Faceoff Factor

Thoughts, Dudes...

C.J. "Stoosh" Jiuliante | National Hockey League

May 13, 02:34 PM | Hype this story!

Some random thoughts heading into Game Three of the Eastern Conference Finals…

1. Want to know what losing Timonen AND Coburn means to the Flyers? Take Gonchar and Letang out of the equation for the Pens. Ryan Whitney’s OK and all when it comes to moving the puck, jumpstarting the transition game and quarterbacking the powerplay. Now also think back to those few games earlier this year when Gonchar was out and try to remember what the power play looked like. Awful, right?

NOW imagine asking Orpik, Gill and Scuderi to take bigger roles in the power play and produce the same results. Orpik and Gill are underrated in terms of their abilities to generate offense (Orpik throws a terrific tape-to-tape pass, and Gill makes smart decisions with his breakouts), but there’s no way they could be expected to generate the same kind of offense that Letang and Gonchar generate on the power play.

Even worse, Timonen and Coburn were the only two Flyers’ defensemen who were solid when it came to controlled breakouts, jumpstarting the rush out of the zone and skating with some of the Pens’ quicker forwards. This could cause big problems with the Flyers in terms of their abilities to handle a forecheck and clear the zone – as we’ve seen already in the first two games of the series.

2. And, no, I’m not equating Letang to Coburn in the above example. The Pens have more mobile, puck-moving defensemen than do the Flyers, and outside of Gonchar, Letang plays the best defense of any of the offensive d-men on the Pens’ roster; that’s why I took him out of the equation. Leaving the Pens with Whitney, Orpik, Gill, Scuderi and Sydor was the closest comparison to the Flyers’ current situation I could think of.

3. Heard a lot of fans discussing Hossa and his Penguins future at the game this past Sunday. Crikey…the Pens are two wins away from the Stanley Cup Finals. Let’s enjoy this for the time being and worry about that when the season’s over.

4. Maybe I’m channeling my inner Dave Molinari here, but who the hell comes up with this notion that the Pens are “due for a loss?” I don’t understand that. I’ve heard people in the media today rationalizing that the Pens might lose Game Three because they’re due for a loss. Is there some sort of “due for a loss” threshold that they’ve crossed that we don’t know about? Is there some sort of a machine that measures such things? Does this apply to other things in life? If I have ten great days of work in a row, can I expect Day 11 to be a bad day because I’m somehow due for a bad day at work?

5. Another thing that mystifies me – this notion that seems to be advanced that Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby can’t co-exist on the same team much longer. I’ve heard people say that Malkin will eventually get sick of living in Crosby’s shadow here in Pittsburgh. No reason why, other than this supposition that Malkin is someday going to want his own team to lead.

I suppose we have Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to thank for this new phenomenon. But whoever suggests that such a relationship exists here between Crosby and Malkin apparently doesn’t have their finger on the pulse of the Pens fanbase. Malkin is loved by the fans just as much here in Pittsburgh as Crosby and perhaps even more after the way this season has panned out. Some have even suggested that Geno is the better player of the two and even Sid would agree that there’s probably some truth to that.

I don’t ever recall Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky having issues with each other. I don’t think Steve Yzerman and Sergei Federov had problems co-existing, and neither did Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg. Maybe all the Stanley Cups they won together helped. Just a theory.