The Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Philadelphia Flyers in the NHL playoffs. The NFL might mess with its schedule. Evgeni Malkin could leave Pittsburgh. Andrew McCutchen is grumpy about how he left the Pirates.

You can probably imagine how all of that is going over with our readers.

If you can’t, pour yourself a tall one and soak in this week’s “U mad, bro?” You’ll get the gist soon enough.

“WXman21b” says I was too harsh on the Penguins after they lost Game 6 of their first-round playoff series 1-0 in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers.

“How about giving the Penguins credit for an exciting season instead of you always doing the opposite and criticizing them for not beating Philadelphia last night, even though the Pens outshot them? The trouble with sportswriters is they fail consistently to see the game from the players and coaches perspective! The team did their best and for you to berate them is ridiculous! They are aware that they didn’t advance to the second round! Have a little empathy for them instead of berating them!”

Based on the nasty on-ice tone of that series against the Flyers, I’m glad the Penguins have thicker skin than you do. If they didn’t, they might have just surrendered after the first three games.

Do you really think the shot total matters more than the score? I’m pretty sure the “coach’s perspective” isn’t that the SOG number is more important than the score column. Who cares if they have 42 shots on goal if none of them beat the goalie?

And spare me the histrionics about “berating” the Penguins. If you think I was being too hard on them, I should do jail time for how I write about the Steelers.

The Penguins have it easier from the media than any team in town. And the fact that you think my season-ending column on them was too harsh is excellent evidence of how low the threshold is for acceptable criticism from their overly protective fan base.

I sure hope their young players grew up more in this series than you did.

Keith replied to a web poll I posted about the prospect of an 18-game regular season in the NFL.

Then go to 20 if it’s just about money. Or 22. Or 24. But it isn’t just about money. It’s about injury risk too. Plenty of that exists before the playoffs for star players at 16 or 17 games as it is.

Meanwhile, this guy doesn’t think injury risk is a big deal in the NFL at all.

OK. When she reached 50 mph on her bike, was she also getting hit by T.J. Watt or Myles Garrett coming at her in pads and a helmet in the other direction?

This Penguins fan is against my idea of elevating Sergei Murashov to the No. 1 goalie position next season.

Murashov has played 26 games in the ECHL and 54 games in the AHL. He’s 53-19-5 in the regular season between the two leagues. His goals-against average with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this year was 2.20, and his save percentage was .919.

Is that really “anointing?” Or is he just ready for a promotion?

Dennis doesn’t like the idea of Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas letting Evgeni Malkin walk away in free agency.

“I don’t think that Dubas has made any team beneficial decisions at all. If he needs cap room , let go of Karlsson and his Booby Orr imitating antics. He has made a tremendous amount of serious turnover mistakes that somehow he is not held accountable for. He is overpaid and a lot of cap room can be made available if his salary is reduced.”

Unfortunately, Dennis, you can’t “reduce” a hockey player’s salary. It’s not the NFL. I’d also argue that Karlsson was much better this season than he was during his first two seasons in Pittsburgh, and he collected more points (66) than Malkin (61).

That was probably because of all those “Booby Orr” impersonations you were referencing.

And in terms of Dubas not making “any team beneficial decisions at all,” Anthony Mantha, Egor Chinakhov, Connor Dewar, Ben Kindel, Justin Brazeau, Tommy Novak and Noel Acciari totaled 128 goals.

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Who acquired those skaters?

This person obviously loved my column discussing the similarities between Andrew McCutchen’s exit from the Pirates and Malkin’s potential departure from the Penguins.

“Really dumb analogy?” No, that’s a really dumb response.

Because the column wasn’t a comparison between the two players and their accomplishments. At all.

Beyond that, I don’t know how you look at Malkin’s season with praise, and then call Karlsson “dead weight” after his turnaround this year. Furthermore, you can dismiss ‘Cutch all you want, there is a huge portion of the Pirates fan base that looks at him on a higher level than you do.

Finally, Ann wasn’t fond of that column either.

“I pray you were drunk or on drugs when you wrote today’s article! Cutch and Geno are legends. You and your fellow writers will say anything to get a paycheck. Stop making Cutch and Geno and Big Ben and James Harrison as the bad guys! They ARE LEGENDS AND WILL BE LEGENDS LONG AFTER YOU AND MADDEN ARE GONE.”

No. I wasn’t drunk when I wrote that column.

To be fair, though, I am right now.

Pfft! Do you think I could go through all these messages like yours and stay sober?! “U mad, bro?” drives me to drink every week.

But I’m assuming you must’ve been at least a little tipsy when you read that post. You had to be in an altered state of mind if you read that column and thought that I was painting any of those players as the “bad guys?”

Seriously, how could you have possibly reached that conclusion?

At any rate, Ann, pour yourself another. In the words of AC/DC, “Have a Drink On Me!”

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