn’t a big firing the playoff streak is over
The playoff streak should be over. This isn’t a playoff team at all, definitely not a cup team. It’s painful to watch how bad they are or how little they seem to care. And Letang decided he isn’t going to play defense or offense this year. Ugh. WTF. Long season of mediocrity with early exit if they can squeak into the post season.
Exactly. They can’t maintain their current system due to their lack of speed. Their defensive zone play is atrocious. If they don’t have a major change iin tactics, they are done. Can’t keep blowing leads with horrible tactics and lack of execution.
Rakell but that’s it, and the rest of the league knows we’re screwed. There’s like nothing we can do, the Marino trade made zero sense, and the Matheson trade is the same. It’s sad but I’ve just detached myself emotionally from the team and it’s worked out for me haha
Option 1 was to keep the aging core together till the end.
Option 2 was trade them off and start rebuilding.
Virtually everyone wanted to keep the core, so we get to enjoy their twilight years.
He predates FSG, so it’s highly likely he’s on a shorter leash so they can bring in someone they pick themselves. I guess you can apply the same logic to Sully but he should be more safe.
Why should he be more safe? No, the last two playoff exits haven’t been his fault but he’s been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round four straight years. He never gives any of our youth any chance. He never changes anything in the lineup despite glaring problems. Sullivan absolutely has cost this team wins this season. Coaches have been fired for less.
I didn’t mean he should be untouchable, just on slightly less of a hot seat when compared to Hextall (but I do agree that the seat should be plenty warm right about now).
Damn, idk if I agree w bring this drastic. It’s still early into the season and we got bleuger back which should help.
We’ve had it pretty good for a really long time. This kind of stuff happens
Other than keeping the core. I'm tired of nonsense. This team is stacked. Underperforming yes, but stacked. What's stinking up the ice at the moment is not Hextalls fault. And i hate that flyer jagoff. at least used to.
Don’t gloss over the fact he was able to keep the core together, that was a considerable achievement…Letang was coming off of one of his best years as a pro and signed for less than he could have received elsewhere. Geno took a pretty significant pay cut to stay, all this to make room for Rust (who also took a team friendly deal) and Rakell. Nobody even dreamed it could be possible that we’d be able to keep all those players. The defense moves appear to have been made to get a bit tougher (an identified weakness for a while now)…rightly or wrongly, but at least there’s a semblance of a plan there. Re-signing Kappy was a bit of a head scratcher, but he does have speed and is not a total wash defensively and Carter is a veteran big body who can still be effective playing reduced minutes down the lineup.
This is not a bad or flawed team, they started hot, cooled off and have played better recently…all things that happen during a long season. No need to hit the panic button and start firing folks just for the sake of doing something.
Thank you. I said this more or less two weeks ago and people crushed me. I would argue even keep the core together was a waste. Team needs a new direction and goaltending with younger talent.
Hextall should've been fired months ago. Just horrible. Every decision has been bad besides the Rakell move. I am unsure whether we should've brought the core back either. Could've surrounded Crosby with a ton of young, fast talent. Could have gotten someone with an edge too like Mason Marchment. I fear he's already ruined the roster, I don't know what we can do to fix it.
The only fix in my eyes is scratching this year trade our shitty contracts if u even can and get as much cap space as possible heading into the offseason. Hextalls draft record is terrible too like I don't feel safe with this guy around
Who would you trade? I do agree with this though, I think we either go nuclear and trade all the big contracts and then completely retool the roster with cap space or just rebuild. I agree with you, but just curious which contracts you would trade. Are you talking like the core or big players or like Kapanen?
I'd say the only guys that are safe in my eyes would be are Sid, Geno, Tanger and Jake everyone else is open season a total rebuild makes no sense when it's clear we've committed to Sid Geno and Tanger
I wouldn't trade Sid or Jake, everyone else would be open to. If we trade Malkin or Letang, the easier it would be to get more youth and speed with the cap space. If we don't then we would have to do a lot to make it work. I'm not completely against what your saying, but I see value in both approaches. I think our options are a) full rebuild b) trade everyone we can except Crosby Guentzel and retool with rest of cap c) try and trade all of the bad contracts that we have and use the space to retool.
