Our Pittsburgh Penguins are now at the end of their first quarter, so it is time to offer up my grades for players and coaching staff.
Forwards and Defensemen
Since this is only a quarter point and there isn’t a whole lot of time for me to look in too much detail, I am limiting my grading schemes. As anyone who has read anything I have written when it comes to grading, I strive to be as objective as possible. For the Forwards and defenseman, I chose to look at their Primary Points (Pnts’) per 60 minutes 5-on-5, where Pnts’ is defined as the sum of their Goals (G) and their Primary Assists (A’), the Team Goals For (TGF) per 60 minutes 5-on-5 for which they were in the ice, and the Team Goals Against (TGA) per 60 minutes 5-on-5 for which they were on the ice.
I limited my grading to those players who played a minimum of the league average of ice time (TOI) – 1 Standard Deviation from the mean. For Forwards the cut off was 103 minutes, for Defensemen the lower limit of TOI was 109.
Then I treated those data as if they were a test score, I divided the individual stat by the average stat, multiplied it by 75% (letter grade C) and recorded the grades (converted to letter grades). I averaged the 3 categories (tests) to come up with the overall grade.
Any players that didn’t make the lower limit of TOI are considered Incomplete (Inc)
Without any further ado and with no personal bias (as you will see, some players I try to defend have gotten less than stellar grades while some players I have complained about have gotten pretty good grades),
| Forwards | Po | Pnts’ | TGF | TGA | OA |
| Sidney Crosby | C | A+ | A+ | D | B+ |
| Radim Zohorna | LW | A+ | C+ | A+ | B+ |
| Jake Guentzel | LW | A+ | A+ | F+ | B |
| Bryan Rust | RW | A+ | A+ | F+ | B |
| Reilly Smith | RW | A+ | C- | B | B |
| Evgeni Malkin | C | A+ | D | C+ | B- |
| Lars Eller | C | C- | D+ | A+ | C+ |
| Drew O’Connor | LW | F | D | A+ | C- |
| Matt Nieto | LW | F+ | C | A+ | C- |
| Noel Acciari | C | F | D | A+ | C- |
| Rickard Rakell | RW | F | C+ | B- | C- |
| Jeff Carter | C | F | F | A+ | D+ |
| Player | Po | I Off | T Off | T Def | OA |
| Erik Karlsson | D | A+ | A+ | B | A- |
| Kris Letang | D | A+ | A+ | C+ | A- |
| Marcus Pettersson | D | C- | A+ | B | B |
| Ryan Graves | D | D+ | C+ | A+ | B- |
| Ryan Shea | D | F | F+ | A+ | D+ |
| Chad Ruhwedel | D | F | F | D+ | F+ |
Goalies
I treated the Goalies in similar fashion using their 5-on-5 Save Percentage (Sv%) and their Points Percentage (Pnts%) which was defined by the number of team Pnts (tPnts) they contributed to the team divided against the total possible tPnts, as the 2 tests to be averaged. To get their grades, just like the Forwards and Defensemen, I Divided the Goalies individual score by the league average and multiplied it by 75%, again just as if the stat was a test. (191 minutes TOI was the lower limit for the Goalies)
| Goalies | Sv% | Pnts% | OA |
| Alex Nedeljkovic | C+ | D+ | C- |
| Tristan Jarry | C | D | D+ |
Coaching
There is a basic truism that anyone who has ever really been given responsibility to a group of people and truly grew as a leader has or will learn and that is the person in charge of process is accountable for outcome. To that end, the coaching staff IS the group responsible for outcome, and since the Head Coach is in charge of the entire Coaching staff, Mike Sullivan is responsible for outcome.
Outcome, for a hockey team is their tPnts. Since every team is at a different point in terms of Games Played GP, we have to look at tPnts%. Since Hockey games are potentially worth 3 Pnts with Over Time Losses (OTL), the average is not 0.500 but varies on the number of OTLs; at this point of the seasons 0.549 is the average. Setting this as the 75% or C gives our Penguins Coach, whose team is currently sitting at 0.500 numeric grade of 68.3% or a D+
Conclusion
These grades are not all that good, are they? Well let’s face it, the team is currently not in the playoff picture and was not on Thanksgiving Day.
The importance of my statement about the team not being in playoff position is that 76.2% of the teams in playoff position on Thanksgiving Day make the playoffs, leaving our Penguins fighting for 24.8% of the 16 playoff slots, or 4 slots. At the best, our favorite flightless fowl are a bubble team fighting for a playoff berth, they don’t deserve a whole lot of good grades.
Hey Other Rick.
Great job and of course very interesting (just call me Arte Johnson … 🙂
I haven’t given much thought to grades, but at first glance I pretty much agree with you. Subjectively, of course, I’d give Sid an A…he’s been that good…and Rust an A-.
Defensively, again by the eye test, I’d probably rate Graves a little lower and Shea and Ruhwedel a bit higher.
Where I totally disagree? Our goalies. Just no way they grade out as poorly as you show. Out of 76 goalies ranked on NHL.com, Nedeljkovic is 2nd in save percentage (.937) and 8th in goals against average (2.24). Jarry is 16th in save percentage (.918) and 15th in goals against average (2.44).
Nedeljkovic has a .750 quality starts percentage; Jarry .600. In goals saved above average, Jarry 6.4, Ned 4.9. For reference, the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin in 4.3, Ilya Sorokin of the Isles is 7.0. The Bruins’ Linus Ullmark, 5.2. Antti Raanta in Carolina is -9.9.
In my book, Ned’s earned an A or at worst A-, Jarry a B+.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Thanks, and I love the laugh in reference.
