Satan benched 2-4-09

Let's hope they bench Whitney too.

PRAYERS ANSWERED!!!!  

Hope he stays there for awhile.

Everyone needs to stop hatin' on Whitney.  He just came back from major foot surgery.  Do you expect he'd be playing at a high level right away.   And who knows if he is completely healed. Eaton looked like dog doo for the first half of the season, now he's hitting his stride. At one game or another each of the Pens defensemen looked bad.  And as good as Golo can be he isn't the second coming of Nick Lidstrom.

People are going to continue to bash Whitney until he's traded, I'm afraid.

It's a shame, because he's better than Letang and Goligoski combined -- but everyone looks at them like they are the saviours of the defence.  They get a free pass while Whitney gets crucified.

Just like Max Talbot gets a free pass, even though he's been garbage, but other forwards get crucified.

The simple fact is, this team is terrible -- from the front office to the fourth line.

Did anyone else notice NHL.com on the weekend?

According to them, Satan is "having a resurgent year with the Penguins."

i45.photobucket.com/.../satan.png

The bottom line is that the Pens have a lot of money invested in Satan and Whitney and Staal for that matter.  They won't make the playoffs without all three playing the way that we expected them to play at the start of the season.  The sad fact is that they are also at their lowest value in terms of a trade.  In the short term it may be of value to bench one of them, but in the long run it will be necessary to keep running them out there and hoping against hope for improvement.  Hey, it worked for the Steelers O-line. (sort of)

Satan benched, and there's a system error with the link to the news story.  Are the two events related?

(cue Twilight Zone music)

In my opinion, Letang has been the Penguins best defensemen this season. I get that Whitney is coming back from an injury, but the fact is that in a game where the opponent scored four goals he was a minus-4.

Disgruntled Goat is correct in that in the salary cap era a team needs way more of a return on their investment than what some of these players are giving. If you combine Whitney's cap hit with Satan's you end up with $7.5 million of commitment. That would buy you a pretty nice winger, no?

Bones,

He was a -4.  He was garbage last night, no question.

Injury or not, you read blogs, comments, message boards -- Ryan Whitney is trashed like no other by this fanbase.

Not one other defenseman on this team can make a breakout pass.  Whitney has 6 fewer points than Letang, even though he's played in less than half the games Letang has played in.

Petr Sykora himself said in that interview that posted on here a while back "What helped us was the return of Whitney. Until then we had 6 D-men who took a puck and threw in on the plexiglass. And we were then chasing that puck like idiots."

This entire team is horrible defensively right now, from the forwards on back.  But all the blame gets pinned on Ryan Whitney.

The headline should be: "Satan sent to Hades" or "Satan Exorcised."

I agree with you that Whitney shoulders too much of the blame. But I also see where the Whitney-bashers are coming from.

If Whitney and Goligoski are considered offensive specialists / defensive liabilities, why are they both on the ice at the same time?

Oh, I see where they're coming from, too.

But the sheer level of hatred for Whitney is awful.  In all honesty, it may be better for him to be moved.

I think it would be better for Whitney to be moved.  The fans here hate him.  The problem is, his play is so horrible that we would be lucky to get Georges LaRaque back in a trade for him, much less a viable scoring winger for Sid.  

And defending Whitney and saying he is not fully recovered doesn't fly well with me.  If he's not 100%, why are GoGo and Hal Gill healthy scratches all the time for the "not yet 100%" Ryan Whitney.  

A breakout pass is nice, but seriously, he can't clear the D zone on the penalty kill and he CANNOT keep the puck in the offensive zone on the PP.  

Anybody who hates Whitney should watch game 5 of the Finals.  I know that was a long time ago, but he was incredible.

Does anyone remeber when Satan was leading the team in goals scored? Remember when they were winning? You're remebering the same time. Not that I expected him to get 30 goals this year but I thought he'd top 20 plus easy. I hoped he'd do what Sykora did last year.

I'd take Goligoski over Whitney any day of the week. Whitney is a ghost. He has no positve impact what so-ever. At least with Go-Go Gologoski I'm looking at someone with a future. Whitney is playing as good as he's ever going to get. Reminds me of the later years of Paul Coffey or even when Randy Carlyle was winning his Norris Trophy. Good numbers but at the end of the game you felt like they did more bad than good.

@ GreatDayForWoooooo

I don't think anyone here is blaming EVERYTHING on Whitney.  To be fair, everyone on the team needs to step it up or else they'll all be on the golf course together much earlier this summer than everyone hopes - Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury included.

In my opinion though, Whitney deserves much of the criticism he receives, for instance:

1. He is a give-away waiting to happen

2. He apparently lost the ability to one-time a shot from the point on the power play - the very ability that largely earned him his over-sized contract a few summers ago.

3. He is listed as 6' 4'' 219 lbs. and yet for some reason, is the most timid defensemen on the team when it comes to taking the body.  And yes, even an offensive defensemen should hit a guy every now and again - ESPECIALLY when he is so ineffectively performing said offensive role.

4. Unlike Letang and Goligoski, the two combined defensemen that you claim he is better than, he is being paid $4,000,000 this year.  As such, people expect - and rightfully so - a lot out of him and unfortunately, he has not performed anywhere close to those expectations--this season OR last season.

By comparison, Miro Satan is being paid $3,750,000 this year.  He is not doing his job either and as such, has been benched.  So please tell me, why not bench Whitney?  What makes him untouchable?  (And please, don't say his "congenital foot abnormality."  Shelly Anderson plays out that excuse on a daily basis.)

