During the 2014-15 season, the Penguins were riding high under rookie coach Mike Johnston. Following a 6-4 victory over Edmonton on March 12, they had a healthy record of 39-18-10, good for 88 points. The playoffs seemed a shoe-in.
But a spate of injuries to key personnel exposed depth issues and threatened to bring the team down. The Pens went on a four-game losing streak, scoring only two goals in the process…and never recovered. They went 4-9-2 over the last month, barely squeaking into the playoffs on the final day of the season and were quickly dispatched by the Rangers in the first round.
Sound eerily familiar?
It should. Just 10 short days ago our present Pens capped an incredible sustained run with a convincing 5-2 victory over Toronto to snag first place in the Metropolitan Division. Now we’re locked in the throes of a five-game losing skid, with no apparent end in sight.
Maybe we should’ve seen this coming. Like the ’14-15 squad, this one’s been decimated by injuries. It’s truly a wonder we’ve stayed hot for as long as we have. Still, I confess to being caught off-guard by the sudden and dramatic downturn.
Looking back, the signs were there, much like early symptoms of an illness that occur before you actually become sick. A rather dramatic drop in our puck-possession numbers, the increase in breakdowns and odd-man breaks against, the lack of speed through the neutral and attacking zones and the inability to generate shots and second-chance opportunities from the prime scoring areas, along with a unhealthy dose of East-west-itis.
All of the above have infected our game.
It appears that a lack of confidence has seeped in, too. Nobody seems to want to take the puck and just go. Our guys appear to be hanging back, as if anticipating some unfavorable turn of events. Well, if you linger too long on the train tracks, eventually a train comes.
I’ve observed on several occasions that the Pens appear to be a tired hockey team and I believe this to be true. They’ve been stretched so thin yet have battled so valiantly, the mental, emotional and physical wear and tear was bound to catch up to them sooner or later.
Perhaps too long in the fox hole.
Nor did it help that coach Mike Sullivan soured on his fourth line in the New Year, for all intents and purposes keeping it chained to the bench for the past two months. Which had the unfortunate effect of putting an extra load on guys who were already being taxed.
So how do the Pens snap out of this? With a KISS…as in keep it simple, stupid. We need to get back to the basics. We need to get back to north-south. Instead of trying to make pretty plays at the blue line, we need to dump the puck in and use our speed to pressure opposing defenses. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Perhaps no easy task for a tired team. But it’s what we need to do.
Help will eventually come in the form of defensemen Brian Dumoulin and John Marino. They should provide a welcome boost from the back-end and help spark the sagging transition game. But for now the guys need to pull together and find a way through this.
It’s not just on the players. Sullivan and his staff need to step up, too. In December, I opined that “Sully” should be a Jack Adams candidate, and rightfully so. But he’s fallen into some bad old habits.
Namely, playing favorites.
His handling (or mishandling) of Juuso Riikola is a prime example. With the defense already thinned due to injuries, Sullivan’s stubbornly insisted on playing right-handed shots Chad Ruhwedel and more recently Zach Trotman ahead of the young Finn, even though Juuso’s game passes the eye test and his metrics are solid.
Last night it came back to bite us. Struggling to man the off-side, Trotman had a significant hand in two of the three goals against during a disheartening 3-2 loss to lowly Anaheim. Not to pick on Zach…he’s being put in a position to fail…but he’s a minus-3 in his past two games.
We’ve seen this type of behavior from Sullivan before. He ran Ian Cole, a gritty defensive pillar on the back-to-back Cup winners, out of town because of a personal bias. It could be argued our defense hasn’t been the same since. FYI…Cole’s a plus-26 for Colorado this season.
Do what’s best for the team, Sully. Not your ego.
I’ll finish with another trip to the WABAC machine. Around the New Year holiday in 2012, a very good Penguins team suddenly lost six games in a row, scoring only six goals in the process.
Everyone was shocked, especially since Evgeni Malkin was in the midst of an MVP-season and James Neal was headed toward 40 goals.
After much wailing, hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth, the Pens pulled out of the slump in a glorious way, winning eight games in a row.
Maybe it’s a bit much to hope for this team to respond in the same dramatic fashion. But perhaps our guys can get a start tonight in San Jose.
Puckpourri
Jason Zucker scored both black-and-gold goals last night. He now has five goals in nine games since his arrival, including a pair of two-goal games.
Justin Schultz assisted on Zucker’s first goal, snapping a 21-game pointless skein. Former Duck Marcus Pettersson collected two assists against his old team. Jared McCann picked up an assist as well.
Matt Murray allowed three goals on 21 shots.
Hi Rick!
It’s been a while since I’ve left a comment here.
As I write these lines, the Pens bite the dust again. A 5-0 loss against San Jose! They looked really bad out there! This west coast trip has cost precious points and needless to say that it is going to be tough to clinch a playoff berth in the Metro division! The Kings, the Ducks and the Sharks are not going to make the playoffs! This is why this losing streak is so hard to swallow.
Comments about the latest trades:
– Zucker is not doing bad. Seems confortable with Sid but he is a wee bit out of sync at times but I’m confident he’ll get back on track.
– Marleau is not doing too bad either. He is still a smooth skater. Does not waste energy because he is well positioned on the ice. I would like to see him with Sid. I’m sure he can complement Sid well.
– Why on earth GMJR traded Kahun for Sheary and Rodrigues??? This is a WTF trade!!! After a slow start, Kahun steadily improved his game. He was a good fit. I’m really not impressed with this trade. Sheary has lost his edge. He is constantly knocked down, losing his one-on-one battles along the boards. Right now, he is not a significant asset. As for Rodrigues, I don’t know much about him but he is a 4th liner with limited skills. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up in the AHL.
I think these trades have altered the team’s chemistry a wee bit. But the team is not playing well. Even Malkin and Crosby haven’t played good hockey lately. The Pens have been dealing with injuries for quite a while. They held the fort but the wear and tear slowly starts to take its toll.
Next game against Ottawa. Hope the Pens can get their act together and break this losing streak.
Hello Jorenz,
So good to hear from you. I think you summed things up very nicely and I agree with pretty much everything you say.
I’m with you on the Kahun trade. I said it when the deal was first made and I’ll say it again….I have absolutely no idea what Rutherford was thinking. Up till that trade he’d done such a good job over the past year or so. But this one’s heavy in the loss column.
There were rumblings that a lot of people in the organization really like Sheary and were eager to get him back. I wonder if that includes Crosby. Too, I wonder if they thought Sheary would do a better job with Sid than Dominik Simon.
I don’t know. But to my eye it’s a terrible trade.
Regarding the present state of the team…Dear Lord…where to even begin? There are myriad issues. And four of these six losses have come against non-playoff teams. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a team go south so quickly and abruptly.
Other than perhaps a team meeting that includes Sullivan and Rutherford, where everyone gets a chance to air their thoughts and make suggestions, I can’t think of anything else to do. Other than rushing Dumoulin and Marino back as fast as they can.
I hate to say it, but this could go on for a while …
Rick
Three games do not make a season, but as you say Rick, losing to non playoff teams is as bad as it gets. So far, the early returns say JR pulled a severe clunker of a trade, far worse that the Brassard trade; at least in the Brassard trade, not only to some people in the organization think Brassard was a good player, there were other people around the league that thought so too.
Sheary?
A 4th liner on a team that was at the time 24th in the league to play first line on a team that was 4th in the league at the time; do the math, it was as stupid as stupid can get.
Sheary no goals yet, skating with Crosby against non-playoff teams in 3 games.
Kahun, 1 G and 1 A in 2 games against playoff teams.
Barring more injuries, particularly to our newcomers, where the Kids from WBS can come back up and show these “NHLers” from Buffalo how to win hockey games our Pens may just get swept again in the first round – assuming that they even get it. At this point, I don’t dismiss, completely, an epic collapse.
(Further random ranting preempted for possible full blown rant later)
Hey Coach,I agree..
There are a lot of good teams in the East and making one of the 2 Wild Card spots is far from certain .Boston 94 points, Tampa 87 points, Washington 84 points, Phili 81 points,Pens 80 points, NYI 78 points,Toronto 78 points, Columbus 76 points ,Carolina 75 points.9 teams and 8 spots. Anything can happen Coach.
I think it is safe to say that several good teams below the Pens made significant moves at trade deadline. We can not assume that this push to the end of the season will be easy for us.
I just got off the phone with one of my Canadian hockey buddies and he agreed the Pens needed those 6 points badly that they gave up out west.In the last week of the season we will look back at this past week and wonder what happened.
NYI,Toronto,and especially Carolina will not go easy. If Phili is finally peaking at the right time and can continue winning this will be a dog fight to the very end.
If we can make the playoffs we will draw Boston or Tampa.
Not good for us.
Cheers
Hi TOR!
I can’t wait to read your full blown rant! It’s been a while since you’ve posted something. It is time to let the steam out TOR! :o)
Rick
I conveyed this to Phil on one of your other post – I don’t really see an issue
with our transition game to me its more about converting on the abundance
of scoring opportunities missed. Missing open nets, mis-handling of passes
that would of led to scoring chances and passing when they need to put the
puck on net.
