Pittsburgh Penguins: Top Ten Penguins To Hate In 2016

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The Pittsburgh Penguins took a holiday break. For the last several days, I’m sure many of our lives have been full of love and happiness. Being home for the holidays, surrounded by family and friends, it’s one of the most cheerful times of year isn’t it?

In the months preceding this wonderful holiday season however, many of us have taken out the frustrations and disappointment in our lives out on the Penguins. And to be honest they were kind of the perfect target. The team is having one of their most disappointing seasons in recent memory, with seemingly every player on the roster besides Marc-Andre Fleury and Evgeni Malkin playing significantly below expectation.

And now of course, with this beautiful holiday season coming to an end, there’s no doubt in my mind that the pent-up rage and disappointment within Penguins fans has been building and we need a target to once again unleash it upon.

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The problem this fan base is facing now however, is who specifically do we direct our hatred at?

In the last few weeks both of our major targets over the last year have been shipped out of town, with Mike Johnston being fired and Rob Scuderi traded at long last. With them now gone, what are we left to do? Only have positive and optimistic thoughts about the team moving forward, avoiding knee-jerk reactions and snap judgments?

Hell no.

Here’s the top ten candidates to receive our collective hatred in 2016.

Next: Should We Hate The Captain?

Sidney Crosby

Work through the following scenario with me:

Imagine whatever boring, horrible thing you do for a living. Imagine that in this imaginary world, you’re like incredibly prolific at it. Its insane how good you are. People are constantly commenting on how you’re arguably the best in the world to do it.

The company you work for was once dying and heading into bankruptcy. It was going to potentially be forced to move to another city before you came. Now its thriving and literally millions of people around the world look up to you.

Now after being incredibly successful the past decade, you have had kind of a “meh” start to this fiscal year in your menial job. Your results are only good instead of awe-inspiring.

And now people you’ve never met and will never meet are questioning your effort, happiness and motivation. And now millions of people hate you.

Suddenly some dick writes on the internet trying to recruit more people to hate on you in this article. That’s Sidney Crosby‘s life this season.

I don’t know, it just doesn’t quite seem right. I’m not saying it’s not an option, I’d just feel guilty doing it. He is still amazing, after all. And the Pittsburgh Penguins are better with him than without.

Next: Let's All Dogpile On The New Coach

Mike Sullivan

It is a pretty natural instinct to blame the coach for the struggles of your favourite team, especially one that is so loaded with talented players. I mean most of us have played enough of the EA Sports NHL franchise to know that its pretty darn easy to lead a team to victory, especially with 5-6 warm up games (which he has now used up).

So its put up or shut up time for Coach Mike.

But there’s a couple problems with hating on him…

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The entire Pittsburgh Penguins media conglomerate has, to this point, sung his praises as a brilliant, hard-ass coach that will push these players to bring out their best. He has had a commanding, impressive presence from the very beginning.

The message has been that if this team still falters with Sullivan at the helm, it’s the players to blame, rather than the coach.

How on Earth did this guy get to be so loved so easily?

By having Wilkes-Barre go 12-3 to start the year? So what, he had what I’m pretty sure was the reincarnation of AHL Jesus Christ playing goalie for him. I’m pretty sure with my EA Sports NHL coaching experience I could have led the team to the same record.

Regardless, with the way this guy is being portrayed in the media, it’s going to be tough to hate on him.

Next: What About That One Guy We Got For Rob Scuderi?

Trevor Daley

Okay well what about the guy that we traded Rob Scuderi for?

One of the most hated Pittsburgh athletes in years is now gone, but if this team continues to struggle and Trevor Daley begins to as well, it’d be a pretty natural transition to hate on the new guy right?

Plus the added bonus of the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with ripping on something related to the dreaded Rob Scuderi.

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Again though, a pretty major problem arises.

Pretty much all of us wanted Scuderi to be banished from Pittsburgh forever due to his complete lack of any discernible talent or skating ability. Most of us wanted him to be replaced in the lineup by a skilled, puck moving defenseman.

So can we really hate on the guy that is exactly what we wanted?

I feel like if we direct too much hate in this direction, it will make our fan base seem very hypocritical and possibly a little whiny. I’m more than willing to admit that I am quite literally exactly that, I’d just rather not be referred to as that by other hockey fans, you know?

Trevor Daley can stay.

Next: Everyone Hates The GM

Jim Rutherford

The architect of this dumpster-fire of a team. He might be my personal favourite out of the ten.

Poor old Jimmy hires a nobody coach that ends up failing, trades one of the best finishers in the league (James Neal) for a last-overall pick that has struggled mightily in his second year with the team, and trades our only major draft picks and prospects for a largely ineffective David Perron and Phil Kessel.

He then trades a young, skilled defenseman for an older, less skilled defender (then admits he screwed that one up), and finally lets promising coach John Hynes go to the New Jersey Devils where he’s having greater success with less to work with.