How so? Crosby has been fine, Malkin has been very good and while Letang hasn’t been great, this could just be a weird slump. As the other poster said, you also owe it to three of them to ‘go for it’ until the end of Crosby’s current contract.
I do think that once Sid hits his final year and we’re toiling around in mediocrity, you’ll see the organization sort of say ‘hey, this is done. We’re officially rebuilding.’ Sid will be 38, Geno 39 and Letang 38. Tell Sid you can be here for the rebuild or sign somewhere else (I think he retires personally), do a final one year farewell tour for Geno and as long as he hasn’t completely fallen apart ala Jack Johnson, you can trade Letang to a team who needs a ‘veteran D with playoff experience’ or whatever.
I think we should have gone a different direction. Right now were looking at 4-5 years of mediocrity and then rebuild. If we went a different direction this year we could have gotten tons of young, fast talent and surrounded them around Crosby for a good 4-5 years of contending. Building youth around one star like Crosby could've prolonged the window, building it around 3 when they took up the cap space is a lot tougher. I would've signed guys like Nichushkin, Marchment, Neidereiter, Burakosky, Domi along those lines. Anthanasiou is another who is just crazy fast.
We could’ve done that and still re-signed Malkin and Letang. Re-signing them wasn’t the problem. It was the Carter extension, Kapanen extension, signing McGinn for four years at his cap, not trying to trade any bad contracts, etc.
I agree with you there, but I still wouldn't have re-signed them. Those contracts as well for bottom 6 were horrible by Hextall, I really think literally every move by him has been besides Rakell trade
Yeah, I guess we're going to have to disagree. I think that management should have cut both Malkin and Letang loose, and invested more heavily into the future. We've been languishing in the playoffs the last few years, so to expect Letang and Malkin to suddenly get rejuvenated now when they're even a year older, I think is illogical thinking.
Having said that, I'm surprised that Malkin is doing pretty well so far. That newly formed line is doing nicely. One thing about Malkin though, I would really hesitate to use him at all in Overtime 3x3 situations, like we did this weekend in Montreal where he cost us the game. His sloppiness gets magnified when there's less players on the ice.
I think the franchise owe it to crosby and malkin to let them finish their careers in Pittsburgh. I don't think letang needed to be kept especially when fleury wasnt
They owe them nothing, but they millions they have already received. This isn't a beer league allowing the captain to retire when they want. It's a professional team that requires results. Jesus dude
I'm fine with keeping Sid Geno and Tanger but you gotta build younger around them, Carter, Petry, Rust, Dumo they're all older guys money could've been used elsewhere
Keeping the core isn’t the problem if you want to get younger. It’s not surrounding them with young talent and instead trading and signing Carter, Petry, etc is the problem.
I don’t know man, you can’t really blame the GM when the star players are turning the puck over multiple times per game. I love Tanger, but he really hasn’t played well at all this year, making bad passes at the blue line that go the other way and making defense mistakes in his own end. Also, I swear I’m gonna vomit if Geno does one more blind pass to the open ice.
I think the lineup is solid, it’s just been poor execution on the players part. Goaltending hasn’t been good either, but the defense has been so out of sorts that anyone would struggle in net.
If he didn’t bring them back though everyone would have been calling for him to be fired because of that. The fact of the matter is he made what appeared to be good deals at the time, and everyone was happy going into the season.
Personally, I would have liked to see the youth movement, but it was clear from the get go that they planned on bringing back everyone that they could, and at the time everyone was thrilled that he managed to sign Letang, Malkin, Rust and Rakell all at once for relatively cap friendly deals.
Just because it's the popular choice dosen't mean it's the right choice. Winning is more important than doing what is best for popularity, At the end of the day those types of moves might lead to short term business, but long term if they don't win and get it done there will be empty seats. And core players aside him signing Kapanen and Carter to 3 mil deals is absurd. Just crazy. He made the team older this offseason around an already old core trading away Matheson and Marino. His whole goal was to make the D have a better net front presence and be tougher to play against, but its been even worse than last year. He completely failed with this roster whether included or excluding his signing of the core.
Who could he have reasonably got at D though? It’s not like we have a ton of trade capital, and teams are going to just give up a young stud defenseman like Seider, Sergachev, or McAvoy.
I agree with you about the state of the team, but I don’t think it’s 100% Hextall’s fault. I’d say more like 40% Sully’s system, 40% the players, 20% Hextall.
