Can the Penguins Be Fixed?

A few days ago, long-time PenguinPoop contributor and commenter James Arthurs offered what I thought was the most astute analogy I’ve read concerning the present plight of our Penguins. Jim wrote:

The Penguins used to be like a brand new sports car. Top speed of 140 miles an hour and was fun to drive. Now 18 years and 200,000 miles later, the brakes are worn, the tires aren’t what they used to be, the engine leaks oil and the car can only go 130 miles an hour for brief periods. At top speed it isn’t so much fun to drive. It is not the car’s fault…age does this to all of us. Still a nice car but not what it once was. To add insult to injury the new cars today are better built and can go 150 miles an hour.

So what about that old car our friend Jim wrote so eloquently about.

Can it be fixed?

Before you can fix something, you first need to know what needs to be fixed. There’s no question the Pens need help on the third line, which hasn’t scored since the last ice age.

Goaltending looks a little threadbare, too, especially with Tristan Jarry a frequent visitor to the trainer’s table. We’re a strikingly different team with the two-time All-Star in net (16-5-5) than without him (8-11-4). Like Jesus before him, Tristan covers a lot of sins.

But I agree with my esteemed colleague, Other Rick. The area that concerns me the most is…

Defense

We’ve been playing watery team defense for a while now. Over our past six games, we yielded an average of nearly 38 shots on goal per game. That’s a ton of rubber for our goalies to stare down on a nightly basis.

Our woes reached their nadir in the humiliating loss to San Jose preceding the current break. Simply put, our team defense (or lack of) was atrocious. Whether it was the forwards not getting back to help the defense or our d-men being out of position or a combination of both, we handed the Sharks a ton of wide-open looks in front of Casey DeSmith.

On one of the rare occasions when we did get back to help? Rickard Rakell ran over DeSmith after Casey made a big save, leading to yet another virtually uncontested goal.

At various times I’ve likened our d-zone coverage to a fire drill gone amok, a Keystone Kops short or a pee-wee team. All aptly describe our chilling ineptitude.

You can’t play defense like that in the NHL and expect to compete for anything except perhaps the right to draft phenom Connor Bedard. (A subject for another time.)

The root cause of our defensive issues? I believe there’s a severe disconnect between the attacking style Mike Sullivan wants to play and the personnel he has on hand to execute it.

Sully wants his defensemen to push the attack and join the rush whenever practicable. Sound in theory and, hey, we won two Cups with that style. However, upon closer examination, we don’t really have the horses to play that way. Yes, Kris Letang is still a mobile marvel at age 35 and newcomer Jeff Petry, while not especially fast, is an accomplished puck mover.

As for the rest of the bunch?

Pierre-Olivier Joseph has good wheels and occasionally makes a nice pass or play, but he’s still evolving and his defensive work leaves something to be desired. Marcus Pettersson makes a nice pass, but his shot is weak, weak, weak. Brian Dumoulin and Jan Rutta are stay-at-home types not noted for their skating or offensive skills. Seventh defenseman Chad Ruhwedel is no ball of fire offensively, either.

You have to dip down to spares Mark Friedman and Ty Smith to find guys who possess the wheels and puck skills Sullivan craves. But he won’t play Friedman due to his edgy style and Smith is buried in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, a casualty of cap constraints.

To sum up, our defense isn’t especially fast and doesn’t move the puck all that well. Yet Sullivan wants them to join the rush and even drive the attack.

It’s an uneasy marriage. Has been from the start. Especially since GM Ron Hextall tried to add a physical element to our ‘d’ with the likes of Petry and Rutta, while sacrificing speed and mobility (John Marino and Mike Matheson).

We’re trying to serve two masters. At the present, neither is being served very well.

Which leads me to a second area of concern.

Coaching

I know it’s sacrilege in these parts to criticize Sullivan or even hint that we might need a coaching change. Heck, president of hockey operations Brian Burke said as much in a recent interview with Pittsburgh Hockey Now’s Dave Molinari. (I guess the Irish have to stick together.) An excellent read, by the way.

But, to my eye, Sullivan appears to be a bit of a one-trick pony. He still wants to employ the fast, forechecking style that won us two Cups. While his stick-to-it-ness is admirable, it’s also misguided. He simply doesn’t have the team he had six years ago, or even two years ago for that matter.

As Jim so aptly noted, we’re older and slower. We aren’t able to play Sully’s preferred style for more than an occasional burst or game here and there. When the inevitable lags or letdowns occur, it all comes crashing down. Goals against in the first and last minutes of periods. Breakdowns galore. Exactly what we’ve seen play out over and over (and over) again with metronomic frequency.

Sullivan needs to rein things in and play a more controlled style. Although it’s aging, we still have the upper-echelon talent to burn opponents when the opportunities present themselves. It worked like a charm during our 15-3-2 run in November and December. But we’ve gotten away from buttoned-down hockey in favor of our traditional run-and-gun approach, which ain’t gonna work.

Roster Construction

Last but certainly not least, our mix is both stale and benign. Although the return of feisty Josh Archibald should help spice things up, he only plays 10 minutes a game. And there’s only so much “dragging us into the fight” scrappy Jason Zucker can do.

Speaking of fights, it got me to thinking. When was the last time one of our guys actually won a tilt? Searching my memory banks, I had to go back to the 2017-18 season when Ryan Reaves and Jamie Oleksiak rode shotgun.

Does it matter?

In a recent interview, even Sullivan…no lover of tough guys…said his team needs to be more involved physically. Yet our coach appears to speak out of two sides of his mouth. During his tenure he’s consistently thwarted efforts to add a physical presence to our lineup. Reaves, Oleksiak and Erik Gudbranson have all come and gone in short order. Ian Cole, Brandon Tanev and Sam Lafferty as well.

Interesting that Lafferty, who Sullivan had no use for, has resurrected his career in an energy role with Chicago and is drawing serious interest from contending teams.

Back to our current roster. Players are what they are. They either have a physical bent or they don’t. With very few exceptions, lambs don’t morph into lions. You have to get guys that play that way. Sullivan works overtime to exclude them.

Back to my original question. Can the Pens be fixed?

Wow, that’s a toughie. We have so many needs, it’s going to be next to impossible for Hextall to address them all through trades.

Any improvement is likely going to have to come from a combination of good health, some hidden vigorish in the form of redemptive performances from underachieving incumbents, perhaps an adroit callup or two (Smith and Valtteri Puustinen?) and far greater attention to detail.

It’s also going to require Hextall, the coaching staff and the players themselves to have all the oars in the water and pulling in the same direction. No passengers allowed.

Based on what I’ve seen thus far?

A huge ask.