To cap it off, this summer he produces a spectacular offseason failure with his “four legitimate scoring lines” plan and appears to have clashing opinions on line-up decisions with his chosen coach before finally letting him go.

The list goes on and on.

Except, wait. In the moment, I really liked pretty much every single thing that he’s done since he took over as general manager.

I’ve had recurring dreams over the last year and a half where I find out that he’s my grandpa, and let me tell you, I’m the proudest grandson the dream world has ever seen.

And that’s to say nothing of the fact that we have essentially the same hometown, and the only time I’ve ever touched the Stanley Cup was when he brought it back home after his win with the Hurricanes.

We have a special connection that I just don’t think I can betray, so even though I think he’s probably the best fit for the fan base as a whole, I’m not sure I could get behind it personally.

Next: Should We Turn On Phil The Thrill?

Phil Kessel

This was supposed to be it for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The big scoring winger for Crosby that we’ve been dreaming about since that beautiful ¼ season we got with Marian Hossa at his side. The one that was dynamic enough to lead us all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

And how long did that last? Like the preseason and then 7 regular season games?

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And then 20 uninspired games with Malkin?

And now he’s got some supposed chemistry with Nick Bonino and is going to stay playing with him for scoring a 2-on-1 goal against the worst team in the league? What the?

I’m sorry but there’s no way its that hard to play with Crosby.

Didn’t Colby Armstrong score 40 points in 47 games on Sid’s line once? Honestly I’d rather have him at this point, he’d probably play for free and at least he seemed funny and cool.

Next: No One Has Ever Liked Kunitz...Right?

Chris Kunitz

How many more articles do I have to read about how Chris Kunitz is a tremendous forechecker, or possession-driver or leader or whatever else it is.

He’s producing at a lower rate than the dreaded iron deficiency of last year. God forbid we find out what he’s deficient in this year.

The most frustrating thing about all of it is that the decline really came completely out of nowhere.

Honestly, if you’re going to cut spinach out of your regular diet, at least have the decency to tell us so we know your hockey skill is going to hell.

Next: Maybe Kris Letang Should Be In Our Crosshairs

Kris Letang

What about the highly skilled defenseman that’s supposed to be dripping with puck-moving ability and offensive talent? The one who isn’t very good at running a competent power play?

And who apparently must be so emotionally-fragile that literally everyone within the Penguins organization is afraid to tell him he blows at it?

Derrick Pouliot

This is a person fans could properly hate. He truly let us down.

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Weren’t you supposed to be just like Kris Letang, except actually competent at running an NHL powerplay?

But this year, even with a disturbingly barren blueline and his old junior hockey coach acting as the NHL coach, he still couldn’t even crack the top 6.

And the likes of Rob Scuderi, David Warsofsky and “St. Louis” Ian Cole have all been deemed more capable of playing in the NHL than Pouliot. Yes, David Warsofsky was on that list.

Not only that, but Derrick Pouliot gets in a mild drunken kerfuffle with a taxi cab driver on Halloween. Who does he think he is?

A cool, good looking 21 year old having some innocent fun on his first “legal to drink” Halloween in a horrible, small, boring town in Northeastern Pennsylvania?

Not on our watch big guy. Grow up bud.

Next: Blame It On The Blood Clots

Blood Clots

You took away the only thing that every Pens fan agreed upon and truly loved, you dead, soul-less gelatinous/semisolid masses of coagulated blood.

Perhaps we should blame those blood clots for derailing this team over the last bit and taking away a viable top six forward option in Pascal Dupuis. Perhaps we should just be grateful we got that sweet, sweet cap space and were able to get rid of Rob Scuderi.

Hope you’re doing well Duper, I love and miss you more than ever.

Next: Let's Lash Out At The Heart Of The Team

Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury

Now I know that I freely admitted that Fleury and Malkin have been really the only two players that have kept this season from being a complete unmitigated disaster, but hear me out. It’s actually been kind of nice to have an outlet to direct my frustrations at, and I’m sure many of you feel the same.

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The only real chance there is that outlet disappears is if Fleury and Malkin continue their high level of play and are able to slowly motivate the rest of the team around them to meet their exceptional effort.

Hypothetically, however, we can just absolutely pour the hate on both Fleury and Malkin. From this act we have a decent chance of completely destroying their willpower in the same way Ilya Bryzgalov was destroyed in that other Pennsylvania city.

Then we can hate watch with a sick joy as the team plummets even further towards the bottom of the standings. It’s an arguably evil strategy, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Next: Conclusion

So yeah, to be honest I’m not really sure which is the best way to go.

There is a lot of choice out there in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, and we didn’t even really touch on Jeff Zatkoff or Rick Tocchet. Everyone loves those guys, right?

In time, I’m sure the winner of the prestigious “Penguins goat” award will reveal himself. In the meantime, you can use this list to throw your weight behind a particular candidate.

Alternatively, patience and positive thoughts wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

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