Tonight, the Penguins will face off with a team that has not won a championship since 1975. Anyone under the age of 50 years old has never seen those scumbags hoist Lord Stanley and for that we are truly blessed. Before we dive into tonight’s game and possible Penguins lineup changes let’s discuss another loser franchise, the Toronto Maple Leafs. An original six team that hasn’t won a cup since 1967 seems genuinely impossible but the Leafs have done it. Now, they do have the Penguins number as of late, no doubt. However, all those fucking moronic fans chanting “Go Leafs Go” and “Crosby Sucks” at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday night can go to hell. Every single one of those idiots would literally suck a fat one to have Sidney Crosby on their team and would probably eat their first born to have even one of the five championship banners that flew over their heads. Credit to the Leaf’s players for being opportunistic and scoring on seemingly every single chance they had, beating the Penguins 7-2. It was one of the stranger games I have ever attended because the Penguins outplayed the Leaf’s for almost the entire evening but couldn’t get much by Dennis Hildeby. This allowed all the fans that traveled from up north to chant for their team and forget, for an evening, that they will likely be calling for everyone to be fired come Tuesday when they lose to Florida.

Again, credit to the Leaf’s for finishing on their chances but we have started to see an Arturs Silovs regression. He has been pulled in his two most recent starts, both coming at home. His first game being pulled against Minnesota, the team effort in front of him was simply not good enough. It’s hard to solely blame him for the goals he let up against Toronto but sometimes goalies just need to make a save. The only goal he allowed against Toronto that simply cannot go in would be the spin around Dakota Joshua goal, coincidently the last goal he would allow in the contest. However, the second goal he absolutely sold out on a William Nylander fake shot pass Bobby McMann to score the easiest goal of his life. You can argue that when a goalie over commits so much it’s because he has faith in his defenders but personally, I believe it be a confidence issue.

Jarry came in for relief, and he was not sharp either. He misplayed a puck that rolled in on him and effectively ended the Penguins chances of making a comeback.

Silovs, and to a lesser extent, Jarry were not good enough Saturday. This creates a potential dilemma for GM Kyle Dubas. We wrote on Friday about all of the reports connecting Jarry and Edmonton. Sure, if a trade were to materialize, Stuart Skinner could be brought in and provide cushioning for Silovs/Murashov to step up, or in Silovs case rediscover his game. It ultimately, and shockingly, has now become risky to trade Jarry if the goal is to make the playoffs. Skinner is obviously not playing great for Edmonton and Silovs has had back-to-back bad outings. Trading Jarry could leave the Penguins with a worse situation in goal and thus lower their odds at making the playoffs (55.% on MoneyPuck). If Dubas is still in full-on forward-thinking mode, he trades Jarry as soon as possible because it’s clear that Murashov is guy going forward but Jarry might need to be the guy for this season. I am not sure what the right decision would be but Dubas is paid a lot of money to make these decisions and since the departure of Guentzel he has done nothing but make the correct decision, so I am confident that he will handle this situation appropriately. It’s also a good time to bring up that it is one 82 game season, not 82 one game seasons, making any rash decision after one or two bad starts from a goaltender is likely not the appropriate thing to do.

You can look at the goaltending, which didn’t help them in this contest, but the attention to detail in the defensive zone was also poor for most of the evening. It’s one of those games that happens throughout every team’s season, but it cannot become a habit. This all brings us to tonight against Philadelphia and all of their scumbag fans. The Penguins are beginning to get rid of the passengers as Danton Heinen (1pt in 9 games), along with Tristan Broz, were reassigned to Wilkes Barre. I am unsure why Joona Koppanen is going to remain in the lineup (1pt in 10 games) but it’s seeming like he will remain until Accairi makes his return to the lineup. As for the Penguins who will replace Broz/Heinen, it seems like McGroarty will finally get called up. I hope any of the morons who were saying they’d prefer Kevin Hayes in the lineup watched the games this weekend because oooooooooof, Hayes just has no spot on this team and the very second Brazeau returns Hayes should be eating nachos in the rafters. McGroarty will hopefully come in tonight and get slotted next to the captain which couldn’t come at a better time because it seems like Sid is finally starting to get his legs. The scary thing about that previous statement is that Sid has 16 goals on the season already and, per usual, he doesn’t really find his game until the beginning of December. We all know all too well that there is no team that Crosby likes to punish more than those scumbags in Philadelphia and he will likely enter this game with two capable wingers, this is all a bad recipe for Philly.

The Penguins will have to make one other roster decision since Broz was curiously brought up to the team and subsequently sent down after only playing one game. It seems unlikely that Brazeau will be back despite skating last week so I’d assume we will see the return of Boko Imama. The Flyers, and that punk bitch Trevor Zegras, decided to be bullies at the end of their last meeting. This time, the Penguins could bring up the Nigerian Nightmare just in-case tempers flare once again. Boko isn’t an NHL player make no mistake about that. He will be brought up for his hands, no doubt, just not the type of hands that will result in goals (but he did recently score a beauty on a penalty shot). I am not a big advocate for bringing up brawn because scoring goals hurt more than punches ever will but when/if Boko comes up and starches Nic Deslauriers it will be hard not to smile in delight. Unlike Deslauriers, Imama can do enough to not look out of place, and he would be replacing Heinen/Koppanen who weren’t going to do anything on the score sheet anyway. Regardless of who gets called up, or who plays, the Penguins need to win this game and start December the right way. December is jam packed with games and most of them are against tough opponents. Luckily, the team will be getting back to full strength at some point within the next couple of weeks, but it would still behoove them to start the month with some positive momentum.