Anatomy of Frustration – The 2018-2019 Penguins Review: Part Five

As a former Goalie, I felt sorry for the Penguins’ Goalies this past season. As a team, our favorite flightless fowl subjected their last line of defense to the 3rd worst barrage of 5 on 5 shot attempts in the league (3,960). Yes, there were players like Jack Johnson who threw themselves into the line of fire to help out their beleaguered teammates to block shots (147), improving their 5 on 5 rankings when you controlled for unblocked shots attempts (USA); checking in at 7th worst – still in the bottom 3rd of the league – with 2,939 USA. However, our locals’ Goalies stood tall against the hail of vulcanized rubber that poured down on them. If the Black-and-Gold net minders are having nightmares, it would be quite understandable.

Like the rest of the team, this position experienced its ups and downs. Fortunately for Mike Sullivan the Goalies had more ups than downs and more ups than the rest of the team had or Mr. Sullivan may have found himself on the unemployment line.

As a position I would have to give the Penguins‘ Goalies a B+ for a grade and a purple heart for the wounds inflicted by the assault they faced, often times with no one between them and one or more shooters, during the regular season. Their team Save Percentage (SV%) was 0.913, 8 points above the league average of 0.905

Again in the post-season the Goalies showed themselves the strongest position, but like the rest of the team, the abysmal morale that infected the rest of the team took its toll on the team’s backstops. Even though they were the strongest position during the playoffs, that isn’t saying much. The Goalies were in all reality average but compared to the no shows at all the other positions they get the highest grade by default. They were a C in the playoffs. Unfortunately, with pathos that was the rest of the team, Pittsburgh needed them to be almost perfect.

Looking at the Goalies individually;

Matt Murray started the season off horribly. If the season had ended December 1st I would have had to give him an F for the season. Murray’s Sv% was an abysmal 0.877 which was 60th among goalies that had played more than 5 Games (GP) by that date. He did have a couple of great games, particularly during a Canada road trip where he had a 38 save Shut Out (SO) and faced 123 Shots on Goal over the 3 games he played on that road trip. However, he had enough clunker games to earn his pathetic Sv%.

Some people suggested he was injured right from the start of the season but didn’t want to admit it. Who knows? The reasons were not as important as the inconsistency and losses.

The good news for Murray and the team is that when he came back off of Injured Reserve (IR) Murray had returned to form. Only Ben Bishop and Robin Lehner had a better Sv% than Murray‘s 0.930 from December 1st onward. If the season didn’t start until December 1st, I would have had to give Murray an A+.

As it is, I give him an B+ for the regular season.

For the post-season, since he was the only goalie the team used and he did perform averagely, despite the rest of the team flunking completely, his individual playoff grade is a C.

Casey DeSmith played fairly well, particularly during Murray‘s time on IR. His season SV% of 0.916 although not as high as Murray‘s was still good enough for 19th out of 60 Goalies who played more than 20 games. In fact, it was higher than former Penguins‘ Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury‘s 0.913 Sv%. He didn’t seem to play as well in the clutch as Murray, he ended up losing 35% of his decisions vs Murray only losing about 29% of his decisions. Considering the poor support his team gave him (just like they no showed Murray) I would have to him a B for his regular season.

Since he didn’t play any games during the post season and Tristan Jarry barely played any regular season games and no post-season games, I can’t grade them for their post-season play and in Jarry‘s case an incomplete regular season grade since he didn’t play enough games to rate him.

Looking forward to next season;

There are some people suggesting that Murray is expendable and trade able. Some of those people write on these boards and I often times find myself in agreement with their opinions. However, in the case of Murray I am in the same camp as those people who have chosen team Canada for the IIHF World Championships. I agree with those people who consider Murray the presumptive starter for his national team.

I won’t argue with anyone that opines that Murray played better when Mike Bales was their Goalie Coach. Murray almost never surrendered a lead when under Bales’ tutelage. I do see Murray often playing deeper in his net and not controlling his rebounds nearly as well since Mike Buckley took over. However, in the end, despite a rocky start to last season, he was lights out during the stretch run and only started to look mortal once the rest of his team checked out in the playoffs. Unless George Vezina comes back from the beyond and signs with the Penguins, Murray will and should be the starter next season.

