Jerome Miron – USA TODAY Sports
If only the Dallas Stars hadn’t started Jake Arrieta …
Under the circumstances, it felt all too becoming of the Pittsburgh Penguins to hit the ice with an offensively recharged lineup that included the most talked-about acquisition of the summer — and still not be able to make the doughnut disappear.
Yes, it’s one game, as trite as that sounds; and yes, season openers are effectively meaningless. However, we’re not even 24 hours into the new season, and it already feels like we’ve been forced to watch the same Penguins team from last season. There were too many penalties, too many of the usual suspects when the Stars got pucks past Marc-Andre Fleury, and too much of a vibe that Antti Niemi would join the list of “hot goalies” the Pens have “run into” since January.
Although Niemi has posted strong career numbers against Pittsburgh, the Pens no longer had depth or health (for the most part) as an excuse on Thursday night. Furthermore, for all their troubles, they’ve owned the Western Conference in recent years, so perhaps Saturday’s visit to the work-in-progress Arizona Coyotes is a blessing.
So, the annoyance of last season’s second-half offensive malaise still burns. Contributing to that frustration is the fact that Mike Johnston still doesn’t seem to get it. When the team is losing late in the game, the captain, who is only the most revered player in the league, should not be buried in the half-boards. Sidney Crosby was invisible enough already.
The whole point of bringing someone like Phil Kessel to Pittsburgh was to give Sid more room to maneuver in the offensive zone. Opponents should have to pick their poison when both are out there. There were flashes of gusto from Kessel and surprising rookie Daniel Sprong, but there seemed to be too much emphasis on getting the defense involved in the offense, and not enough on getting the offense involved in the offense.
There’s no denying Niemi was good, for Dallas, especially when the Penguins were desperately trying to score brownie points by breaking up his shutout; however, the Penguins are capable of being better.
As long as Johnston doesn’t inherit his GM’s penchant for saying one thing and doing another, fans can just chalk this loss up to the throwaway game it was. You would think it was the standard “okay, it’s a new lineup, and they’re trying to develop chemistry, so let them get this garbage out of their system now” contest. This team might have a few more games like that in the early going.
It’s not worth panicking about. If anything, stinking early instead of stinking late would be a most welcome turn of the page for the Penguins. Though there is that other Pittsburgh team that tried stinking early , and a boatload of good that did them.
Matt Popchock is the Pittsburgh Penguins Beat Writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @mpopchock.
