Penguins This ‘n’ ‘At

I’ll be the first to confess, finding subject matter at this stage of the offseason for our favorite hockey team can be a bit of a challenge. With that in mind, I’ve stolen…er…borrowed ideas from two popular Penguins sites, Pittsburgh Hockey Now and Pensburgh.

Over on PHN, Dan Kingerski put forth some potential options for our bottom six. In particular, he mentioned Swedish left wing Filip Hållander, who recently signed a two-year deal to rejoin the black and gold.

Skating for Timra IK of the Swedish Hockey League, the 24-year-old forward enjoyed a breakout season. In 51 games he tallied 26 goals and 53 points to finish second in the SHL in both categories.

Numbers that, dare I say, are eerily similar to the ones Ville Koivunen produced in the SM-liiga the previous season.

Before I set the expectation bar too high, long-time NHLer Jakob Silfverberg finished six points behind Hållander in the scoring race. Once upon a time, Silfverberg was a consistent 20-goal man for the Ducks before his production faded in recent years.

Which would seem to place Hållander squarely in the unknown quantity category despite his flashy numbers.

His highlight video, posted on PHN, is impressive to say the least. How (or if) that translates to the NHL is anybody’s guess.

Sam Poulin

A player Dan neglected to mention, perhaps on purpose, was perennial prospect and former first-round pick Sam Poulin (pictured).

I’ll be the first to admit the husky forward hasn’t dazzled in his all-too-brief cameos with the Pens (13 games spread over three seasons). In particular, foot speed or lack thereof, appears to be an issue.

But hold the phone. Former coach Mike Sullivan preached a speed game. With few exceptions, his scheme had little use for a player like Poulin who ain’t fleet of skate.

A lack of speed doesn’t necessarily have to doom a player to a sub-NHL existence. Vegas star Mark Stone is a classic example of one who’s overcome skating issues.

While there’s no guarantee Poulin can or will do the same, he does possess some positive attributes, including size (6’2” 227) and a willingness to mine the dirty areas. When he did join the play, I noticed Sam was effective along the wall and in traffic. Pretty decent metrics, too.

With 35 goals in his past 98 AHL games, roughly a 30-goal clip over an 82-game schedule, productive, too.

It’ll be interesting to see if our next coach opens the door for Sam.

Gryzzled Out

When the Pens signed defenseman Matt Grzelcyk last summer, I confess I was less-than-thrilled. Adding an undersized rearguard to a blue line corps already woefully lacking in physicality and gryzzle (pun intended) wasn’t my idea of good GMsmanship.

However, the former Bruin grew on me as the season progressed. I was particularly impressed with his vision, tape-to-tape passing and puck distribution on the power play. In fact, Grzelcyk tied for the team lead in power-play assists (15) with a fellow named Sid. Two more than Erik Karlsson and a whopping seven more than Kris Letang.

Well, according to a season-ending review and WAR chart posted on Pensburgh, that’s about all the 30-year-old defender did well. I won’t regurge Hooks Orpik’s excellent post, but Matt had an overall WAR of 11 percent.

In fairness, Grzelcyk was miscast as a top-four defender. All things considered, I think he handled the elevated duty (and challenging partners) as well as could be expected. But his poor rating would explain why there haven’t been any rumblings about signing him to a new deal.

Those Pesky Ex-Pens

Former Pens continue to put their stamp on the playoffs. The first two goals of what became a 3-1, series-clinching ‘Canes victory last night were scored by Jordan Staal and Anthony Beauvillier. Coming directly on the heels of Kasperi Kapanen’s series-winner for the Oilers and Mikael Granlund’s hatty.