Kipper : Calm Down #Pens Fans. There's A Lot Of Hockey Left.

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Right now Pens fans everywhere are up in arms. I think some puppies have been kicked in the process. People want to fire Dan Bylsma, they think that a better option than Eric Tangradi and Tyler Kennedy on Evgeni Malkin's wing is a bum like Dustin Jeffrey. I saw people say that there's only 3 talented players on this team...
It is mass hysteria when the Pens lose a couple of games but guess what? There will be no team in the NHL that will finish the season with less than 2 Loses. Losing happens. It sucks but it's the reality of this sport. Teams lose games and a lot of them. More teams make the Playoffs than this sport should allow. Regular Season games aren't as important as they are in the NFL.
What we should be hoping for is the Pittsburgh Penguins not peaking during the Regular Season and sputtering their way into the Playoffs to get bounced out early for the 4th season in a row. The Pittsburgh Penguins had the 2nd most Points in the Eastern Conference last season, lead the NHL in Goals by a wide margin and they couldn't get past the 1st Round of the Playoffs. I apologize for not going to find the nearest bridge to take my leap, but the first batch of games to an NHL season are unimportant. Always have been, always will be.
The reality is, the Pens will make the Playoffs. They've made the Playoffs with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin injured. Making the Playoffs is fairly easy. What's not been easy is translating Regular Season success into Playoff success for this team. The last time the Pittsburgh Penguins really had to battle adversity to get into the Playoffs, they won the Stanley Cup. That was a team that was the 9th Seed or worse at this time of the season in 2009.
Keep in mind too, that the Pittsburgh Penguins (and the rest of the NHL), didn't play any Pre-Seaosn games. Every team is made up of players that played in larger rinks playing a different style of hockey in Europe, played in the Minor Leagues or didn't play at all. There's a lack of Chemistry right now that we should expect because this is really the "Pre-Season" for NHL teams. These are the games that teams usually use to figure out lines, guys form chemistry and knock off the rust. Right now the games happen to count, but the play shouldn't be that much different and the results from the play should be expected to be much above that of the Pre-Season. From what we have seen from the play, it's not been too much different from Pre-Season play.
Allow the Pens time to knock off some rust, form some chemistry, get their game legs up to speed. It's a long season and the Pens are 2-2 through 4 largely unimportant games. I'd also like to extend this message out to Dan Bylsma as well. Why the hell go into panic mode with Eric Tangradi? 3 games and you yank him to put Tyler Kennedy on the 2nd Line? Kennedy doesn't fit on the 2nd line. He doesn't pass, he shoots too much and he's too small. That line needs more of a power type forward. Remember, you are replacing Chris Kunitz on that line. Put Eric Tangradi up there and allow him to work through his issues. The result with Tangradi not on the 2nd Line was the same result the Pens got when he was on that line - 2 goals and a loss by multiple goals. They also won 2 games with him on that line too.
Like Frankie said ....
Relax

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