Disgruntled Goat:  who cares about game 5 of the finals?  Did we win those finals?  Are we winning now?  

As much as everyone is tired of the Whitney-bashing, I'm tired of all the Whitney apologists.  If he's still hurt or still recovering, why is he getting the most ice time of anyone on the team?  Why are we stunting the growth of our other defensemen?  LeTang never hit anyone last year, but he has improved exponentially.  Just like djw66 says, Whitney shies away from contact more often than not.  But to be fair, everyone on this team has been pretty disappointing, except for maybe Malkin.  He's become the best player on this team by far.  

Nothing makes him untouchable.

I'm fine with sitting him for a few games.

I'm not fine with trading him just to get rid of him.  

I'm not fine with trading him for a UFA rental.

I'm not fine with the level of hatred that Whitney gets while everyone else gets a free pass.

This team has been in free fall for awhile.  Whitney isn't the cause.

I think Steigy said it best last night when he almost confused Caputi for Satan. He said something to the effect that he was able to correct himself when he saw Caputi fighting for the puck in the corners and moving. It may have been a compliment to Caputi but it also illustrated what is wrong with Satan.

There are far more things wrong with this team than just Ryan Whitney.

I'm not apologizing for Whitney.  He needs to be better and there is no reason he should be leading the team in ice time.  But the ice time isn't his fault -- blame the coaching staff for that one.

Game 5 shows Whitney's potential.  The Penguins need him to play up to that potential which he clearly is not.  He has reduced trade value and Shero has invested a lot of money in him for the next several years.  It is easy to say he should be benched or traded, but what are the consequences of those actions?  I am by no means making excuses or defending him, I merely stand by initial point which is that in the long run he needs to play and must improve.

1 more thing.  Will somebody...Anybody PLEASE teach Fleury how to handle a puck that ends up behind the cage.  I long for the days when he never left his crease and just stood there while our D-men got lit up.  at least then he wasn't giving it away in front of an empty net.

I'd like to get more than a rental player for him too, but his trade value is pretty diminished considering the salary cap hit he carries.

I don't give anyone a free pass.  Crosby needs to ease-up on the drop passing and take it to the net like we all know he is capable of doing.  Fleury needs to turn those brilliant spurts of play into entire games.  Staal needs to show some consistency and play more like the one-man wrecking crew that he was against Detroit a few months ago.  Therrien needs to stop messing with players' heads and putting defensemen on the wing where the liklihood of them contributing is negligable.  The list goes on...

I completely agree that Ryan Whitney is not THE cause of their shortcomings, rather his poor play is A cause - just as Satan's play is A cause, etc.  Perhaps the blind hatred towards him is a little extreme, but his salary cap hit makes him a target.

Finally!! Its about time Satan got benched, now lets just hope that hte benching of Whitney is soon to follow.

I'd rather see the Headline Satan Released.

Sure wish we could have hung onto Conklin.

@GreatDayForWoooooo

If you think Whitney is even the least bit good your an idiot all he does is continue to have turnover after turnover and be responsible for opponent goal after goal hes total garbage, hes a -12 on the year! And the worst part is his contract he gets paid 6mil. a year!!!

I agree with you, Bones.  I think Conklin was a huge FA loss.  Besides Hossa, of course, even though everyone thinks Ryan Malone was so great.  Malone was great in his contract year, and so-so at best the rest of his time here.

I agree with you, Basher, about Malone.  He was great last season for two reasons:

1. He was playing for a new contract

2. He was linemates with Evgeni Malkin.

That said, he showed some true heart in the playoffs after taking that shot off of his face...

Agreed on Malone. I realize that he does "all the little things" and his loss has certainly contributed to the team's struggles, but he makes $4.5 million and is on pace for 24 goals and 43 points. Not much value there.

I don't think we're going to be in the market for rental players at the deadline. Pens are looking like sellers this year, not buyers...

The mistake wasn't in letting Conklin go, it was in assuming that Sabourin could handle the job, when he clearly proved last year that he could not.  There were other back-up goalies available that Shero could have brought in.

I think Fleury liked having Sabourin back him up because Sabu is the only goaltender in the league worse at handling the puck.

How long till Fedotenko gets back?  He was hitting a nice stride till he broke his hand on Colby's face.

Like J.S. Aubin! ;-)

Satan hasn't been playing well for a while now.  Fine.  Why did it take HCMT this long to sit him for a game?  Fans have been asking for this for weeks.

Sykora's interview during the All-Star break was enlightening about one player's perspective of this coaching staff.  Inconsistent ice time, constant line juggling, coaching "on hunches", abysmal PP despite insane talent, calling out players in the press, constant negative attitude during practices, it all seems so unprofessional.  Maybe appropriate in the minors, but it has to be frustrating for professional, world-class athletes.

Caputi on the top power play in his first NHL game?!?  Really? Was HCMT planning to do that before the game?  Tell me there was something more to it than the ugly goal on his first shift.  If that's how this team is being coached, this team is done.  If ice time is handed out and revoked so flippantly, I can understand why any professional athlete would get frustrated playing in this system.

I'm wondering why Crosby doesn't put it on net more. I know he's a playmaker but he had 39 goals in his rookie season.

Marty, it's actually $4 million a year.  24 divided by 6 is 4.

But that's okay, I'm the idiot.