This is a great time of year for hockey fans. If your team was the one team that just won Lord Stanley’s Cup you are out reveling in your team’s victory. If your team was one of the 30 other also rans, there is optimism that with the right off-season moves your team can now position itself for that Cup win; talks and rumors abound.
Unfortunately, next July, once again, only one team and their fans will be celebrating. The rest will once again be spinning their wheels in vain anticipation.
Luck can sometimes factor into a team’s improvement, but a team can make its own luck by taking a cold, hard, critical look at itself, divorcing itself of ego and preconceived notions. The best and first place to start is to ask where did the team fail? And that is what has me worried. With all the chatter and rumors, one could easily think no one was paying close attention. Granted, under Ron Hextall, there is little substantive items popping up, mainly talking heads trying to sell advertising space, but everything so far points to writers and possibly even Hextall grasping at low hanging fruit, rather than an objective analysis of the team’s 3rd consecutive 1st round exit.
Look at all the names being tossed around as trade targets; first it was Zack Kassian, later The Hockey Writers suggested Matthew Tkachuk, more recently after Bill Guerin’s Minnesota Wild buyouts, Zach Parise. Even our own Rick Buker wrote about the idea of trying to get Ryan Reaves back. Now, I just read a quick headline suggesting that our Pittsburgh Penguins have serious interest in Zach Hyman.
What do all these players have in common?
No, not all of them are named Zach or a variation there of.
They are all forwards.
Stop it already!!! Our Favorite Flightless Fowl where not dumped out of the playoffs because they did not have the fire power to establish a lead! They had leads in both Game 5 and Game 6 for goodness sake, but they could not defend those leads.
If you want and can find a way to get Hyman, Tkachuk, Parise, and or for that matter, Connor McDavid, Leon Drasaitl, Auston Matthews, and Nikita Kucherov, in the words of Rocky Balboa “Go for it!” but first go out and fix the teams defense. A team can score all the Goals (G) it wants, and it won’t matter if the other team scores more.
The bottom line to the Black and Gold’s early tee-times centered on 3 defensive gaffes. Kris Letang pinching with a 1 G lead in game 5, leaving a forward, Jake Guentzel to play defense. In Double Overtime (2 OT) of the same game, Cody Ceci pinching all the way down to the goal leaving a hobbled left-handed Evgeni Malkin to cover his right point. And then Letang, again, this time with the lead in game 6, gambling and trying to keep the play alive and pinching down the wall, leaving the Captain Sidney Crosby to try and race back and cover for the ersatz defenseman.
The New York Islanders did not overwhelm our Boys of Winter with offense. When Hextall went out and stole Jeff Carter from the Los Angeles Kings, the center depth arguably put our hometown heroes in the top 5 in the league in forward depth. No to the contrary, the Islanders beat our Penguins by being far more disciplined defensively.
I do not care if you want to blame Letang and Ceci or if you want to blame their Coaches, Mike Sullivan and Todd Reirden. I will listen to your arguments. In fact, I will help you argue either point. However, Hextall start here fixing the defense.
And no Mike, while I agree that forwards do need to take their own portion of responsibility in team defense, inherent to the term defenseman is defense first. Neither Letang nor Ceci had any business jumping up on those plays and losing that series for the team. If the team was losing and the defense jumped up then I would agree with you, the forwards needed to support their defensemen. But that was not the case here.
Defensemen
As far as the team’s defensive players are concerned, for all I care, dump them all and start from scratch.
Marcus Pettersson is way overpaid for what he has brought for the last 2 seasons. He was given his raise far too early in his career.
Cody Ceci was adequate that is all. You do not re-sign him for much more than what he was already getting.
Mike Matheson played better than I anticipated but Ceci played better and far cheaper. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that Ceci was the key to Matheson’s success, so if Ceci goes, Matheson could follow Pettersson and John Marino in having a decent 1st season in the black-and-gold, exciting the fans only to disappoint them the following season. Honestly, I would trade away all other options to make Matheson the most likely pick of the Seattle Kraken.
John Marino, like Pettersson was given a large, unearned raise after nothing more than 1-promising season only to fall short of fulfilling expectations the next season. However, in Marino’s case, although I wouldn’t be upset over a trade that cleared his $4+ million from the books, I would rather keep him and see what this season brings. Marino may have been a victim poor coaching. I am not sorry. You don’t ask your youngest defenseman to play his off-side, nor do you try and pair him with a partner that is an extreme defensive liability and then turn around and blame the kid you set up for failure.
Brian Dumoulin is the best defenseman on the roster, but let’s face it, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. He really has little to no competition.
Kris Letang is still a good offensive player but has little defensive acumen. Outside of offensive upside, the only other positive about Letang is that he is finally at the end of his contract and if sentimentality prevails and he stays it probably will be for a price more in line with his inability to defend.
Pierre-Olivier Joseph has shown some skills. Unfortunately, he is extremely light for his size and his skill set is a cookie-cutter skill set to every other defenseman on the team. If he is used as a sweetener in a deal for a more important prize, then so be it.
Coaching
However, if you want to argue that it wasn’t the players as much as the coaching, I am right there with you. Fact, Sidney Crosby ended the season 129th among forwards and 58th among centers with 200 or more 5-on-5 minutes played, in Points/60 minutes. Fifty-eighth among centers puts him down almost into 3rd line territory. How can this be? Did he lose that much of his skill?
Obviously no! The Captain must have had a hard time scoring when he was always trying to cover up for wandering defensemen.
The problem is systemic. Sullivan and Reirden are trying to drive the offense through the defense. They must think they have the 1992 – 93 Washington Capitals’ defense. That defense had 3 players score more than 20 Gs, Kevin Hatcher (35), Al Iafrate (25), and Sylvain Cote (21) and had 4 players with more than 40 points, Hatcher (79), Iafrate (66), Cote (50), and Calle Johansson (45).
