GNT | Boston @ Pittsburgh | NBCSN | 7:30pm

[Dacks]

Which is why I hate Steiggy. He's just...ew. No fan likes him. I really don't know how he has a job. The fans don't like him, he approaches the players like a fan, he makes bad jokes. He's essentially putting the most biased fan out there to broadcast. Asinine. He openly cheers for guys.

As a non-PGH resident, I don't catch many games on TV. Silver lining is that the ones I do catch are usually either Canadian network or NBC broadcasts, and they use their own guys. From the few times I've had to listen to Steiggy, that's something to be thankful for.

All that said, that is THE way to play the Pens... We are stubborn with the stretch pass and are prone to turnovers. The Devils have done it for years and pretty much any team that tries to trap us has success. Is this the type of game we needed to get the confidence to beat the trap? IDK... It took a long f'n time to finally do it. The Bruins strategy went from genius to skeptical in mere minutes.

I thought I noticed, and maybe the analysts pointed it out to, that the Pens started employing some variations on their stretch pass that was messing the Bruins up. Traditionally, the Pens D would fire it up, and the winger would just slightly defect it into the zone, barely slowing it down. Teams got wise to this, and would just leave one guy deep in their zone to retrieve the dump-in.

The adjustment I saw yesterday, the stretch pass would be down the middle, and instead of deflecting it into the zone, the forward would direct it to space in the neutral zone, where a Pens player would pick it up going full speed.

I think this is a nice adjustment. If they line up completely on the blueline, you deflect it deep, where the forwards have a good chance of getting there first. If they put a guy deep in their own zone, that leaves more room at the blueline, so you deflect it to one of your teammates in the neutral zone. We'll see how they use it going forward.