Ottawa Senators in Twitter Battle With Pittsburgh Penguins

There’s nothing like some good natured ribbing to draw up some anticipation before the regular season. The Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins find themselves in a bit of a beef regarding their two star defensemen.

As most great conflicts start in our modern world of 2016, a tweet was what set off this contentious showdown.

The official NHL Twitter account tweeted a story about which defensemen are most likely to put up high scoring performances at the World Cup of Hockey.

The image on the story included pictures of Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Roman Josi. Karlsson was 1st among defenseman last season in points, Burns was 2nd, and Josi was 4th.

Letang ranked ranked 3rd among defenseman in points, but he’s not participating in the World Cup of Hockey.

Team Canada is going with a defensive unit of Burns, Drew Doughty, Jay Bouwmeester, Jake Muzzin, Alex Pietrangelo, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Shea Weber.

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It wasn’t even a slight because Letang isn’t applicable to be compared amongst other defensemen in the tournament.

However, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ official Twitter account used the opportunity to defend their star blue-liner, responding to the tweet by posting a picture of Letang hoisting the Stanley Cup with the caption “This guy,” referring to Letang being the most likely defenseman to put up points.

Again, Letang isn’t in the tournament, so the Ottawa Senators’ official Twitter account responded with a picture of Karlsson looking confused.

The Penguin’s official Twitter account responded to the Karlsson picture with a tweet saying, “You look confused. Let us help… that’s the Stanley Cup.”

It was a good comeback and all, but I feel as if something got lost in translation to escalate this whole thing.

I’m thinking that the Penguins didn’t notice the hashtag on the original tweet about the World Cup of Hockey, and thought that the story was referring to all NHL defensemen instead of just ones participating in the World Cup of Hockey.

Another important example as to why it’s crucial to read the actual stories being posted instead of just the captions before responding.

Had the Penguins read the story, they would have realized immediately that it was about the World Cup of Hockey and not the NHL.

Had it been about all NHL defenseman, then yes they’d have a point about Letang being slighted, particularly over Josi.

However, they jumped to conclusions and escalated something that wasn’t even applicable to them to begin with.

I used to write for a San Antonio Spurs site, and there were numerous times that I’d post stories on Twitter with captions like “Should the Spurs Trade Player A?” and my account would be bombarded with angry comments about why I was so dumb for thinking they should trade the player.

The irony was that if they’d have actually read the story, they’d have known that I had come to the conclusion that the Spurs shouldn’t trade the player.

Again, probably the leading cause of miscommunications on Twitter stem from drawing the wrong impression from a captioned story without actually reading the story.

Had the Penguins clicked on the link and browsed the story, Karlsson wouldn’t have to be icing a burn right now, although in a vacuum, most people can agree that Karlsson is the better overall defenseman compared to Letang.

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Letang might have the edge regarding the defensive aspects of the game, but Letang had 67 total points last year while Karlsson had 66 assists alone. Add his 16 goals to the equation and Karlsson’s offensive output makes his case for him.

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