It’s the burning question on the mind of every red-blooded Penguins fan. Do our guys have the stuff to three-peat?
While there are tons of issues to consider, I decided to depart from my more traditional analysis and zero in on four factors as a way of evaluating our chances—offensive rank, power-play rank, defensive rank and penalty-kill rank.
The results are intriguing.
OFFENSE
In Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, the Pens boast three of hockey’s supreme talents, not to mention big-game performers. Spread out over three separate lines, as coach Mike Sullivan is wont to do? I don’t envy opposing coaches, nor the matchup nightmares they face.
Blend in net-front wrecker Patric Hornqvist, who’s positively on fire, and a cast of secondary scorers including newcomer Derick Brassard, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, the black-and-gold forwards take a back seat to no one.
Nor does it hurt to have the league’s top power play, which clicked at a scalding 26.2 percent during the regular season.
Since the Pens are clearly banking on offense—fourth-best in the league—to outscore the opposition, I wanted to see how critical a super-charged attack is to capturing a Stanley Cup. Here’s a glance at the offensive rank of the past 10 champions.
| GOALS FOR RANK | |||||
| Season | Team | Rank | Season | Team | Rank |
| 2016-17 | Penguins | 1st | 2011-12 | Kings | 29th |
| 2015-16 | Penguins | 3rd | 2010-11 | Bruins | 8th |
| 2014-15 | Blackhawks | 16th | 2009-10 | Blackhawks | 3rd |
| 2013-14 | Kings | 25th | 2008-09 | Penguins | 4th |
| 2012-13 | Blackhawks | 2nd | 2007-08 | Red Wings | 3rd |
Clearly a case of different strokes for different folks. While a high-powered offense certainly won’t hurt your chances of hoisting a Cup, the tight-checking Kings won a pair of titles with an offensively challenged group, as did the ’14-15 Blackhawks. So the ability to fill the other guy’s net isn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all.
Now for the power play.
| POWER PLAY RANK | |||||
| Season | Team | Rank | Season | Team | Rank |
| 2016-17 | Penguins | 3rd | 2011-12 | Kings | 17th |
| 2015-16 | Penguins | 16th | 2010-11 | Bruins | 20th |
| 2014-15 | Blackhawks | 20th | 2009-10 | Blackhawks | 16th |
| 2013-14 | Kings | 27th | 2008-09 | Penguins | 20th |
| 2012-13 | Blackhawks | 19th | 2007-08 | Red Wings | 3rd |
Frankly, I was shocked to discover that possessing a potent power play seems to have little or no bearing on a team’s chances of hoisting Lord Stanley’s coveted silverware.
Hopefully, not a bad omen for our boys.
DEFENSE
The Pens have demonstrated the past two seasons that you don’t need to be the best defensive team to win a Cup. However, you do need to be able to keep the other team off the scoreboard, at least to a degree. I’m worried about the Pens’ ability to do that.
Here’s look at the defensive rank of Stanley Cup champions going back to 2007-08. The results are eye-popping.
| GOALS AGAINST RANK | |||||
| Season | Team | Rank | Season | Team | Rank |
| 2016-17 | Penguins | 17th | 2011-12 | Kings | 2nd |
| 2015-16 | Penguins | 6th | 2010-11 | Bruins | 3rd |
| 2014-15 | Blackhawks | 1st | 2009-10 | Blackhawks | 5th |
| 2013-14 | Kings | 1st | 2008-09 | Penguins | 18th |
| 2012-13 | Blackhawks | 1st | 2007-08 | Red Wings | 1st |
The only club to capture a Cup with a defensive rank outside of the top five in my sample set? You guessed it…our Pens. We’ve done it three times.
Still, with our leaky 20th ranked defense, it seems our guys are pushing their luck this time around.
On to the penalty killing.
| PENALTY KILLING RANK | |||||
| Season | Team | Rank | Season | Team | Rank |
| 2016-17 | Penguins | 21st | 2011-12 | Kings | 4th |
| 2015-16 | Penguins | 5th | 2010-11 | Bruins | 16th |
| 2014-15 | Blackhawks | 10th | 2009-10 | Blackhawks | 4th |
| 2013-14 | Kings | 11th | 2008-09 | Penguins | 8th |
| 2012-13 | Blackhawks | 3rd | 2007-08 | Red Wings | 8th |
Okay, so having an airtight penalty kill isn’t especially crucial to postseason success. Still, the Pens’ 17th ranked PK leaves a lot to be desired. Keep in mind our best shorthanded work occurred prior to the trade-deadline departure of Ian Cole.
