Last summer, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie made a series of predictions leading up to the start of the 2018-19 season. Some were OK. Some were hilariously off the mark. In this series, Bombulie will explain what he was thinking and where his logic went off course.
THE QUESTION
How much will Derick Brassard play on the wing this season?
A. Not at all
B. A little
C. A lot
THE PREDICTION
B. A little
THE RIGHT ANSWER
B. A little
THE RATIONALE
• The Penguins entered last season with a lack of high-end offensive options on the left side. Moving Brassard to Sidney Crosby’s wing at times would allow coach Mike Sullivan to load up his top six with his best scoring talent.
• At the end of the previous season, Brassard had a six-game scoring streak before he suffered a lower-body injury. If a long summer allowed him to heal up, he could provide a boost to a scoring line.
• Brassard would play on the wing a little, not a lot, because the possibility of him clicking with Phil Kessel as the third-line center still existed.
READER REACTION
A sample of Facebook comments:
• “It will be interesting to see how Brassard plays once he goes through a training camp and begins to gel better with his teammates. Unfortunately for Brassard, Kessel, who may have been injured, played poorly after Brassard arrived, which hurt his game because he is an excellent passer and set-up man.”
• “I hope he plays better than he did last season with the Pens. Who knows?? If he plays good, we will know in the first 20 games of this season. Or another bust.”
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
• Brassard played 517 five-on-five minutes with the Penguins before being mercifully traded to Florida in February. He about spent 84 of those minutes on the wing with Crosby.
• It wasn’t a complete disaster. The Penguins outscored their opponents 3-1 when Brassard, Crosby and Jake Guentzel were on the ice together. And there was one memorable highlight with Brassard on the wing: A Dec. 10 game on Long Island where he scored in the third period to force overtime and the Penguins won 2-1 on Guentzel’s shootout winner. But it was far, far from a success, and there were loads of better options for the first-line left wing spot.
THE FLAWS IN THE LOGIC
• It didn’t really matter where Brassard was slotted on the lineup card. His caliber of play nosedived pretty much from the moment the Penguins acquired him, and mediocre stops in Florida and Colorado late in the season only provided more evidence of that. He remains an unsigned free agent.
• On the occasions where Sullivan put Brassard on the wing, the move was designed to jump-start a struggling player more than it was designed to create a dangerous scoring line. Moves made with that rationale behind them rarely work for long.
LESSONS LEARNED
• Sometimes first impressions are very accurate. When the Penguins traded for Brassard , it immediately looked like a bad fit for a declining player. It was easy to come up with reasons why Brassard might bounce back at the start of last season, but that was just a product of thinking too hard.
