Here's a question for you, how big of a bitch do you have to be to slash someone from your bench, then hide behind all of your teammates? The answer we are looking for is Rick Nash, a big ass bitch. Nash chirped and slashed Matt Cooke from the behind the bench and proceeded to back down to a much smaller Matt Cooke. I'm glad to see Cooke can still troll with the best of them.
Rangers fans are trying to say that Cooke is a dirty player, but speaking of dirty, how about this ferocious elbow that Michael Del Zotto threw at James Neal. Watch for yourself.
Whether it was accidental or not, an elbow to an opposing player's head should be a major penalty and should be disciplined by the league. You have to have control of your body. The league already came out and announced that they won't even bring Micheal Del Zotto in for a hearing. So he got away with no penalty and no punishment at all. Now the Pens might have to deal with a possible James Neal concussion. Awesome.
Hey about the pickup of Jussi Jokinen? I remember a bunch of idiots on social media sites saying how horrible of an acquisition this was. Then we find out from capgeek.com that the Carolina Hurricanes are going to pick up $900,000 of Jokinen's salary for next season, which now Jokinen is only going to cost $2.1 million, which is only $100,000 more than Tyler Kennedy made this year.
Jokinen was the best player last night not named Marc-Andre Fleury. Jokinen was a beast on face-offs, which the Pens were drastically struggling with in recent games. Jokinen won 13 out of the 15 face-offs he took. Jokinen also scored the Pens only goal during regulation, which head coach Dan Bylsma amazingly predicted. Jokinen also scored the game-winning shootout goal. Thanks Ray Shero!
Brooks Orpik continued to not play well. Read my article about how the Pens could buy him out or trade him after this season.
Brenden Morrow probably played his best game as a Penguin last night. That's a good sign.
Douglas Murray fucked up Brian Boyle something fierce last night. All hail Crankshaft.
For some reason Simon Despres was a healthy scratch. Not sure how that makes sense in any realm.
Evgeni Malkin is struggling right now, despite having Jarome Iginla and Neal on his line. So don't blame a lack of talented wingers on his lack of production. Malkin has now failed to register a point in the last two games. But don't ever criticize Malkin or the fan-boys will come get you!
Kris Letang will most likely be back Tuesday night, hopefully Malkin will play that night as well. OH!
Finally, Marc-Andre Fleury was a stud last night and has been all year. Fleury had 33 saves on 34 shots and some of the saves he made were REDONKULOUS. Fleury is now tied for the league lead in wins (19) and is in the top EIGHT in both save percentage and goals against average among goalies that have played in 20 or more games this year. So please tell us all again how much Fleury sucks.
Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik has a cult following in Pittsburgh and throughout the hockey world. He's a former first round pick from Boston College University, he was named after USA /NHL head coach Herb Brooks, he's a Stanley Cup champion, and was on the 2010 USA Olympic hockey team that lost to Canada in the gold medal game .
Orpik made his claim to fame when he simply had "the shift" in game 3 of the 2007-2008 Stanley Cup Finals against the Detroit Red Wings.
Then there was this hit....
This is what Orpik is all about, or at least this is what Orpik was all about. Orpik still gets a ton of hits, currently he's tied with Ron Hainsey for most hits by a defenseman on the season with 98. Orpik also gets a ton of blocked shots.
That's all fine and dandy, blocked shots and hits are nice, but what about actual defensive play and positioning? This season is the worst I've seen Orpik play defensively in his career. Constantly out of position, constantly allowing the opposing team to be open in the slot, or camp out in front of his goaltender.
Orpik's hit numbers are a mirage. I can't think of one meaningful hit he's had all year. Some of the hits he goes for takes him out of position, much like an even less skilled Deryk Engelland. Against the New York Rangers last night, Orpik and Engelland were paired up and boy it wasn't pretty. This picture right here will tell the entire story.
Orpik has become slow and doesn't have that edge he used to play with. Orpik has been one of the most outspoken players in the Pens organization over the years, even calling out the team publicly. That's great, but how can you call your team out when you're one of the main cogs that has become a total liability to your team defensively? And that is exactly what Orpik has become.
If you want to know how bad Orpik has truly been this year, just watch every goal scored on the Pens. That would basically be Orpik's 2013 highlight reel. The crazy thing is Orpik is a +12 on the year. But +/- doesn't really do a great job of showing how well a player performs defensively. Not to mention that, in the 10 losses this year, Orpik is a -6, with just two points.
Furthermore, Orpik has been on the ice for 45 of 94 goals that the Pens have allowed this year. That's almost half and 12 of those goals were on the penalty-kill but still. (Thanks Brian Bylstone for the info @ToonsBrian ) So basically, when the other team scores a goal against the Penguins, there's almost a 50 percent chance that Oripik was out on the ice. For being known as a tough rugged player, Orpik has never played a full season in the NHL. In fact, Orpik has missed at least nine games, each of the last three seasons, including 19 two years ago. Orpik often looks slow and worn down towards the end of the season, just like this season. The big hits start going away and the goals against start going up.
