PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – They have the talent, but does this Pens team have the discipline to turn around a 3-6 start?
Their tweak to the roster this week is the likely benching veteran Jeff Carter, who has no points this season. The rest of the team that lost five of six to end the first month of the season will play in San Jose Saturday night.
They are helped by starting their West Coast trip playing a horrible San Jose team that features Mikael Granlund as a second-line center. The Sharks haven’t won a game in regulation. They lost 10-1 to Vancouver on Thursday and outscored 33-5 in its last seven games.
“I think we all are just trying to stay positive,” said captain Sidney Crosby. “I think we’ve had the right mindset. It’s discouraging, but I think the last few games haven’t gone our way. We felt like we did some good things. I don’t see anyone feeling sorry for themselves. We keep bringing good effort. We are continuing to work, we just have to work through it.”
Head coach Mike Sullivan has said similar things, that they are playing better than the results. That is evident at times, but bottom line of the six losses only one came by a one-goal margin. Adding a 5’10” Vinnie Hinostroza gets Carter out of the lineup, but they need to build something during this trip.
Sullivan spent a lot of their last full practice (Thursday) working on net-front presence and finding ways to get some dirty goals. This may be the cleanest team in the league in that regard. The need to create distractions for the goalie, especially on the power play. They are also giving up way too many easy looks for other teams.
“We are not hanging heads in here,” said defenseman Erik Karlsson who returns to San Jose with six points in nine games. “We’ve played some really good hockey. We also know we haven’t played the best that we have. I don’t think we have to change very much. We have to dial in a few stuff and keep going and trying to get accustomed with each other.”
“Even though our record is what it is, I still feel like we are a good hockey team.”
Tristan Jarry was one of a few who has publicly taken ownership for their rough start. Having signed a five-year, $26.875 million contract in the offseason, Jarry hasn’t been good enough and admits it. The 28-year-old has two shutouts in seven starts yet has a 2.84 goals against average and .893 save percentage—with TWO shutouts.
Sullivan said he’s a stand-up guy to say that and all are taking responsibility for where they sit. They sit in the basement looking up at every team in the Eastern Conference.
“We can’t change where we are at, we can do is react the right way,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think the group has been rewarded for some of its efforts. We need to keep a determined mindset and we go into each game with the right attitude and level of urgency and focus it takes to be successful in this league.”
“We got a good group in here,” said defenseman Marcus Pettersson. “We know what we are capable of. We talked about not feeling sorry for ourselves.
We know the character in here, there are a lot of winners in here. There’s only one way out of it. We have to bury our head and believe in each other for sure.”
There is also a belief within the group that they have too much talent not to succeed. That can be fools gold.
Without working hard enough and responsible enough, that talent will watch the playoffs for the second straight year.