Penguins First Quarter Grades

What a difference a year makes! Our Pittsburgh Penguins just past the quarter turn of the season. Last season, under Coach Mike Sullivan, with roughly the same regular cast, our favorite flightless fowl were foundering in 27^th place in the league with a record of 7-10-3 after 20 games. This season, as I write this post, prior to the Seattle Kraken game, after 20 games, under new Coach Dan Muse, our boys of winter are Pittsburgh Penguins are 11^th in the league with a record of 10-6-4.

There still is a lot of hockey to play, but my, oh my, our Pens have climbed 16 spots in the standings – I am a bit optimistic right now.

Hmm…Do you think that optimism will influence my quarterly grades? Let’s see.

Team/Head Coach Grade – C

Up until these last two weeks, I thought I was going to be giving Muse and the Team as a whole a much higher grade. We actually had the best record in the league at one point. Tactically, Muse is putting the players in the best position possible to win games. However, after the last couple of weeks, the team has dropped, dropping to 11^th in the league.

I know what some people are going to say, but the team still has a 0.600 record, that has to account for something.

I would agree with that sentiment if every team had played the same teams over the course in question. However, thanks to the hockey schedulers, Muse’s boys have gotten a break so far this season. The League average right now is 0.574, while the black-n-gold opponents only have an average of 0.548. Adjusting our Penguins’ Points Percentage Pnts% to reflect the weaker opponents, our Penguins’ Pnts% is right on the league average (0.573).

I will also acknowledge that our Penguins/Muse have had to deal with some injury adversity. Joel Blomqvist and Rutger McGroarty had to start the season on the IR. Soon after that Justin Brazeau and Rickard Rakell, one third of the Team’s Top-6 joined them in IR.

However, somewhere up the line, and it may very well be coming from Kyle Dubas, the team has made some rather questionable calls when it came to personnel moves. As we will see, not all of the players who have been called upon have fulfilled their rolls as well as others.

Goaltenders Grades

If you were to look at the raw Save Percentages (Sv%) of our Penguins’ Goalies, you would think that these players were at least playing average hockey. The 5-on-5 Sv% For Arturs Silovs is 0.918 and Tristan Jarry’s is 0.912 while the league average was only 0.905 at the time the team played its 20^th game. However, while I was reviewing the team’s overall grade and noticed that the average team the Penguins played against was a lower echelon team, I decided and after my discussion with my colleague Rick Buker, proselytizing the notion that quality of shooter must be accounted for when judging a player, I decided check to see what the average shooter against our Penguins’ Shooting Percentage (S%) was vs the League Average. It was about a full percentage point lower, 8.41 vs 9.35. When applying that correction factor to the Goalies, well, they didn’t fare so well.

Goalie	Grade
Tristan Jarry	D-
Sergei Murashov	Inc.
Arturs Silovs	D-

I gave Sergei Murashov an Incomplete (Inc.), he didn’t play enough to grade him fairly.

If any of you readers want to ignore the quality of shooters these Goalies faced and set the league average of 0.905 as a C and weigh that against their actual Sv% then go right ahead and give them a C. However, when they have to face real shooters, like in a Shoot Out, or hopefully come playoff time, then don’t be surprised when they don’t do so well.

Forwards Grades

I can already hear some complaints about what I am about to write. I know there are people out there that couldn’t care less about the actual results and only want to cheer their favorite player regardless of what the results are when they are on the ice. As I have written many times before, I don’t care about the eye test. The eye test doesn’t win games. The only thing that wins games is pure statistics, the statistics of Goals For (GF) and Goals Against (GA). When I evaluate a player, I only care about those very objective facts and weigh them against the league average for players within a standard deviation of the mean for playing time 5-on-5.

I really do not worry greatly about Power Play (PP) or Penalty Kill (PK) when I really am pressed for time. I would take those into account if the team was paying me to fully evaluate players, but those numbers only play a role at the discretion of how a referee calls the game.

Player	Pnts’	TGF	TGA	OA
Acciari, Noel	F	D+	A+	C-
Brazeau, Justin	A+	A+	D-	B
Crosby, Sidney	B	C-	D-	C
Dewar, Conner	F	F	C	D-
Hallander, Filip	F	B	A+	C+
Hayes, Kevin	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Heinen, Danton	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Kindel, Ben	F	F	A+	D
Koivunen, Ville	F	F	A+	D
Koppanen, Joona	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Lizotte, Blake	F	F	A+	D
Malkin, Evgeni	A+	B	C	B-
Mantha, Anthony	A+	A+	C	B+
Novak, Tommy	D-	D-	A+	D+
Poulin, Sam	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Rakell, Rickard	B+	F+	A	C
Rust, Bryan	D+	B-	D-	C-
Tomasino, Philip	F	F	A+	D

Our Penguins are still being driven by the Top-6, Evgeni Malkin, Anthony Mantha, and Brazeau, in particular. Sidney Crosby’s line was doing rather well offensively too until Rakell was injured, and then the parade of bottom six candidates cycled through our Captain’s line has really dragged Crosby and Bryan Rust down. Malkin and Mantha have fared a little better with Brazeau’s replacements.

More than likely, the pressure of an absolute lack of bottom six contribution to the scoring sheet is what is causing the Top Six to be struggling defensively. When those two lines don’t score, the team gets shutout.

Speaking of the bottom six, sorry folks, but as much as everyone is enamored of the rookie Ben Kindel, even though he has been surprisingly effective defensively, he is a real millstone offensively and really isn’t earning any offensive time. This may not really be due to a lack of potential but simply a result of the kid not being ready for the NHL. I am one the strongest proponents of bringing up prospects and giving them a chance, but the none of the “eye test” that everyone wants to rave about Kindel is translating to points on the scoreboard. The kids Primary Points (Pnts’) are all Goals (G), not Primary Assists (A’) and equal to 0.77 Pnts’/60 5-on-5, the league average is 1.24.

He himself (Kindel) is not contributing anything to the scoreboard, nor does any line saddled with him find the range. When he was elevated to the top line, that line went dry. If not for undeserved PP time, the kid would not have any points in the last seven games. Furthermore, five of his eight points have come courtesy of Malkin, Crosby, and Rust. Without the help of those three bus drivers, the Kindel car is sputtering and should have been sent to the Juniors long ago so that he could have developed properly.

For those of you who think I am being unfair to the rookie, look again, I am being very objective. If you have read anything I have written, you know I am a big supporter of Ville Koivunen and have given him the same grade. Furthermore, you will have read that I would never have chosen Noel Acciari to play on any team I was in charge of, yet I gave him a C.

Like with Murashov, there are several Forwards whose playing time fell below the standard deviation for Time on Ice (TOI) so I gave them all (Inc) grades.

Power Play Grade – A

The Penguins Power Play (PP) this season has been its best asset and perhaps its saving grace, driving it into playoff contention. The PP tops the league in terms of GF/60 at 11.84. If not for special teams Muse’s men may be hanging out down in the standings with Sullivan’s smurf’s New York Rangers.

Defense

Player	Pnts’	TGF	TGA	OA
Brunicke, Harrison	D	F	F	F
Clifton, Connor	F	F	B	D-
Dumba, Matt	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Graves, Ryan	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Jones, Caleb	Inc	Inc	Inc	Inc
Karlsson, Erik	A+	C	A+	B+
Letang, Kris	F	B	D-	D
Shea, Ryan	A+	D+	D-	C-
Wotherspoon, Parker	F	F	A+	D

I really wish I could have given Kris Letang a better grade, but he has struggled this season. The only area in which he has been okay has been team Offense when he has been on the ice, and that may be more so because of his usual partner Ryan Shea who seems to be enjoying a decent start to the season in his personal offensive stats. Erik Karlsson’s resurgence has certainly helped the Top Six drive this bus back into the playoff picture. Although Parker Wotherspoon hasn’t helped his frequent partner Karlsson out much offensively, his defensive contribution may be keeping his high-octane opposite from foundering as bad as Letang.

Harrison Brunicke, like Kindel, has struggled. He is not ready for prime time and the team’s insistence on putting him out there could impair his development. There is no doubt that Brunicke has potential, but he too would have been better served playing with players closer to his own tender years. Perhaps the worst gambit being played at the expense of this kid is sitting him for so many games, wasting him in the press box just to sneak around the rules and send him to the AHL for a conditioning stint.

Like above, several Defensemen also fell below the standard deviation for TOI, so they, too, received Inc. grades.

Kyle Dubas Grade – C

I really would like to give Dubas an F for the season so far. His passing on Kashawn Aitcheson (15 G, 25 Pnts, 31 PIM, and a +14 in 20 GP) frustrated me. His complete waste of the 3^rd round pick he used to draft Gabriel D’Aigle (4.28 GAA and 0.886 Sv%) and his insistence on keeping Kindel and Brunicke up in the NHL when they are struggling, rather than letting them play at least one more year in the Juniors to better develop, infuriated me. All of this was serious misuse of assets.

However, the signings of Brazeau and Mantha have been a real blessing so far. Those two players have done a yeoman’s job of resurrecting an almost extinct offense from last season.

Odds and Sods

I have seen some talk that Pavel Mintyukov wants out of an Anaheim Ducks uniform. In fact, a friend of Rick B’s and mine named Cody asked me the other day what I thought of a trade for the disgruntled Left-Handed Defenseman (LHD). Cody’s thought was to try and flip Owen Pickering for the Duck LHD.

My response was that even though I know Pickering should never have been a 1^st round pick, I have grown to appreciate what he might become (maybe a serviceable 2^nd pairing or at least good 3^rd pairing). However, with as bad as the Team’s LHD are, if Dubas would also investigate Cody’s idea, it may work out well and it may help the Pens’ Head of Hockey Operations and General Managers mid-term grade. It certainly couldn’t hurt it.