Not only has Orpik played awful defense this year, he's also responsible for Sidney Crosby's broken jaw.
Orpik obviously misses Paul Martin and he should never be paired with Engelland ever again. But, Orpik makes $3.75 million a year. The Pens have a laundry list of players that they have to re-sign the next two years, and they only have around $8.5 million in cap space lined up for next season. Jarome Iginla, Pascal Dupuis, Matt Cooke, Douglas Murray, Brenden Morrow are all unrestricted free-agents after this year. I can't imagine the Pens will sign either Murray or Morrow back. But they should and will sign Dupuis. And reports of Iginla wanting to sign back with the Pens has already been let out of the bag.
The bigger problem is the following year. That's when the contracts of Chris Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang are up, along with Orpik's contract. Based on what I've seen from Letang this year and the Pens without Letang, I think it is vital that the Pens sign him long-term. Letang was on his way to winning the Norris Trophy this year, leading all defenseman in points.
In my opinion, Orpik is not worth $3.75 million a year. I don't think the Pens should have to suffer from another similar performance from Orpik next season. Especially at that price. So I went to capgeek.com and found out what would happen if Ray Shero and the Pens would actually buy out Orpik's contract after this season.
As you can see, the Pens would save $2.5 mil next season, which would give them around $11 million in cap space. Their blue-line would still be solid with Martin, Letang, Niskanen, Simon Despres, and I would even bring Mark Eaton back, who is a much cheaper and more dependable defenseman than Orpik.
The Pens also have a plethora of young talented defenseman just waiting to get a shot with the big boys like Scott Harrington, Olli Malta, and Derrick Pouliot. Unfortunately, the Pens will not buy out Orpik's contract and they would have to pay him $1.25 million in 2014-2015 without getting anything in return. It's simply not worth it.
Orpik just became the all-time leader in games played by a Pens defenseman. He's done more good than bad for the Pens. That being said he certainly hasn't been playing well and I definitely do not think Orpik should be re-signed to a new contract after next season. Hopefully Orpik will somehow find some magic in the old gas tank and unleash some free candy this postseason. The Pens are going to need him to be the shutdown d-man he's paid to be. So basically, he needs to play the opposite way he's been playing so far in 2013.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have been absolutely ravished by injuries in recent years, especially last season. So many key players missed crucial games to due to injuries, Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, Rashard Mendenhall, LaMarr Woodley, and James Harrison, just to name a few.
According to this French guy, who I'm told by my peeps on the world wide web, is a good source for info. Jarome Ingila came to Pittsburgh for the long haul.
Looking at the salary cap situation, it seems like a longshot, considering that they only have a little over $11 million in cap space projected for next season. Iginla has been making a steady diet of $7 million a year. How much less would he take to stay with the Pens in the twilight years of his career?
Here's a list at the Pens unrestricted free agents after this season:
1. Jarome Iginla- 7 mil
2. Pascal Dupuis- 1.5 mil He'll need a big raise or he'll be gone.
3. Brenden Morrow- 4.1 mil He'll have to take probably half of that to stay with the Pens.
4. Matt Cooke -1.8 mil Hard to imagine Pens without Cooke. I'd like to get another year out of him.
5. Craig Adams- 675K Might end up moving on from Adams
6. Tyler Kennedy- 2 million (RFA) Bye
7. Dustin Jeffery - 575 K (RFA) Bye again.
Then on defense you have:
1. Douglas Murray- 2.5 mil I can't imagine the Pens re-signing him at all.
2. Mark Eaton- 725K I can see them bringing Eaton back for insurance again.
So let's say they re-sign Eaton for around the same, round up to 850K. Re-sign Cooke and Dupuis for $2 million(Cooke) and $2.5 million for 2 years for Dupuis. That's about $5.25 million right there. Which leads you with about $5.75 million. Not to mention the fact that after next season, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin's contracts are up, among others. What price can Iginla be had for? God damn salary cap.
Even though I do believe that Iginla wants to stay in Pittsburgh after this season, its' going to be tough. The Pens will not be able to outbid other teams, they simply do not have the finances to do that. Only chance is for Iginla to want to be here so he can compete for a Stanley Cup and play with Sidney Crosby. Thanks for tampering with Iginla Sid, we owe you one.
This is yet another reason why the Pens have to win a Stanley Cup this year. It truly is cup or die. In Ray Shero we trust.
I know you know what happened in Saturday's game. Sidney Crosby got hit in the mouth region by a Brooks Oprik slapshot. Now Crosby is missing teeth, and his jaw is broken. The only injury joke I'll make is this; If Brooks Orpik would have injured one of the Islanders instead of Crosby, it would have been Orpik's biggest contribution to this season so far. Crosby getting injured just sucks. Crosby getting injured and having to miss a significant amount of hockey games really sucks.