Which leads me to my deepest, darkest concern. Minus Cole, the Pens are…in my humble opinion…a d-man short. When you factor in Kris Letang’s thoroughly uneven play, never mind the inevitable injuries? Not matter how you slice it, we don’t have a Cup-worthy ‘d.’
Same with our goaltending.
True, Matt Murray still possesses the wonderful bend-but-not-break quality that helped stake us to back-to-back Cups. However, there’s no Marc-Andre Fleury waiting in the wings should he falter. Not that I mind Casey DeSmith…the kid’s reasonably cool under fire. But ‘Flower’ he ain’t.
So How About the Flyers?
No longer a holy terror, the once ferocious Flyers have followed our lead under scholarly coach Dave Hakstol. And there’s no question Philly boasts some elite talent in forwards Sean Couturier, Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek and mobile young defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and Ivan Provorov.
All that flash can’t conceal a weak underbelly…the lack of a go-to goalie…a flaw the Pens exploited to the tune of 20 goals in four regular-season meetings between the former blood rivals.
While I look for an entertaining series, we should have more than enough to dispatch Philly. After that, our fate’s going to depend heavily on favorable matchups.
We’ll take it one series at a time.
Penguins in six.
Hi Rick,
Nice breakdown. It’s all about the defense for me, especially this year as the D has been suspect from the first puck drop in October. This extends to the PK, too. It hasn’t been the same in recent weeks.
Of course I hope the D and the PK can, and will, get their act together in short order. There’s talent there, and I think they are capable of playing better in both cases. But the fact remains, defense simply isn’t a built-in in this system. It’s often spoken of first, but rarely thought of — in game — as the first line action.
They will have to score, score, score, to go the distance, and that means the bottom six, too. They’ve got to make match ups all but impossible while wearing down opposing coaches and players with a relentless forecheck and match up nightmares. Their best defense will be puck possession and keeping the other guys in their own zone as much as possible.
They’re going to need excelent goaltending performances, too, no matter who’s between the pipes, but that goes without saying.
Can they do it? Yeah, I think they can. Will they? I still have reservations.
— 55
Just had this thought after I sent the post below,
Here is a question for you and any/all of our readers; what 1 – former player or player rumored to be a potential trade target of the Penguins, or even player somewhere within the Org now, would you want to see on the roster for this first series to make you feel more confident about the Pens chances?
Hey Other Rick,
To quote the ‘not-so-brave’ Sir Robin from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”…that’s easy!
Ian Cole for the ex-Pen…Andrey Pedan for the WBS guy.
How about you?
Rick
I am right there with you. It may be hard to tell, I keep my opinions to myself too often :-), but I find the Pens D pathetic and would love to have Cole back. With just that one addition I would almost be a whole lot more positive right now.
The team was not just winning but looking like they were on the verge of becoming a juggernaut right before they traded him. He is no way a Bobby Orr, Nicklas Linstrom, or Paul Coffey, but he looks like he was that 1 brick that made this team a load.
Hey Rick,
Preseason, Regular Season, and Post Season are 3 totally different animals. Normally I would hate to bet against money players like Malkin, Crosby, Kessel, and Murray and I haven’t really settled on what I think just yet, but the disarray that is the Penguins D without Cole really concerns me.
Last years D burned thru MAF while Murray was injured. I really would have loved to see MAF go the distance, but he did get worn down by the lack of defensive help and the team had to turn back to Murray. This years version of defense is even worse.
Schultz and Oleksiak are the only 2 D-men that have been able to play defense consistently (as well as Offense). Even though I tend to like Maatta, Dumoulin, and Ruhwedel, none were able to negate the lapses of Letang or Hunwick. No matter how it is sliced up, unless Sullivan is forced to dip into WBS for help (I doubt he will summon aid under any circumstances short of injury, regardless of how badly the D may fail – if it fails), opposing O’s are licking their chops at the prospect of assaulting Penguin Goaltenders.
I do think that the Pens stand a reasonable chance of not only beating Phi, but of making it to the conference finals. However, with only Oleksiak really capable of clearing the crease I fear you may be close in your assessment, if the Pens do win. If the Pens do win it will may take them 6 – 7 games to do it.
With Brassard apparently ready to return to the line-up, it will be interesting to find out which Fs sit and which ones play. I do think that Sullies strategy of last year needs be revisited this year to at least go deep if not the distance. I do think that the lines are not only going to have to have Crosby, Malkin, and Kessel, spread out thru 3 lines, each line is going to need some muscle; Hornqvist, Aston-Reese, and Kuhnhackl back on RW may be key factors.
We only have little over a day before all of the guess work will be removed and the curtain will go up for us to see how this 3elieve turns out.
Go Pens!!!