As for Sid, he has been phenomenal offensively but he has been on the ice for an 3.05 TGA per 60 minutes 5-on-5, so he is not playing all that well defensively. His line is scoring Goals in droves, but they are also giving up Goals in droves. He has been high risk higher reward.
Same thing with Rust, his TGA is 3.28. The top line is scoring Goals, but giving up Goals as well. Come playoff time these defensive lapses could be really exploited.
I do have to disagree with you though about our Goalies. If they were doing their job, then the team would have far more wins than they do. They have been the weakest link on the team – mainly Jarry. As I noted, I based my grades by comparing the Goalies 5-on-5 Sv% against the mean of the league and assigning that as a C – 75% and reporting the corresponding grade. It is not my fault that Jarry’s and Nedeljkovic’s Sv% are not that much higher than the league average.
Furthermore, the bottom line to all hockey is winning and neither Jarry and Nedeljkovic have been very good when the game is on the line, with Jarry far worse. Our Penguins are not winning games. No matter how much we like this Goalie or that, or are over awed by a miraculous save made necessary by that Goalie being way out of position, Jarry is not winning games, more importantly he has actually been responsible for loses with his passive sitting back on the goal line rather than challenging shooters, poor angle coverage, inability to control rebounds, and his reckless puck management has cost games.
Remember, I am not giving grades, simply reporting what the players are earning with their tests (Stats). Whether I like the player or not. I like Geno, and he did start the season off on fire with Smith and Rakell but everyone was so hell bent on whining about Rakell not scoring, even Sullivan joined that band wagon and broke up that line. Now Malkin’s numbers are only a C+.
On the flip side I would trade Pettersson if I could for Zadorov, but at least for now, with the loose hockey of October and November, his numbers show a B when compared to the league averages.
That is why I do more than tend to be right, I don’t let sentiment influence me. It is simply what it is.
Hey Other Rick,
With all due respect to your methodology, the Penguins are 6th in the league in goals allowed per game out of 32 teams. You simply don’t get to be there with C-/D+ goaltending.
As for our goalies being a little above the league average in save percentage, 35 of the 76 goalies listed on NHL.com have save percentages below .900. There’s no way we’re a little above average.
I would suggest the real culprits for our so-so performance are a lack of production (17th out of 32 teams in average goals per game), a lack of depth scoring (including our defense) and an epically bad power play.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Looking at Natural Stat Trick right now, our Penguins rank 11th in the league in terms of GA/60 5-on-5, not 6th.
And I get it, you like our Goalies, but Jarry in particular is losing games for this team. He has given up several 3rd period leads, just like last season. Also, if the Goalies were that good, the team would not be 0.500 right now, they would be winning, particularly when they are ranked 5th in the league in GF/60 5-on-5.
You don’t have to like it, I just recorded what they underperformed.
Hey Other Rick,
We’re going by different criteria. My numbers, pulled from NHL.com, include all situations. Even going by 5v5 data, 11 out of 32 is still well above the norm. It would also indicate our goalies are doing exceptionally well in other situations (shorthanded, etc.) to achieve their overall numbers.
You’re right, I do like our goalies…especially Ned…who at this admittedly early stage looks like a significant upgrade over DeSmith. That said, I was not for the Jarry signing, at least not for the term he received. But you can’t deny he’s played very well since the New Jersey debacle, when he took ownership of his poor play.
Did he cost us a couple of games early on? Probably. But he’s been much better of late…even borderline great. And overall, I think our goaltending’s been a strength and not a weakness.
Rick
Hey Rick,
I only look at 5-on-5 data and that is because you cannot anticipate PP, PK, OT (3-on-3), or w/Empty Net or against Empty Net situations and teams average 47 of their 60 minutes 5-on-5.
As for the Goalies, I do think the team has a 3 – 4 good Goalies in the organization with 1 potential blue-chip stud, Jarry is not in that mix, nor is Hellberg. Neither impress me.
I think Ned is a very sound Goalie. I don’t know what happened over the intervening years between his great rookie season and now to drive his stock down but from what I have seen, he has good mechanics. However, to date, he hasn’t had a chance to show his full potential. He certainly has shown the potential to raise his game/grade in the next Quarter but I am only reporting the grades that he earned in the first Quarter. I am not Nostradamus, I can’t record grades he hasn’t earned yet.
As for Jarry, at least 3 of the games he has played have been against teams on the back end of Back-to-Back Games, with one of those teams having played 4 games in 6 nights and in several of those games and more over the season, he has squared off against the other team’s back-up and still lost.
The knock on Jarry is that he has always been a head case and he has shown nothing to change that. His in ability to play consistent caused him to stay longer in the minors than Murray (who is another head case. Jarry also has shown that after 22 GP (the number of GP of the average back-up) he tanks. His Sv% after the 22nd game he plays drops to below 0.900 most seasons.
I like neither the term nor the money of Jarry’s contract. Blomqvist may only be a season a way from being ready at worst 2 seasons. Jarry’s term and pathetic disappearance come game 23 make him a hard move in a year or 2. And the $5 million he is eating in terms of Cap space could have gone to acquire a better skater or 2.
And finally, just like Ned, the grades I posted are not attempts to see the future but acknowledgement of the sub-par play Jarry has given this team in the first Quarter. If Ned hadn’t been injured and had been given the starting reins, as he should have, this team would have at least 3 more wins, if not more, considering the kindness of the team’s schedule so far this season.
Over this first quarter of the season, with his sub 0.500 Pnts% and roughly average Sv% Jarry has only EARNED a D+. Hopefully, he can do better in the 2nd quarter, but for now, it is what it is, he below average record stands as testament to his below effort performance over the first 20 GP (outlier games with confounding variable not withstanding)