Penguins Playoff Preview

Here we are in another post-season, the Penguins’ 13th consecutive post-season appearance to be exact. So, what are our favorite flightless fowl’s prospects for a protracted play-off push?

If this were simply a question of “Do I think the team has the talent within the organization to make a little noise?” My answer would be an emphatic yes. I do think that there is enough talent to get the team to at least the Conference Finals. Any team that boasts Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Jake Guentzel, Kris Letang, and Matt Murray can never be counted out.

With Jim Rutherford swapping out of Derick Brassard and Riley Sheahan for Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann as well as picking up Erik Gudbranson for Tanner Pearson, Pittsburgh’s GM most assuredly improved the talent from which Coach Mike Sullivan has to pick his lineup from. At least compared to last season, Sullivan will have better options to choose from.

However, for me, the question becomes, “Will he (Sullivan) pick the right players to dress and will he deploy them in a manner that will set them up to succeed?”

I wish I were a homer. I wish I was part of the rose colored glasses set. I wish I could honestly say I think that Sullivan will make at least most of the right calls. Unfortunately, at the risk of being called a negative Nellie, I can’t. My gut tells me that the Penguins may not even get to the division finals.

In 2015-2016 there was an air of destiny about our sea-faring sphenisciform. From January of that year and on, the team got better and better each week. Opponents were finding it hard to get out of their defensive zone and into their offensive zone. Those Penguins’ attacked with a ferocious fore check. They disrupted breakout after breakout. Those of you gentle readers that date back to those heady days will remember that I went enigmatically silent in my replies (I wasn’t quite contributing articles yet), lest I jinx the black-and-gold. I was pretty darn sure that team would win the Cup!

By 2016-2017 the defense started to degrade and I went on record as saying that I wasn’t all that confident anymore. I wrote that although I thought the offense and Goaltending was still probably the class of the league, defensively they were suspect. I wrote that the team would have to win on the strength of their Goalies and they did. It took a combined effort from Marc-Andre Fleury and Murray to weather the storm of shots assaulting the Penguins net. When opposing forwards wore Fleury down, Murray stepped back in and slammed the door shut. Fleury posted 2 shut outs that year, Murray posted 3.

Defensively the team got even worse last year. Exacerbating the situation even more, the Penguins‘ lost Fleury to the expansion draft. They had no one to hold the fort when Murray struggled with personal issues and wore down from the Capitals’ barrage. I didn’t have a good feeling about that team to begin with, so when they traded Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves for Brassard I gave them little chance of winning.

I did think that they would beat the Capitals but bow out in the Conference Finals. Unfortunately, Letang helped ruin my prediction by single handed giving the series to Washington with guffaw after guffaw.

It is this track record of a 4 year decline that fills me with the ambivalence and now blackens my optimism, turning me into a crape hanger.

Murray and Letang have certainly looked better than last year. (Letang still scares me when he is on the ice, but I have to concede he is playing light years better than last year). Unfortunately the defense looks even worse than last year. As a team, they have held opponents to less than 30 shots on only a handful of occasions. Three of Murray’s 4 shut outs were 30+ save efforts and Casey DeSmith had to stop over 40 shots in 1 of his 3. I don’t necessarily blame any individual Defenseman but all the Defensemen, and even more so the coaches. This is a team failure and the coaches bare the brunt of this for not adjusting.

Furthermore, Sullivan still is getting out-coached night-in and night-out just like he was in the Capitals’ series last year. After 3 years of the same exact break outs, all the teams in the league had time to adjust and did so, sitting back and making October thru part of December a nightmare. It took Sullivan over 2 months to make adjustments.

Team spin-doctors like to call this stubbornness, patience. Maybe. When it took Sullivan those 2 months to adjust his breakouts and the team still made the playoffs, some people may even believe the media obfuscation. However, last year when Sullivan was out-coached by the very same coach that he faces in this first round, Barry Trotz, and Sullivan kept deploying Conor Sheary despite the Wingers considerable lack of contribution and Letang, despite over half of all goals scored against came on the then struggling Defenseman, including 3 of the 4 game winning goals, I doubt anyone but the most naive home towner would by that pabulum.

Perhaps if the team hadn’t limped into the playoffs going 1-1-1 over their last 3 games I would have some confidence. Perhaps had I not witnessed a team reversion to the beginning of the year conceding odd-man break after odd-man break, break-away after break-away in that span, particularly the last game, the game against the Rangers, with a chance at home-ice against the Islanders at stake I have a hard time believing Sullivan learned anything over the last 12 months and we Penguins’ fans will be subjected to the same early exit.

I do think it will be a crime of the Penguins lose this series, since on paper, the only area in which New York can match the Penguins is in Goal when it comes to on ice factors. Robin Lehner is one of only 2 goalies to post a better Save Percentage (Sv%) since December 1st with Thomas Griess only 3 points lower than Murray at 0.927.
In the end, goaltending is a push. Although I think Murray is the better of the 3 goalies, the Penguins give up enough shots to make this a draw.

Although I may take New York’s Ryan Pullock, Nick Leddy, or Adam Petech over Zach Trotman, Olli Maatta, or Markus Pettersson, I certainly wouldn’t take them over the Penguins top 3; Brian Dumoulin, Justin Schultz, or Letang. Nor would I trade out the Penguins bottom 3 defensemen for the Islanders bottom 3. I have to give the Penguins the win on this match up

At Right Wing (RW) I may not mind having Josh Bailey to insert on one of my top 2 lines, despite his warts, Kessel still is a more lethal scorer and Bryan Rust may be better utility man. Jordan Eberle certainly isn’t in the same class as Patric Hornqvist. So, again, Penguins win this match up.

