After scoring only one 5-on-5 goal in the last five games, Penguins coach Michel Therrein has reconfigured all 4 of his forward lines for tonight's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Mellon Arena.
I'd set forth all the new lines but if I did that every time Therrein made a change, I'd never be able to talk about anything else. So, that said, I'll just focus on the important changes.
The first, and by far most important, move Therrein made is to move Malkin up to Crosby's right wing. Aside from trying to generate more even-strength offense, Therrein also is sending a message to the rest of the team that they need to start generating more on the scoreboard.
As he said, "they're not paying the price to score goals".
The other noteworthy changes involved Jordan Staal moving back to center the 2nd line with Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko, and to slide right wing Miroslav Satan all the way down to the 3rd line with Mad Max Talbot.
Speaking of Satan, I think he's taking some unjustified criticism right now. The season is 5 games old. I took a good dozen for Crosby and Marion Hossa to start clicking last year. After 5 games thus far, Satan has 2 goals. He's on a 32 goal pace. I bet the Penguins would take that from him.
I know I would.
Give Satan a chance. He'll come around. Be critical if we're sitting at the 20 game mark and he's only got 5.
Post-game report tomorrow ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment