The Penguins; “Harder to Play Against?”

“We want to be harder to play against!”

That is the current mantra being espoused by Mike Sullivan and Jim Rutherford.

“We want to be harder to play against!”

What does that mean? Another Penguins blog discussed the ambiguity of this statement very recently. Rather than exploring multiple meanings of that catch phrase, they focused on the operant definition generally assumed Sullivan and Rutherford mean when they say “Harder to play against”; grit, sand, often evidenced by hits or checks.

“We want to be harder to play against!”

Welcome to Orwellian double speak 101.

“We want to be harder to play against!”

What a nice little sound bite! What a great way to obfuscate the truth! What a fantastic smoke and mirrors veil to hide the truth, this team has gotten progressively weaker.

What is harder to play against than a team loaded with high end talent?

Nothing, I repeat nothing is harder to play against than a team loaded with high end talent!

Let’s forget about blown off-season decisions dating all the way back to the summer between the Back-to-Back Cups where no attempt was made to offer a contract extension Nick Bonino when there may have been a possibility to keep their best 3rd line center of the last 5 years. Let’s simply focus on the latest off-season gaffes.

However, before criticizing the worst moves of the last decade, I do want to acknowledge that there were a couple of moves that weren’t that bad.

Rutherford’s trade of Olli Määttä for Dominik Kahun should turn out to be a win for our Pittsburgh Penguins. Granted, the team would have been infinitely better off firing Sullivan than trading Määttä. However, flipping the embattled Defenseman for a young gun like Kahun did improve the team.

Also trading 3 really low round draft picks during the entry draft for the opportunity to pluck Nathan Legare should also turn out to be a good move, if Sullivan follows Dan Bylsma’s footsteps and gets replaced a year after getting a contract extension.

Why do I say the Legare pick should be a good pick if Sullivan is removed? Well, Sullivan has gone on record as saying he doesn’t have time to develop young players (when making excuses for the Daniel Sprong failure).

Now we are back to the failures, failures that could turn out catastrophic.

Table: Even Strength (EV) Statistics per 60 minutes
Note: These statistics are averaged over the last 3 seasons.

Name	Age	G/60	P/60	Hts/60	Blk/60	TGF/60	TGA/60	+/-
Galchenyuk, Alex	25	0.66	1.61	2.74	0.07	2.17	3.06	-0.89
Kessel, Phil	31	0.86	2.36	0.55	0.03	3.06	3.06	0.0
Tanev, Brandon	27	0.55	1.31	16.3	0.10	1.92	1.75	0.17
Rust, Bryan	27	0.90	2.00	6.86	0.07	3.00	2.67	0.34
Bjugstad, Nick	27	0.83	1.67	6.42	0.04	2.45	2.55	-0.09

 

The Phil Kessel for Alex Galchenyuk trade.

This debacle really started last off-season when Sullivan, again trying to deflect blame for the Penguins loss against the Washington Capitals by questioning Kessel in the media. This saga continued with Dupuis gate. Pascal Dupuis aired the dirty laundry of the great Sullivan – Kessel/Malkin feud. Sullivan and Rutherford denied the veracity of Dupuis’ report and hypocritically lambasted Dupuis for going to the media with the complaint just a handful of months after Sullivan took to the media to wage his campaign against Kessel.

The hole kept getting bigger when this past post-season, once again the comedy team of Sullivan and Rutherford whined that the whole team quit on the coach and cited Evgeni Malkin and Kessel as the worst offenders. What? Malkin and Kessel were two of the most productive players (relative term) on the team last playoffs.

Then Rutherford postured about trading Malkin who has a No Movement Clause (NMC); one of the most iron clad, player friendly contracts. Failing in that gambit the Penguins GM actively and openly shopped Kessel, putting himself completely at the mercy of the rest of the league. In the end all Rutherford could get for Kessel was Alex Galchenyuk because of his reckless media mongering.

Galchenyuk has provided 30% less offense in terms of Team Goals For per 60 minutes (TGF/60) at Even Strength (EV) and Points per 60 minutes (P/60) af EV than Kessel has over the last 3 years while his personal Goals per 60 minutes (G/60) EV was 25% less. And despite the team claiming to be unsatisfied with Kessel‘s defense, that traded for a player (Galchenyuk)  whose Team Goals Against per 60 minutes (TGA/60) EV was exactly the same, meaning the Penguins are now on the minus side of the +/- by 0.86 over 60 minutes. Furthermore, Galchenyuk brings many of the same distractions as Kessel and couldn’t get along all that well with Michel Therrien, a coach very similar to Sullivan in terms of demeanor.

The only statistics in which Galchenyuk beats Kessel is, A he is younger and B he averages more EV Hits per 60 minutes (Hts/60). Some people will argue that since Galchenyuk is only signed through the end of the season, and that Pierre-Olivier Joseph was the real centerpiece in this trade. The problems here are;

• Galchenyuk will more than likely be gone next season.
• Joseph is only a prospect, just like Derrick Pouliot was at one time and where is he?
• And Joseph is 6’-2” but only 163 lbs.
• If Joseph does make it to the NHL, it may not be for 3 to 4 years.

So in the end, Rutherford gives a top 6 forward away and gets zero or effectively zero (with respect to the Crosby-Malkin window of opportunity) in exchange.

The fallout from the second catastrophic error this off-season still hasn’t settled. Rutherford’s signing of “glue-guy” Brandon Tanev to a 6 year, 3.5 million dollar contract was only the tip of the iceberg. Not only did the bumbling GM sign a 4th line player to a 6 year contract, he gave that 4th liner $3.5 million. Did anyone ever tell Rutherford that the 4th line is supposed to be made up of Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) guys trying to make it into the NHL on about $700k contracts, so the team can afford legitimate top 6 forwards?

As bad as Tanev’s contract is, let’s look below the surface of this move. Let’s look at the ramifications of Rutherford putting the team up against the Cap again for a veteran to fill the role that should be reserved for a kid. To make room for Tanev and still afford a twelfth forward and maybe reserve forward or 2 the team will in all likelihood have to sacrifice either Bryan Rust or Nick Bjugstad, both of whom provide 50% and 25% or more TGF/60 and P/60 respectively. Tanev does have a better +/- at EV than Bjugstad, but Rust’s EV +/- is twice as good as Tanev’s. The only real benefit Tanev brings will be Hits, but it is highly improbable that Tanev’s hits and speed would be that more significant compared to what Anthony Angello and Adam Johnson would provide and those 2-WBS kids would combine for only about half the cost of Tanev nor would his production.

“We want to be harder to play against!”

Long before Orwell coined the phrase double speak, Shakespeare wrote, in the voice of Festus the clown in A Twelfth Night, “A sentence is but cheveril glove to a good wit; how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward” and “But indeed words are very rascals since bonds disgrace them.”

Too bad Sullivan wasn’t as quit witted in game adjustments and getting players on board with his schemes as he is with spewing catchphrases and platitudes. Too bad Rutherford isn’t as quick witted in his horse trading at least as good as he was when he traded for Kessel and Trevor Daley.

“We want to be harder to play against!”

Well, stop throwing away talent. Talent makes it harder to play against. I am pretty sure most teams love the fact that our Penguins have thrown away goals scoring for hits.