At Left Wing (LW), Guentzel beats out Anders Lee and McCann beats Anthony Beauvillier. Unfortunately for the Penguins, Dominik Simon is a weak link so the Islanders start to creep back into contention here. The Penguins only edge this one out. If Sullivan wasn’t so stubborn but would have the guts to keep Adam Johnson in the line-up and with a return of Zach Aston-Reese, I would give the Penguins a significant win here.

At Center it is no contest. With Crosby and Malkin on the roster the Penguins win this matchup hands down. Matthew Brazal, Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas, and Valtteri Filppula are good centers, but none are in Malkin or Crosby’s class add Bjugstad and the way he is playing and it just widens the gap.

Where the Penguins can and may lose this series is with coaching. The Islanders‘ coaching beats the Penguins’ coaching and that can turn the tide for the bad guys.

Although, I say the Penguins win that match-up at Center who they deploy there can impact the series. With Lehner and Griess holding the fort the Penguins‘ advantage at Center may come to not due to Sullivan’s stubbornness and possibly fear of losing. Looking beyond the Penguins top 2 Centers; Matt Cullen only potted 7 goals in 71 games. His +/- was a respectable +6. However, Bjugstad potted 9 goals in 32 games in a Penguin uniform and Teddy Blueger deposited 6 in that back of the net in 23 games. Bjugstad’s +4 projects out to a +9 and Bleuger’s +7 in 23 games is already better than Cullen’s +6. In a series where scoring may come at a premium Cullen would be the logical odd man out.

Some may try to argue that Cullen’s experience is vital to winning the Cup and although in case of an emergency I would agree. However, if Crosby and Malkin after 3 Cups in 4 appearances can’t provide enough leadership, nothing Cullen can add will help anyway. Furthermore, the kids are also better defensively.

For the very same reason I state above – scoring, Simon has to be the odd man out at LW. Despite all the praise heaped upon him by the Simon fans, the young Penguin LW is not getting it done. I have made the analogy ad nauseum but the kid reminds me of the baseball player that all the scouts say has the sweetest swing but still manages to hit bat below the Mendoza line (hitting below 0.200).

It is true that during last year’s playoffs I was banging the Simon and Daniel Sprong drum. It is true that I wanted either of those players to replace Conor Sheary who was not getting it done. I believed and still believe that you don’t keep trying the same thing over and over again when it isn’t showing any success. However, last year, Simon was an unknown and worth a look. This year he got his look and it shows that he is a one trick pony (give-and-go) that other teams just sit back and wait on to exploit and go the other way. Now when someone argues with me that Simon is hardly a Sheary Redux, I don’t argue; Sheary could find the back of the net sometimes (just not in the playoffs). Simon only managed 8 goals all season (71 games), despite having several stints on Crosby’s line.

Some may argue that Simon is still young. To them I say, Daniel Sprong is younger and scored 14 goals in the 47 games he played out from under Sullivan but on a team that finished dead last in goal scoring (meaning he had very little help on his 14 goals while Simon had the benefit of skating with a player that generated 100 points). Yet he was run out of town on the rails rather than try and re-mediate any personality issues.

However, despite all of this, when Zach Aston-Reese comes back, Simon will still be taking up time and space on the Penguins’ LW and Cullen, although playing as hard as he could, will still be a lesser version of a center because of Sullivan’s stubbornness.

The only way I would consider playing Cullen is over Garrett Wilson, sliding Blueger to RW. Although, I wouldn’t do that in any Metro division match-up. The physical nature of the Islanders and the Capitals would make lean toward the grit of Wilson.

Another place I can see Sullivan losing the Islander series is on Defense. In his stubbornness I can see Sullivan sitting  Gudbranson when Dumoulin gets back and keeping Maatta in the lineup. I don’t Dislike Maatta but he is slow and not physical enough to handle Anders Lee. In fact, outside of Letang who isn’t all that big, no other Penguins Defenseman really ever seems to take bodies in front of Murray or DeSmith. Although Jack Johnson does have some good hits to his stats, he doesn’t really seem to handle too many players in front. Therefore, if Gudbranson doesn’t play, I could Lee having a field day and possibly even injuring Murray.

In the end, I have to agree with an assessment that I read elsewhere. That prediction was that our Penguins’ best chance to win the series will be to win it quickly in 5 games or less. If Crosby and crew get on the board early for a couple of quick goals in the first 2 or 3 games and get/keep the Islanders playing from behind, then the Penguins will probably regain some of their old swagger and roll. However, if the Penguins give up early goals in the first 2 or 3 games and have to try and fight their way back, they will start getting frustrated and players like Malkin, Simon, and Letang will make stupid drop passes trying to get cute when entering the attacking zone and New York will give Murray nightmares with break-away after break-away.

I can’t bring myself to predict anything but a Penguin win so I will not make any stronger prediction than above.

But I will say Go Pens.

Odds and Sods

Congratulations to Calen Addison who received a 3 year Entry Level Contract from the Penguins (to go into effect when he turns pro.

Addison and Jordy Bellerive played their first professional game in Wilkes Barre – Scranton. It was an inauspicious start for both players with the Baby Penguins losing, neither playing getting on the score sheet and only managing to reach the stat sheet with -1 s on their +/-.