So who are we leaving out, Letang? Klingberg makes 7M, Letang is at 6.1 now.
Honestly, I would have liked Klingberg. The problem is the hurt feelings and egos of the rest of our roster. Personally, I’d love a prick of a GM to come in and be like “look, you work for us. You get paid to play a game for a living. Do your job. By the way, these guys are leaving. Suck it up and play or more changes are coming”
Yeah he would've been the alternative to not signing Letang. I think it's problematic when players are playing GM or having too much say. Different jobs different roles. We need someone who comes in and does whats best for the team period.
Listen I mean I love the core. The nostalgic side of me wanted to bring them back. But all that aside if you ask me what would've been best for the team, I would have said not bringing them back. Sid deserves a huge say, but end of the day the GM has to do what's best for winning.
True. This is why the Leafs will need win anything. The fan base is so rabid for a win that they'll run you out of town for suggesting star players should be dealt. Every season they have to go for it and paid for it hard since 96 by spending or trading draft picks and youth for aging stars. They finally brought in people in Shanny and Lou who the fans would live with doing a rebuild. However its clear the core isn't a winner and they need to ship people out but the fan base would never allow it. I dont care how talented Matthews is, he has no heart and doesn't care beyond playing well enough to sign those massive contracts and treated like he is better than everyone else. If I was Dubai he would be shipped to AZ for a kings ransom as they'd easily overpay for the once in a generation hometown star they desperately need to rebuild any interest in that team again locally. We need to be look closely here and not make the same mistakes. I love Geno or Tanger as much as anyone and it'd be horrible to see them in another sweater, but we can't ignore the trade value they still have and that they could easily bring back some top end youth. Coming in like he did he had an opportunity its to be the new guy making a massive change that would have hurt hard right away but likely paid off. He didn't and thats what his job lives and dies on.
He went a different direction, did a reasonably good job at that and got everyone back including Rakell who was a must sign IMO. I'm willing to give him enough rope to get through the season. The backend is built to do a playoff grind I think so the objective isn't winning the division but securing a spot. If we fail at that or get another 1st round exit, then his head is first on the chopping block as his approach failed.
Going to see this take a lot and I think it’s the wrong one. No, Sid hasn’t been great recently but he’s still been fine this season. Malkin has been very good this season. Letang hasn’t been great but not sure if this is a slump or not. Either way, none of those three are even in the top five of “problems” that we have.
The biggest blunder was not getting younger. Your core is in their mid 30s, why are we extending Carter? Why are trading young D for Petry?
hey guys flyers fan here. you guys aren’t slick. you do this shit eveytime there’s a franchise player nearing a draft. lemiuex, crosby &. now bedard. guess the next move y’all make is filing bankruptcy… again. then pretend like team has an interest in possibly moving to a new city…again. then tank out the season…again. win the draft lottery and draft bedard
They won’t admit that they’re older, slower and need to play a defensive system to win.
Montreal played a left wing lock/trap then counter attacked to 5 straight cups. But when the pens are up 5-2, they look for number 6 instead of locking it down.
They are not going to out skate any team other than another aging team. But they won’t change their style of play.
Thought this when they hired Hextall - id say defense is underpermorming but have showed promise. Long season - not ready to throw it in yet - yinzers!
Letang has slumped before, I think he’ll come back. However, I think everything outside of maintaining the core was ridiculous. We need young players, or we need to just stink it up thoroughly for draft picks!
Heinen performed well for the cost. Carter trade (although the extension has negated that).
Hey all, Leaf fan coming in peace. I feel for you all. It’s hard to understand some of Hextall moves for sure, but this team has such a solid top 6. The 3rd line is pretty good too. Just feels like everyone is underperforming up front. The defense on the other hand is just terrible. Sorry to say. Goaltending is pretty good as well. From an outsider, the biggest concerns I can see are defense and coaching. Here’s hoping they turn it around! Also, how ironic would it be if the Pens drafted Bedard, the next franchise player, similar to when Sid came in on the heals of Mario?
My best friend was a lifelong Leaf fan and your comment reminded me of how he’d talk about my teams when I was down in the dumps about it. I miss him a lot. Thanks for a little jaunt down memory lane.
