Adjustments, Tweaking, and Making Me Feel
Like I Want to Tear Out my Hair

My complaints with the coaching staff:

∑ It took too long to get Mark Recchi off the top power play unit. Respect for veterans aside, this is the time of the year where the only criterion that matters is performance on the ice, and wise veterans know that well. Vancouver’s coach took his captain off the power play unit when he wasn’t producing, and Islanders coach Nolan likewise demoted his captain to the fourth line for a terrible play that led to the opponent’s winning goal. When a player, ESPECIALLY a veteran who knows the deal, isn’t performing, Therrien and his staff cannot play games while waiting for chickens to hatch. They need to make adjustments, and if that means pulling a veteran off the power play, they’d best do what helps their team to win.


∑ Sidney Crosby and Mark Recchi on the ice in the last minute of a 1 goal game protecting a 1 goal lead or in a tied game. I saw the misfortune of this twice in the past two weeks. Granted, I can’t blame what happened on the ice solely on Crosby and Recchi when Therrien made the ridiculous decision to put those players on the ice. You do not put your offensive players with suspect speed (in Recchi’s case anymore) or players who can play defense but usually think offense first on the ice in the waning seconds of a tied game or a game you are leading by a goal.

I don’t care if Therrien wants to show confidence in Crosby’s unit; that confidence has to be warranted through actual performance. I was relieved to note that Therrien came to his senses yesterday in the Penguins’ one goal victory over Atlanta. In the waning seconds of the game, the Penguins best defensive players—who can forecheck, too, by the way—were on the ice. Staal, Talbot, and Armstrong, who were on the ice, are the players who should be on the ice at the end of the game protecting a one goal lead or preserving a tie.

Having faith in players is good, but faith is worthless if faith is not warranted. Trust your best offensive players to do what they’re good at, and trust your best defensive players to do what they’re good at—and trust that, someday, just like Lemieux grew up and evolved, so, too, will Crosby. But until that day has arrived—please, just put your best defensive players on the ice. Use common sense!


∑ Adjustments, adjustments, adjustments. Therrien’s line-juggling made me crazy at the start of the season, and later the Pens settled on lines and just started winning. And then the trades came, and well—we’re still line-juggling. It’s not the line-juggling that bothers me so much as the fact that there are in-game adjustments that have to be made. Granted, the Penguins were dead tired on Monday against the Rangers, yet I couldn’t help but think that the right combination of players (never found) to exploit something specific about New York (not that evident that night) could have helped the Penguins to sneak out of that game with at least a point.

Since I’m not a coach, it’s easy for me to talk about adjustments that need to be made. It’s also easy to be an "armchair quarterback" and say do this, do this, and do this. Honestly, however, when it comes to a playoff series, and when it comes to what goes on throughout the actual game, Therrien and his staff have to be able to make adjustments. They have to be willing to have a back up plan if lines aren’t working, or they have to know what their lines need to do to take advantage of something the opponent is doing. Adjustments have to be made in games and between games and, yes, based on your personnel, but also based on the personnel of your opposition
K