dekedangle_rpfanon | #24 – Not Sure If Serious or Playing Dumba

#24 – Not Sure If Serious or Playing Dumba

This is the twenty-fourth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Well shit, now I'm lowkey shipping Olli/Jeff Zatkoff.

Me too, nonnie.

Right there with you.

You know, I always thought Zatkoff seemed like a good guy, but in the last couple of months suddenly all this stuff that is making me realize that he's the greatest, and now of course he's going to leave! Like, the interactions with Phil in that ITR ep a little bit ago were really fun, and did you see he's blogging for nhl.com?

I kind of want him to just join the Penguins front office, or maybe sign an AHL deal to mentor Jarry and stick around. He doesn't have a place as a goaltender on this team anymore and a Murray-Zatkoff full time tandem of the future would make me die of hypertension, but he's such an awesome dude and you can tell his teammates really really love him.

Yeah. It's the Fleury problem all over again, except with a lot less money and talent involved. :(

I don't know if there'll be room in WBS for him either, though - in addition to Jarry, the Pens also have Maguire and DeSmith in the pipeline. (I think? I can't seem to find hardly anything on DeSmith except that he played fifteen games for them this season.)

Maguire seems ripe for a future in Wheeling, at least initially. DeSmith was a bandaid PTO from the Nailers when Murray got called up while Jarry was injured, and he stuck around to back up Jarry because Murray stayed in the NHL post-deadline.

At one point, DeSmith and Jarry got injured and Maguire became the de facto "starter" until they could pillage the Nailers again, but when they both got healthy DeSmith took the starter job away from Jarry during his cup of playoff coffee and didn't give it back. Jarry had a rough year in general but I don't think the organization views DeSmith as a prospect in the same way as they do Jarry or even Maguire.

The WBS goalie drama was a long and winding journey this year, man.

Wow. That is so much drama. And I thought the big Pens had goalie issues towards the end there!

I wonder a lot about whether the farm teams get frustrated when the NHL team grabs their best players. Like the WBS Pens lost their starting goaltender, most of their best forwards, and Pouliot to the Big Pens. And then the Big Pens injured a couple of those guys and sat Pouliot indefinitely, and meanwhile WBS is trying to go on a Calder cup run.

There were definitely some frustrated and upset WBS fans, for sure. And in addition to all those players, they also lost their coach!!

NA

I definitely wonder how frustrated Pouliot was, sitting on a bench in Pittsburgh, and how many of the WBS team have thought about if they could have beaten Hershey with him.

Pouliot was their best defenseman. Imagine if Letang had to spend games hanging around with Burkle and Lemieux, fully healthy and capable of playing with his team. He was certainly frustrated and I don't blame him or WBS fans who felt the same.

Building on that, there's been a distinct lack of Pouliot in all the WBS togetherness features and he never seems to hang out with the rest of them based on social media; he's always off with his girlfriend while the rest of them constantly double and triple date. I think he's done with the team for multiple reasons (Justin Schultz being the main one) and will be traded but I also just wonder how popular he is as a teammate. Adam Clendening seemed more of a part of the team when he was a perpetual scratch.

Yeah, at this point I have enough trust in the Pens' front office and coaching staff that I'm convinced there must be off-ice issues with Pouliot, otherwise their treatment of him makes no sense. I expect he'll be traded, I just wonder when would be best to get good value.

I think GMJR even intimated earlier in the season that there were off-ice/character issues going on, when asked about his plans to call Pouliot up from WBS.

Didn't he get arrested for drunk and disorderly recently?

Yup.

As I said below, he was never arrested. He was held at a police station until TK could come and get him.

TK was the one who had to come get him?? Aw.

That being said (in response to what you said below), I doubt that the front office would be foolish enough to allow one incident to turn them against him. But one incident that we know about doesn't necessarily happen in a vacuum. We don't see all the things they see, and apparently it was WBS personnel telling Rutherford that Pouliot wasn't ready for a call up. I don't completely trust the FO not to have outdated or shitty ideas about young players earning their place/being put in their place, but given that there's been no shortage of young WBS guys who have gotten opportunities this season, I don't give Pouliot the full benefit of the doubt either.

Rutherford has said repeatedly that Guerin is the one who decides when prospects are ready to be called up or not. Considering his shitty comments about Sid playing too "fancy" or whatever, I don't exactly hold his judgment in the highest esteem.

DA

I don't have the highest opinion of Guerin's judgement either, but I thought it was very telling that Sullivan, who was familiar with all the WBS players from his time down there, seemed to trust all of them to play, even when they made stupid mistakes every once in a while, except Pouliot.

DA

I don't really know if Sullivan didn't trust Pouliot. He played him a lot when he got called up, sometimes as the number three defenseman. He got benched literally just because they wanted to try Schultz; if I remember right, Pouliot was playing so well around the deadline that Schultz still had to sit two or three games after he came because Pouliot and Cole were such a great pairing. He didn't get benched for Schultz in the reg season because of a poor game, it was just to see what they had in Schultz. The Penguins got on a roll and Sullivan was hesitant to change the lineup.

Pouliot was also Sullivan's first option over Schultz in the playoffs. He didn't do well and got subsequently benched but still, so did Maatta. No margin for error in the playoffs.

Re: Hockey Media

(Anonymous) - 2016-06-02 12:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Hockey Media

(Anonymous) - 2016-06-02 13:50 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, unlike Johnston, Sullivan has no problem trusting younger players, and he knew Pouliot in WBS just like he knew the rest of them.

AYRT

I actually don't have that trust (maybe in JR) because this is the same front office who's mishandled several younger players in the same manner. I wouldn't be shocked if it's something in the middle, maybe Pouliot has attitude issues that the front office should shut up and deal with properly because he's an 8th overall pick and those don't grow on trees.

I'm from Portland and I'm pretty sure Pouliot is going to go on and be an impact player somewhere else. He's a special talent. He'll be better than Schultz. I was really pointing out that it's likely better for Pouliot to get traded if he's not fitting in here, off-ice issues or not.

If he's got a drinking problem, getting traded won't help.

AYRT

He doesn't have a drinking problem. He was drunk on Halloween and taking a cab home from a party. He was trying to pay the cab driver but he only had a $100 bill and didn't think the cab driver had enough change to give him. The cab driver didn't speak much English (all of this is per Bombulie's account, I'm not stereotyping) and Pouliot only spoke in drunkenness and they got into argument. No one got punched. The cab driver called the cops because he believed Pouliot was trying to cheat him.

Pouliot wasn't charged with anything, basically just held at the police station until an adult (his captain) came and picked him up. The end. If that's the incident that turned the front office against him forever, they are very foolish.

I lol'd at Poo only speaking drunkenness.

It's Pooh. That h is really important, okay.

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