After Murray the picture gets a little less clear as to who would be in goal for the Penguins. DeSmith is signed through the 2021-2022 season for a very reasonable $1.25 million but Tristan Jarry will be a Restricted Free Agent (RFA) at the end of the 2019-2020 season and therefore looks like good trade bait.

The downside is that there is precious little else in the Penguins’ Farm system and quite often, in today’s hockey world, a team needs 3 quality goalies to get through a season. After Jarry, the only other 2 goalies in the system are Alex D’Orio and John Muse.

D’Orio played fairly well for his Junior Team (Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the QMJHL) in the playoffs posting a 0.910 Sv% but struggled in the regular season with a Sv% of 0.899 in 263GP for Baie-Comeau Drakkar and 0.883 in the 23 GP with Saint John Sea Dogs before getting traded at mid season. D’Orio also got his professional feat wet after the Junior season, getting rocked in his 1st game at Wilkes Barre Scranton (WBS), giving up 5 goals on 33 shots. The first time I saw him play was during the prospects tournament 2 seasons ago and he did look pretty good and though he earned a contract offer but he hasn’t really looked good since then.

Muse is a 30 year old career minor league player who split time with the Penguin affiliates WBS of the AHL and Wheeling of the ECHL.

NHL Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA) help?

Sergei Bobrovsky will be UFA at the end of his playoff run and is finally playing well and not choking in the playoffs, now that he doesn’t have to face our Penguins. However, although he is only 30 years old, so he could still have some years left in him, he is currently making $7.425 million and will only want more and more the deeper he goes into the playoffs. Add to that the rumors that I have heard that he and Artemi Panarin are all but locks to go to Florida, there will be no help here for our Cap strapped Penguins.

Robin Lehner is also UFA this season and playing well in the playoffs after struggling for some bad teams in Ottawa and Buffalo. He has been a steal for the Islanders this year at $1.5 million. I really haven’t heard anything yet about what he will do next year, but I would think that New York will do their best to meet any other teams offer and again the Penguins will be once again, up against the cap, so no looking here either.

In both cases, as well as both of the above goalies are playing, they really don’t need a goalie for opening night, what they need is something to shore up their system.

In fact looking at the NHL UFAs although there are some interesting names out there if a team needs a starting goalie, the only thing I would look at is some depth in the minors that could free me up to trade either DeSmith or Jarry as sweeteners to move a big contract.

Outside the NHL I found 2 interesting names;

Vasiliy Demchenko had a breakout season for Traktor Chelyabinsk of the KHL last season and is a free agent. He posted a 0.932 Sv% in 46 games. He is only 6′-1″ tall and 165 lbs which isn’t all that big for an NHL goalie but at 25 he could be a good player to sign and play in WBS for most of the season to see if he has an NHL upside. He is young enough to be eligible for a 1 year entry level contract.

Adam Reideborn is another interesting candidate that I would look at to at least add depth and maybe challenge DeSmith or Jarry. I mentioned his name a week or so back. He is a little older than Demchenko, 27 years old, not quite as tall (6′-0″) but a little heavier (179lbs). He has been plying his trade for Djurgardens IF of the SHL. In the last 2 seasons he has posted Sv% of 0.938 in 2017-2018 and 0.929 in 2018-2019.

In the end I am comfortable with the Penguins’ top goaltending with Murray backed up by DeSmith and/or Jarry. However, I do think Jarry isn’t quite suited to the role of back-up and could be starter elsewhere. He could potentially get the Penguins future assets in a trade or at least help alleviate the salary Cap issues as a sweetener to take on another players salary.

However, I am more than concerned about the Penguins’ depth. Two years ago I thought our Penguins were set in Goal, but the Derick Brassard trade cost the team Filip Gustavsson and even if it didn’t Gustavsson struggled in his first year in North America (0.887 Sv% in 31 AHL games before being demoted to the ECHL where he had a 0.827 in 2 GP) Sv%. So, if it were me, I would go and try and sign both Reideborn and Demchenko to at least help out WBS. I really don’t want to count only on D’Orio and Muse.