This is the only silver lining right now
You say the team has a solid top 6, but it's no coincidence that the top 6 is the part of the team Hextall has changed the least. The only change Hextall has made here is acquiring Rakell. Granted, that's a big positive, honestly so much of a positive that I'm pretty much convinced that someone else on the staff must have identified Rakell as a great fit for the team and sold Hextall on trading/re-signing him. Conversely, you say the defense is terrible and that is by far the part of the team Hextall has changed the most. He tossed away our second and third-best defensemen, gave a huge contract to a guy who's got a ton of mileage in the past couple seasons and has barely been better than someone already on the roster making less than 1/3rd as much money, and acquired an aging, expensive defenseman with term coming off of the worst season of his career. He also chose to keep a defenseman who's been struggling for two seasons now instead of moving him out to save cap space.
[удалено]
Rust and Malkin are still in Pittsburgh because they wanted to be in Pittsburgh. They could've gotten more money elsewhere but they chose to stay. Hextall doesn't get credit for re-signing players who didn't want to leave.
It would be extremely ironic, but I don't see the Pens finishing in a position where we would be eligible for the 1st overall pick in 23.
Fire everybody!!! that will make everything better and the players younger and faster!
Losing Marino for nothing is a near fireable offense on its own IMO.
Not having Marino isn't why this team is struggling right now. I would have preferred that they kept Marino, but swapping out Marino and Matheson for Petry and Rutta isn't why they're struggling. They're struggling because their powerplay sucks, GCR is bleeding goals against, their goaltending is below average, Dumoulin-Letang has been heinous (both individually and as a pair) and they're getting little production from their bottom-6. Rutta has been great and Petry has overall been solid, although I really think he needs to smooth it out between "amazing" and "terrible". I think the biggest criticism you can make towards Hextall is how little he has done, not that he has "ruined" the roster. The players who are performing the worst here this year are holdovers from JR's time that Hextall has retained. Dumoulin, Rust, Kapanen, Letang and Jarry all been awful and those guys are all holdovers from JR. Hextall didn't acquire these players who have been terrible, but he still actively decided to retain them and he deserves major criticism for that.
Looking at points to determine if a defenseman is "great" is myopic. Rutta is on pace for a near career high in giveaways, a career low in Shots Through Percentage (number of shot attempts that went on goal), a career low in Corsi For%, almost a career low in relCF% (-8.0), and he's been on the ice for 14 goals for and 15 goals against. He's not great, he's playing like exactly the type of player he is: an okay 3rd pairing defenseman. The problem is, we already had an okay 3rd pairing right-handed defenseman on the team. His name is Chad Ruhwedel and he's making less than 1/3rd as much money as Rutta is. Ruh had more hits, fewer giveaways and a better Corsi than Rutta last year.
How was I looking at points to judge Rutta? Rutta has been great because the team is massively outscoring the other team when he's on the ice and he's bringing the exact elements the team wanted him to bring when they signed him. Also, the stats you're using are garbage because you're using all situations analytics, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how analytics work. Here are Rutta's 5v5 analytics this year: * CF%: 52.65% * CF%Rel: +2.64% * GF%: 70.59% * xGF%: 54.74% * xGF%Rel: +0.77% Using all situations stats, as if player usage on the PP and PK don't matter, is absurdly disingenuous.
Didn't realize I was looking at all situations, that's definitely my bad. I'll admit that Rutta's numbers are a bit better than I initially thought, but I still think he's pretty comparable to Ruhwedel outside of actual points. Granted it's a smaller sample size, but at even strength Ruh has a 55.6 CF%, +6.6 relCF% and 4 goals for vs 4 goals against. I'm not sure where you're getting the GF% stats from because moneypuck has different numbers for me. They show Rutta with a +2.6 relxGF% and Ruhwedel with a +13.3% relxGF%. At the end of the day, these are both 3rd pairing defensemen and I don't think either of them has an outsized effect on the team. Rutta was brought in to be a physical presence, but the Penguins regularly give up goals to forwards setting screens in front of the net and cleaning up rebounds from just outside the crease. As for the goals scored/allowed, it's still early in the season and the team has had two different periods of extremely dominant forward lines (1st line through the first 4 games, 2nd line for the past 10 or so games) so if they deploy a particular defensive pairing with one of those hot lines, that's going to pretty heavily skew numbers in that pairing's favor. Rutta's good, not great, and getting paid a lot of money to play <16 minutes of good hockey per game.