Watching Simon bobble pass after pass and knowing we traded Kahun instead
is a tough one to swallow. Everyone raves about his possession numbers but
what good are they if you never finish a play. We could also place Sheary
in that mold – can’t take a pass cleanly to save his life and spends half his minutes
face down on the ice. JEEEEZZEEE – WT? – Tough to watch.
It’s time to move Marleau up to Crosby’s wing.
Rick
I conveyed this to Phil on one of your other post – I don’t really see an issue
with our transition game to me its more about converting on the abundance
of scoring opportunities missed. Missing open nets, mis-handling of passes
that would of led to scoring chances and passing when they need to put the
puck on net.
Watching Simon bobble pass after pass and knowing we traded Kahun instead
is a tough one to swallow. Everyone raves about his possession numbers but
what good are they if you never finish a play. We could also place Sheary
in that mold – can’t take a pass cleanly to save his life and spends half his minutes
face down on the ice. JEEEEZZEEE – WT? – Tough to watch.
It’s time to move Marleau on the wing with Crosby and put Sheary on the 3rd
or 4th line.
This is the problem with having to many Simon and Sheary type guys when they
dont cut it on your 1st and 2nd lines. There not the type of players you want on
your 3rd and 4th lines – definitely not on your 4th line.
Pen’s will bounce back strong tonight in San Jose.
Rick,
Great insights. I think you are right on the Kiss-er. Ha!
I agree on Rikkola being put in a difficult place as well. Their whole game looks tired.
I’ve seen teams where they aren’t having fun anymore and the product looks tired as well…I think Washington Caps are struggling with that this year too.
Some players carry disproportionate loads on teams and often that load is hugely under recognized. I was in Detroit in the final year of Nikos Lindstrom’s career and he was not quite playing up to his prior All Star years . A substantial number of fans wanted him gone. When he retired the whole team went from legitimate contenders to “we’re just happy to make the play-offs”. The truth was Lindstrom at 80% was still better than most other defensemen in hockey and certainly the best defensemen on Detroit. He was the backbone that supported the team.
I suspect Marino is a bigger influence than people acknowledge as his exit closely correlates with the apparent collapse of this team as well. Maybe ditto on the Zach Aston Reese’s injury to the Tanev-Blueger-ZAR line. Whats your thoughts on that?
Sidney should be fresh given all the time on IR, as should Schultz , Dumo and Marino after a spell off due to injuries.
This is the time where we need to get these guys back and the team leaders need to strap the teams on their back and will the team to a win or two to get their mojo back.
Hey PensFanBoy17,
Very astute observation concerning Marino. For the record, we’re 4-5-1 without him.
This kid played a remarkably solid all-around game for a rookie (or anyone else for that matter). He was really good at taking away time and space and moving the puck quickly to our forwards. Which actually may be the true root cause of our recent woes, i.e.; we’re not getting the puck quickly enough to our forwards, which is preventing them from generating any speed and flow through the neutral and attacking zone, which prevents them from dumping the puck in because the opposing defense is already set. Which leads to difficulty gaining entry, which fuels the opposition’s transition game when we should be possessing the puck…
It’s like a vicious, negative chain reaction, where we’re always a step behind instead of a step ahead.
I’m sure Aston-Reese’s loss has hurt, too. That line was really good at applying pressure and keeping foes hemmed in.
Nor has l’affaire Riikola helped. Instead of playing the kid (who to my eye does a decent job of moving the puck) Sullivan thrusts right-handed shots out there, which only compounds our transition issues. It’s like having an injured foot and deciding to shoot yourself in the other one, too.
It makes no sense at all. Grrrrrrr …
Rick
PS–Lidstrom was incredible. Can’t imagine Detroit fans booing him.
Rick
I would definitely play Riikola over Trotman but if you looked at the
turnover ratio on Riikola if doesn’t help him with the Coaching staff.
But again for the sake of repeating myself the Pen’s are getting tons
of chances to score – In LA they spent the entire game in the Kings
end of the ice but only scored once. Not to dispute you but I respectfully
disagree that their struggles are related to the transition game.
I know people like to relate their struggles to something or someone but
the reality of it is they were due to hit a rough patch. It just so happened
it was immediately following the trade deadline which complicates matters.
Go Pen’s
Hey Mike,
As always, your comments are most appreciated and respected. And you never have to worry about apologizing for disagreeing with my (or anyone else’s) thoughts or opinions. I always welcome your insights.