The biggest 2 problems here is; A. that team didn’t win the Cup and lost to the Islanders in the 1st round as well, and; B. the only defenseman on the Penguins’ roster that could be put in the same breath as Hatcher, Iafrate, Cote, and Johansson, is Letang. End of story.
Seriously Sullivan and Reirden, do you really want Pettersson carrying the puck, not Crosby?
If you really want to emulate that Capitals team that didn’t get any farther than 1st round, then dump Matheson, Dumoulin, Ceci, Pettersson, and Marino and go out and get Cale Makar, Tyson Barrie, Jack Carlson, Adam Fox, and Jeff Petry to join Letang, or start coaching the team you do have and not the team you wish you had.
Now, Mr. Hextall, you can go out and get Hyman or any other forward you want.
Hey Other Rick,
Great stuff, and for the most part I agree with you. Before the Islanders series began, I wrote that our defense was susceptible to a heavy forecheck, and darned if that wasn’t pretty much our undoing (along with shaky goaltending). And if it didn’t cost us against the Islanders, it surely would’ve against the Bruins had we survived the first round.
Of course, defense is a team game, and the forwards don’t get off scot free, either. Neither does coach Mike Sullivan’s preferred style, which tends to leave us vulnerable to counterstrikes, especially in the postseason.
Still, both the Dumoulin-Letang (combined minus-3) and Matheson-Ceci (minus-5) pairings, so good during the regular season, were exposed against the Isles. The Pettersson-Marino pairing didn’t shine, either (minus-2).
I really don’t have anything against these guys individually. But as a group, it’s a different story. All we need do is scan the rosters of Tampa Bay, Montreal and the Islanders to see how defensive corps should be structured. Generally pairing a banger or at the very least an all-arounder with a puck mover on each tandem.
The Pens’ d is tailored to meet Mike Sullivan’s speed-first specifications, with an emphasis on spending as little time in our own end as possible. And I get it…you want to move the puck out and up to the forwards quickly. No sense in loitering in your end. But at some point in time, particularly during the postseason, you’re going to have to stand and defend. And you’re going to need guys who can play that way.
To that end, we wouldn’t have won the Cup in ’17 without Ian Cole and Ron Hainsey.
It’s interesting to note that for the second time in three postseasons, the Penguins actually led the playoffs in Corsi for…and won a grand total of two out of 10 games in the process. The Lightning’s Corsi? A rather pedestrian 48.41. Just below fellow Cup finalist Montreal and a few notches above the Islanders at 44.26.
The postseason pendulum has definitely swung away from teams like the Pens that play a puck-possession game to ones that favor a more grinding, all-around game. You need defensemen who can play that style. Someone to do a little policing would help, too.
Unfortunately, we have no one in the organization who plays that type of game. So we’ll need to bring them in from the outside via free agency or trade. I definitely wouldn’t mind swapping out Pettersson for a more physical type. And if Ceci (who I like) doesn’t re-sign, I’d try to replace him with a heavier guy as well.
Anyway, my two cents…
Rick
Hey Rick,
Thanks,
As I hinted at above, even when loaded to the gills with not only elite offensive defensemen and/or puck moving defensemen, but defense driving offense defense strategy teams do not go the distance. Even Sullivan didn’t win either of his Cups with a Defense built like his current team. As you noted in 17 he had Cole and Hainsey and back in 16 he had Cole and Lovejoy.
Although it may not sound like it, but like you, I am not down on all of the Penguins defensemen but as you say, the sum of their parts IS greater than the whole. If the team wants to get out of the first round next season, they need to swap out at least 2 of the aforementioned D-men and then rethink their strategies.
I am not emotionally tied to any of them. I couldn’t careless who goes, as long as someone goes. Letang and Dumoulin are not likely going anywhere, so that leaves Matheson, Pettersson, Ceci and Marino. My choices would be parting ways with Matheson and Pettersson. I don’t see either producing equal to their cost.
If JR had been listening to me all these years, as you and I have discussed verbally, the Pens Left side of Defense would have been Dumoulin, Pedan, Oleksiak, and Hague these last several seasons. Unfortunately, that ship sailed a long time ago.
Looking at the UFAs at the moment, I would first look at Oleksiak (fat chance until Sullivan’s gone – but I would promise him that Sully was on a short, short leash to try and get him back), Ryan Suter, and Mike Reilly. On the right side, I wouldn’t be upset to see Ceci back if Matheson and Pettersson are gone, but I would also consider Bogosian.
Oh and for the record, even though I haven’t finished connecting the dots, if JR had been listening to me, the Right side of the Defense would have been Schultz, Marino, Kaski, and Ceci.
Hopefully someday I could go back and revisit my series looking at the season between 2017 and now and how the roster would have looked each season, based on what I had wrote those seasons.
I guess it is either too late or soon to be too late for trades to prevent the loss of a good player for nothing.
I dont know if your serious or not but I do agree with you on Petterson’s and Marino’s contracts.
Hey Cal,
Pettersson’s and Marino’s contracts are both horrible, and so is Matheson’s.
Am I serious? About the team needing to fix its Defense more than its Forwards? Yes, I am very serious. I would love to see the team’s Forwards get more grit and go to the dirty areas more, but the more pressing need on this team is its defense. As I wrote, they had the lead in both Games 5 and 6 and couldn’t hold it. In both games the leads were lost by wandering Defensemen with forwards having to try and cover for defensive lapses.
It may be a bitter pill for fans to swallow, but outside of Letang, there is no Defenseman who will strike fear in any opponents hearts with their offensive skill; not even Matheson. For all of his Sound and Fury, Matheson’s numbers were pretty pedestrian and lower than Ceci’s.