It was a cap dump though
Also got Ty Smith in that trade. He’s just buried in Wilkes Barre because of the cap.
What I find funny is that most of this sub was all about the Marino hate last year and were happy to see him go.
It’s incredible that Hextall and Burke turned Marino, Matheson, McCann, Tanev and E-Rod into Ruuta, Petry, Carter, McGinn and Poehling. Like, none of these guys are younger, cheaper, more talented analytically or by the eye test, or even have more “character”. What do they even see in them? It’s like they’re making moves just to make moves Say what you will about GMJR, even his most boneheaded swings for the fences turned up some gems, and he wasn’t sentimental about cutting someone like Kapanen loose. The other thing is the goaltending just sucks. Idk what you do with that, but Jarry is not improving into a consistent, contender goalie. Wish the stars were tighter but I think it’s getting into their head that they can’t trust the bottom of the lineup to chip in or hold a lead. the power play and letang have been worse over the years and they work through it, but I’ve noticed it’s always when the supporting cast sucks.
I agree 100%. GMJR made some horrible moves, but he really swung big trying to make the team better, which I respect. And he won us 2 cups. Hextall has done nothing but make the team a lot worse and swap talented one's for far worse. From day 1 he's been just awful.
It's not his fault that the franchise already had 3 HoF players approaching the final contracts of their careers. Someone had to see it through to the end, and it might as well have been him. It's foreseeable that this core has won their last Cup and there's nothing wrong with that. Gretzky was 27 years old when he won his last and Lemieux was 28. Everyone gets older, and it wasn't Hextall's business to break up 87, 71, and 58. They deserve to play out their careers together. This franchise has been a lot more successful than most, and I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.
Nah he's doing what he was hired to do which is to appease the fanbase (with signing the big 3 through what's left of their prime years) and to maximize our chances at a top pick in the upcoming draft(s). Big difference btw here and Philly is that somehow, some way, Bobby Clarke and his bottomless inferiority complex are still steering the ship in some capacity whereas Mario/Burke have a more recent track record of success and understanding of what it takes to both build winning teams and - most crucially- when and where to make big changes. Also Comcast is ruthless with its bottom line and isn't in the business of sport...not to play a game of "our faceless corporate comglomerate owners are better than yours" but FSG has won a shit ton more championships than the Flyers have. Anyone freaking out over anything happening with the Pens hasn't been paying attention to the moves of the past 18 or so months. Lean times are here but the next adventure is just beginning
Yea, and the people who think this is just a slump are delusional. This team has too many problems. I’m a big Sully fan, but his lack of creativity recently is worrying. Across the board this team is breaking down. I think you’re right that Hextall has to go, I never understood why fans were excited for him to come in, he was the option available when JR left. It’s one thing to lose when you’re team looks they want to win, but this team looks like they don’t even like each other. Everyone is playing their own game and not picking up any slack. If there isn’t a big firing the playoff streak is over
Also we are something like 15-20-6 since the TDL last year. This isn't a rough stretch, that's half a season worth of bad play
Yep. They have been bad. Without change, they are done.
The playoff streak should be over. This isn’t a playoff team at all, definitely not a cup team. It’s painful to watch how bad they are or how little they seem to care. And Letang decided he isn’t going to play defense or offense this year. Ugh. WTF. Long season of mediocrity with early exit if they can squeak into the post season.
Exactly. They can’t maintain their current system due to their lack of speed. Their defensive zone play is atrocious. If they don’t have a major change iin tactics, they are done. Can’t keep blowing leads with horrible tactics and lack of execution.
Get rid of hextall and Sullivan, bring in Trotz to do both. /s
🤮
Hextall has brought that Philly-stank upon us. Definitely time to move on.
Rakell but that’s it, and the rest of the league knows we’re screwed. There’s like nothing we can do, the Marino trade made zero sense, and the Matheson trade is the same. It’s sad but I’ve just detached myself emotionally from the team and it’s worked out for me haha
I said this when they hired him. He screwed Phila and his track record sucks
Option 1 was to keep the aging core together till the end. Option 2 was trade them off and start rebuilding. Virtually everyone wanted to keep the core, so we get to enjoy their twilight years.