Whatever is causing the Pens’ issues, a little urgency in getting the puck to the prime scoring areas would really help. It seems like everything’s coming from the perimeter right now. We’re just not going to score from there.
Wish we could make a bold move and bench Simon (minus-9 and sinking fast) in favor of Lafferty, but you know that’s not going to happen.
Hope you’re right about us breaking out tonight. GO PENS!
Rick
PS–I agree 100 percent about Kahun. I’m still scratching my head over that one…and will be for a while.
This is pure conjecture on my part and not very p.c., but I wonder if they soured on him because it took him so long to return from injuries.
Again…pure conjecture. I guess I’m still struggling to figure out what they didn’t like about the kid. I thought they’d struck gold with him.
Hey PensFanBoy17 and Rick,
I have been a Marino fan for some time and have already gone on record for suggesting he is the teams MVP this year.
As for ZAR, I hear what you are saying PFB17 and agree to some extent. Unlike in the case of Marino, where there is no one in the organization that could have filled that role, nor would the team have been able to trade for a comparable player to him at the deadline, I believe there are several players within the org that could fill that role, if Sully would take off his blinders. ZAR isn’t an irreplaceable star, he is a lunch pail guy.
There was something special on this team for a long stretch; that certain specialty that comes when a group of people walk through fire together. This team had a swagger and pride in their sweater. That is gone now. Rather than summon players from within, the team looked elsewhere and gathered players from sub 0.500 teams to help them through.
If the team was picking up a top 6 forward or a top 3 D man from a sub 0.500 team that could make sense, one of those players could upgrade a 3rd line. However, a 4th liner whose avg TOI was low enough to be below 20th on that teams roster is only fit to be on the farms for a team fighting for the Presidents trophy – as we were at the trade deadline.
The team that has been losing now to bottom feeders on the West Coast looks like the team that got swept by the Islanders.
Rick,
I was honestly down on ZAR early in the season. He is one of our better forecheckers (historically) but wasn’t playing well. I wondered if he was injured because he wasn’t checking.
That changed and when he got onto the Tanev-Blueger line he seemed to blossom and his forechecking came back and very impactful in generating turnovers / chaos.
I agree that he can be viewed as a bottom six lunch pail guy….but sometimes guys play harder and better with certain teammates . Watching them, they were very unselfish in their play and I think they fed off that.
That line was the emotional center of the team and pushed the top six and brought attention and respect to the bottom six.
I even think Sidney Crosbey felt a bit uncomfortable and pushed when he came back because they were winning without him. He’s clearly the best player on the team and even he felt the magic you describe of people playing for each other and I’m guessing he didn’t want to mess that up .
Changing subject for a second (My ADD is kicking in). I’m not convinced that the PP approach of blocking shots is worth it, based on injuries incurred and even inadvertent screens created for the goalie. Its one thing if its the cup finals, but it never made sense to me that we’d put our key players in harms way by using them as a shield. Malkin took out two players in back to back games (I think it was the Lightning) from slap shots on power plays.
Also as a juvenile aside, my son goes to Michigan Tech and when the other team doesn’t score on the powerplay , the crowd chants….”You suck on the PP”. Glad to see that the whole politically correct thing isn’t everywhere.
Hey PensFanBoy17,
As a former goalie, I find intensive shot blocking counter-productive;
First, it is hard to be sure that every blocked shot was ticked for the net, so there is no doubt that some injuries occur for no reason at all.
Second, a lot of blocked shots would have been very easy saves (I’d like to say most, but that would be anecdotal), and the goalie has the most protection.
Third, often block attempts turn into deflections that beat their own goalie.
Fourth, as you already noted, players way to often screen their own goalie trying to help.
Skaters would serve the team defense better by;
Pressure the player with the puck before the he considers shooting.
Take an angle that doesn’t block the Goalies view when possible and try and deck the shooter as he shoots (intimidate the shooter a little – if a shooter ends up on his wallet, he may rush his next shots). There will be timing involved, so as not to draw an interference.
Not simply trying to take sticks away from opposing players around the net, but putting body on body.
And of course, I do agree with Sully’s idea of well oiled breakouts, unfortunately ours isn’t. Right now players are sitting back waiting for passes to come to them and not going to the puck to help prevent interception. The team is way, way to passive and watching the game rather than playing. They should be charged admissions rather than getting paid.
Hey Rick,
Excellent piece!!!!
Some of it sounds as if I had written it, “Do what’s best for the team, Sully. Not your ego.”
Are you coming around to my thinking?
The 1st losses on the slump were not embarrassing, but losing to back-to-back games against teams below 0.500 doesn’t bode well at all.
Maybe Marleau is regretting getting traded here.