When the Pittsburgh Penguins moved Monday’s start time against the Seattle Kraken to 1 p.m. — so as not to conflict with the Steelers’ adjusted kickoff time in Buffalo (4:30 p.m.) — Mark Madden of TribLive and 105.9 The X had a very succinct response.
“I would have kept the (Penguins) game at 6 o’clock and said (forget) the Steelers. Let’s see who is on our side,” Madden said during this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast. “The Steelers would not have done the same thing for the Penguins.”
Regardless of when the Penguins face off, they’ve got problems. At exactly the halfway point of the season (41 games), the Penguins are tied for sixth place (46 points) in the Metropolitan Division. They are three points out of a wild-card spot.
And Madden says one of the Penguins stars, Evgeni Malkin, is one of the biggest problems, despite his 15 goals and 20 assists.
“Geno is killing them,” Madden said. “He’s killing them three-on-three. He is killing them on the power play. But they won’t change any of it because giving guys roles within the context of this current team is about lifetime achievement and ego. And that’s where (Kris) Letang screws himself because he’s not very egotistical. That’s why he’s not on the first power play because he won’t get the boo-boo face. Geno would get the boo-boo face. Geno shouldn’t be on the first power play. He shouldn’t play three-on-three. He’s that bad at both.”
More sports
• Steelers prefer to ignore odds, history against them as underdog No. 7 seed vs. Bills
• Penguins prepare to face old friend Brian Dumoulin
• Mark Madden: Penguins problems on power play, 3-on-3 OT have hit critical mass
Madden isn’t exactly wild about some of what he has seen from this year’s big offseason acquisition, Erik Karlsson, either. After Saturday’s overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, Karlsson said, “I have my theories, but I’ll keep it to myself,” about what’s been going wrong in overtime.
“Well, let us know what they are,” Madden said. “You’re in on this too. I’d love to know what Karlsson thinks. Maybe he can shed some light on what is a couple of crappy situations — the three-on-three and the power play. Both of which he was brought here in part to fix.”
The Penguins are 3-6 in games that end after regulation, including their last two defeats to Vancouver and Carolina. Madden thinks he knows why the struggles exist.
“They don’t practice three-on-three,” Madden said. “You can tell because they get caught where the puck turns over — a failed shot, or just a more conventional botched pass, or a guy gets stripped handling the puck — you immediately have to pick up a guy, and they don’t. They get caught in no man’s land for that split second and bingo-bango-bongo, it goes the other way with numbers and speed, and they score.”
Also, in the podcast, Madden and I discuss moving the Steelers playoff game in Buffalo, Green Bay’s destruction of the Cowboys in Dallas, and the NFL’s obsession with the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift.