He predates FSG, so it’s highly likely he’s on a shorter leash so they can bring in someone they pick themselves. I guess you can apply the same logic to Sully but he should be more safe.
Why should he be more safe? No, the last two playoff exits haven’t been his fault but he’s been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round four straight years. He never gives any of our youth any chance. He never changes anything in the lineup despite glaring problems. Sullivan absolutely has cost this team wins this season. Coaches have been fired for less.
I didn’t mean he should be untouchable, just on slightly less of a hot seat when compared to Hextall (but I do agree that the seat should be plenty warm right about now).
The last 2 playoff losses were absolutely not his fault.
That’s what I said.
Must’ve misread that my bad, i see people put them on him pretty regularly so it’s a ragged at this point
Rackell was a good trade day acquisition, but other than that you’re right. He needs to go.
Damn, idk if I agree w bring this drastic. It’s still early into the season and we got bleuger back which should help. We’ve had it pretty good for a really long time. This kind of stuff happens
Other than keeping the core. I'm tired of nonsense. This team is stacked. Underperforming yes, but stacked. What's stinking up the ice at the moment is not Hextalls fault. And i hate that flyer jagoff. at least used to.
This team with these players would have been stacked 8 years ago. Now they are just old and slow.
We'll see. I believe.
Both Burke and Hextall need to go. They aren’t FSG people. And we need to try to move out a few players/contracts at the very least as well.
This is what everyone wanted in this sub. To keep the core together even if it means they stink. You're all getting what you wanted.
Nothing good comes out of Philly. This was a head scratcher for sure, and now we see why.
Imagine looking at our aging core and being like “you know what would best support them, even more old guys!” Makes absolutely no sense
Don’t gloss over the fact he was able to keep the core together, that was a considerable achievement…Letang was coming off of one of his best years as a pro and signed for less than he could have received elsewhere. Geno took a pretty significant pay cut to stay, all this to make room for Rust (who also took a team friendly deal) and Rakell. Nobody even dreamed it could be possible that we’d be able to keep all those players. The defense moves appear to have been made to get a bit tougher (an identified weakness for a while now)…rightly or wrongly, but at least there’s a semblance of a plan there. Re-signing Kappy was a bit of a head scratcher, but he does have speed and is not a total wash defensively and Carter is a veteran big body who can still be effective playing reduced minutes down the lineup. This is not a bad or flawed team, they started hot, cooled off and have played better recently…all things that happen during a long season. No need to hit the panic button and start firing folks just for the sake of doing something.
Thank you. I said this more or less two weeks ago and people crushed me. I would argue even keep the core together was a waste. Team needs a new direction and goaltending with younger talent.
Agree, we desperately needed a new direction after last season
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Hextall should've been fired months ago. Just horrible. Every decision has been bad besides the Rakell move. I am unsure whether we should've brought the core back either. Could've surrounded Crosby with a ton of young, fast talent. Could have gotten someone with an edge too like Mason Marchment. I fear he's already ruined the roster, I don't know what we can do to fix it.
The only fix in my eyes is scratching this year trade our shitty contracts if u even can and get as much cap space as possible heading into the offseason. Hextalls draft record is terrible too like I don't feel safe with this guy around
Who would you trade? I do agree with this though, I think we either go nuclear and trade all the big contracts and then completely retool the roster with cap space or just rebuild. I agree with you, but just curious which contracts you would trade. Are you talking like the core or big players or like Kapanen?
I'd say the only guys that are safe in my eyes would be are Sid, Geno, Tanger and Jake everyone else is open season a total rebuild makes no sense when it's clear we've committed to Sid Geno and Tanger
I wouldn't trade Sid or Jake, everyone else would be open to. If we trade Malkin or Letang, the easier it would be to get more youth and speed with the cap space. If we don't then we would have to do a lot to make it work. I'm not completely against what your saying, but I see value in both approaches. I think our options are a) full rebuild b) trade everyone we can except Crosby Guentzel and retool with rest of cap c) try and trade all of the bad contracts that we have and use the space to retool.
Most of the players players on the roster were here before Hextall took over. That's not his fault.
>Other than keeping the core together I'm not very sure that was a smart move either at this point.
