Defense

As previously stated, I haven’t had the chance to watch games, but it strikes me as—er, well, umm—not a good thing that the Penguins seem to be in the habit of routinely giving up approximately an average of 39 shots per game. Marc-Andre Fleury has thus far played quite well in goal, but still—39 shots per game is just too much.

Sergei Gonchar appears to be playing like Sergei Gonchar of old, and I expect growing pains with any young defenseman—no matter how talented a young defenseman is, I expect to be driven crazy—routinely, and by routinely I mean probably, at minimum, wincing a few times each game—as a young defenseman learns how to play NHL defense. Still, this whole giving up close to 40 shots every night, it strikes me as something the coaching staff should mark as a "need for improvement" and then find or implement some plan to improve.

Unless, of course, we routinely expect to outscore the opposition. Which, perhaps, could happen in a couple more years. (I recall my early ‘90s Penguins teams doing this with frequency.) But as of right now, we lack the depth on the wings to expect to routinely outscore the opposition—particularly those "close to" and "clearly superior" opponents. Please, let’s, as a team, work on knocking some shots off that shot clock total. Not at the expense of bridling our best players, of course—but a few fewer shots against surely couldn’t hurt, right?