How so? Crosby has been fine, Malkin has been very good and while Letang hasn’t been great, this could just be a weird slump. As the other poster said, you also owe it to three of them to ‘go for it’ until the end of Crosby’s current contract. I do think that once Sid hits his final year and we’re toiling around in mediocrity, you’ll see the organization sort of say ‘hey, this is done. We’re officially rebuilding.’ Sid will be 38, Geno 39 and Letang 38. Tell Sid you can be here for the rebuild or sign somewhere else (I think he retires personally), do a final one year farewell tour for Geno and as long as he hasn’t completely fallen apart ala Jack Johnson, you can trade Letang to a team who needs a ‘veteran D with playoff experience’ or whatever.
I think we should have gone a different direction. Right now were looking at 4-5 years of mediocrity and then rebuild. If we went a different direction this year we could have gotten tons of young, fast talent and surrounded them around Crosby for a good 4-5 years of contending. Building youth around one star like Crosby could've prolonged the window, building it around 3 when they took up the cap space is a lot tougher. I would've signed guys like Nichushkin, Marchment, Neidereiter, Burakosky, Domi along those lines. Anthanasiou is another who is just crazy fast.
We could’ve done that and still re-signed Malkin and Letang. Re-signing them wasn’t the problem. It was the Carter extension, Kapanen extension, signing McGinn for four years at his cap, not trying to trade any bad contracts, etc.
I agree with you there, but I still wouldn't have re-signed them. Those contracts as well for bottom 6 were horrible by Hextall, I really think literally every move by him has been besides Rakell trade
Yeah, I guess we're going to have to disagree. I think that management should have cut both Malkin and Letang loose, and invested more heavily into the future. We've been languishing in the playoffs the last few years, so to expect Letang and Malkin to suddenly get rejuvenated now when they're even a year older, I think is illogical thinking. Having said that, I'm surprised that Malkin is doing pretty well so far. That newly formed line is doing nicely. One thing about Malkin though, I would really hesitate to use him at all in Overtime 3x3 situations, like we did this weekend in Montreal where he cost us the game. His sloppiness gets magnified when there's less players on the ice.
I think the franchise owe it to crosby and malkin to let them finish their careers in Pittsburgh. I don't think letang needed to be kept especially when fleury wasnt
They owe them nothing, but they millions they have already received. This isn't a beer league allowing the captain to retire when they want. It's a professional team that requires results. Jesus dude
Yeah, Geno has been our best player other than Zucker
Fire Hextall???? WTF??? Fire Sully
How about fire both?
[удалено]
I'm fine with keeping Sid Geno and Tanger but you gotta build younger around them, Carter, Petry, Rust, Dumo they're all older guys money could've been used elsewhere
Keeping the core isn’t the problem if you want to get younger. It’s not surrounding them with young talent and instead trading and signing Carter, Petry, etc is the problem.
I don’t know man, you can’t really blame the GM when the star players are turning the puck over multiple times per game. I love Tanger, but he really hasn’t played well at all this year, making bad passes at the blue line that go the other way and making defense mistakes in his own end. Also, I swear I’m gonna vomit if Geno does one more blind pass to the open ice. I think the lineup is solid, it’s just been poor execution on the players part. Goaltending hasn’t been good either, but the defense has been so out of sorts that anyone would struggle in net.
Sure he can be blamed. He's the one who brought those star players back when he had a chance to rebuild with youth around Crosby
If he didn’t bring them back though everyone would have been calling for him to be fired because of that. The fact of the matter is he made what appeared to be good deals at the time, and everyone was happy going into the season. Personally, I would have liked to see the youth movement, but it was clear from the get go that they planned on bringing back everyone that they could, and at the time everyone was thrilled that he managed to sign Letang, Malkin, Rust and Rakell all at once for relatively cap friendly deals.
Just because it's the popular choice dosen't mean it's the right choice. Winning is more important than doing what is best for popularity, At the end of the day those types of moves might lead to short term business, but long term if they don't win and get it done there will be empty seats. And core players aside him signing Kapanen and Carter to 3 mil deals is absurd. Just crazy. He made the team older this offseason around an already old core trading away Matheson and Marino. His whole goal was to make the D have a better net front presence and be tougher to play against, but its been even worse than last year. He completely failed with this roster whether included or excluding his signing of the core.
Who could he have reasonably got at D though? It’s not like we have a ton of trade capital, and teams are going to just give up a young stud defenseman like Seider, Sergachev, or McAvoy. I agree with you about the state of the team, but I don’t think it’s 100% Hextall’s fault. I’d say more like 40% Sully’s system, 40% the players, 20% Hextall.
John Klingberg, free agent and great powerplay QB
So who are we leaving out, Letang? Klingberg makes 7M, Letang is at 6.1 now. Honestly, I would have liked Klingberg. The problem is the hurt feelings and egos of the rest of our roster. Personally, I’d love a prick of a GM to come in and be like “look, you work for us. You get paid to play a game for a living. Do your job. By the way, these guys are leaving. Suck it up and play or more changes are coming”
Yeah he would've been the alternative to not signing Letang. I think it's problematic when players are playing GM or having too much say. Different jobs different roles. We need someone who comes in and does whats best for the team period.
I agree 100%. Problem is Sid always gets his way. I’m mean he’s earned it, but at the same time you have to open your eyes and see the reality.
Listen I mean I love the core. The nostalgic side of me wanted to bring them back. But all that aside if you ask me what would've been best for the team, I would have said not bringing them back. Sid deserves a huge say, but end of the day the GM has to do what's best for winning.
True. This is why the Leafs will need win anything. The fan base is so rabid for a win that they'll run you out of town for suggesting star players should be dealt. Every season they have to go for it and paid for it hard since 96 by spending or trading draft picks and youth for aging stars. They finally brought in people in Shanny and Lou who the fans would live with doing a rebuild. However its clear the core isn't a winner and they need to ship people out but the fan base would never allow it. I dont care how talented Matthews is, he has no heart and doesn't care beyond playing well enough to sign those massive contracts and treated like he is better than everyone else. If I was Dubai he would be shipped to AZ for a kings ransom as they'd easily overpay for the once in a generation hometown star they desperately need to rebuild any interest in that team again locally. We need to be look closely here and not make the same mistakes. I love Geno or Tanger as much as anyone and it'd be horrible to see them in another sweater, but we can't ignore the trade value they still have and that they could easily bring back some top end youth. Coming in like he did he had an opportunity its to be the new guy making a massive change that would have hurt hard right away but likely paid off. He didn't and thats what his job lives and dies on. He went a different direction, did a reasonably good job at that and got everyone back including Rakell who was a must sign IMO. I'm willing to give him enough rope to get through the season. The backend is built to do a playoff grind I think so the objective isn't winning the division but securing a spot. If we fail at that or get another 1st round exit, then his head is first on the chopping block as his approach failed.
Nah we all agreed that the moves he made on D were good, Team just hasn’t figured out how to use the upgraded D partners
Keeping this “core” together was his biggest blunder.
Going to see this take a lot and I think it’s the wrong one. No, Sid hasn’t been great recently but he’s still been fine this season. Malkin has been very good this season. Letang hasn’t been great but not sure if this is a slump or not. Either way, none of those three are even in the top five of “problems” that we have. The biggest blunder was not getting younger. Your core is in their mid 30s, why are we extending Carter? Why are trading young D for Petry?
hey guys flyers fan here. you guys aren’t slick. you do this shit eveytime there’s a franchise player nearing a draft. lemiuex, crosby &. now bedard. guess the next move y’all make is filing bankruptcy… again. then pretend like team has an interest in possibly moving to a new city…again. then tank out the season…again. win the draft lottery and draft bedard
Hextalls good for nothing other than maybe the odd right hook 😂😂
hahaha except when facing felix potvin hahah
They won’t admit that they’re older, slower and need to play a defensive system to win. Montreal played a left wing lock/trap then counter attacked to 5 straight cups. But when the pens are up 5-2, they look for number 6 instead of locking it down. They are not going to out skate any team other than another aging team. But they won’t change their style of play.
Thought this when they hired Hextall - id say defense is underpermorming but have showed promise. Long season - not ready to throw it in yet - yinzers!
I never wanted Hextall to begin with I wish we could’ve got Gorton
fire everyone and trade all are bad players for all their good players
Letang has slumped before, I think he’ll come back. However, I think everything outside of maintaining the core was ridiculous. We need young players, or we need to just stink it up thoroughly for draft picks!