Way back in the day (I’m talkin’ late ‘60s and early ‘70s) the Penguins and Blues were protagonists in one of the fiercest rivalries in hockey. Games between the non-kissin’ expansion cousins were often wild ‘n’ woolly affairs, the Pens’ 10-4 thrashing of the Blues on November 22, 1972, a prime example.
Well, Bugsy Watson and the Plager Brothers have nothing on the present day Pens and Blues.
During last night’s season finale at the Enterprise Center, the Pens rocketed out to leads of 3-0 and 4-1, only to watch them evaporate in the face of a stinging Blues onslaught.
The silver lining? Our goal-getters included kids Rutger McGroarty and Avery Hayes (who got two), as well as hulking Elmer Söderblom, who made road kill of Blues defender Tyler Tucker before beating Jordan Binnington with an extraordinary power move.
The bad news? Some deplorable defensive play by our bottom two pairings. In fairness, at least some of their struggles were likely due to unfamiliarity with each other. However, if he hadn’t already done so, Ryan Graves seemed to permanently punch his ticket to Palookaville with a series of misreads (and misdeeds). He and partner Ilya Solovyov were on the ice for three goals against (and three for, too).
It made it difficult to get an accurate read on our goalies, neither of whom shone statistically. Stuart Skinner played the first 40 minutes and turned aside 17 of 21 shots for an .810 save percentage. Arturs Šilovs came on in the third period and stopped seven of nine (.778 SV%).
Makes me double-down on my wish that maybe we coulda (shouda) given Sergei Murashov a start or two down the stretch. Although exposing him behind such a patchwork lineup may have done the puck-stopping phenom more harm than good.
Puckpourri
Anthony Mantha was the other black-and-goal goal-getter. The Masterton candidate finished the season with a team-high 33 goals and 64 points. Way to go, Big Moe!
Nearly all of our other stars sat out, including Egor Chinakhov, Sidney Crosby, Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust. Recently signed rookie defenseman Jake Livanavage made his NHL debut while subbing for Sam Girard. The newcomer, who finished a minus-2, displayed excellent wheels but questionable decision making. Metrics-wise, he and partner Jack St. Ivany were heavily underwater.
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard likewise made his Pens’ debut. Perhaps a reward for his 19-goal season with the Baby Pens. The 27-year-old forward was a plus-1 with two shots on goal in 11:01 of ice time.
Kevin Hayes collected two assists and, remarkably, finished a plus-3 for the night. With his play over the past three games, I’d say he made a successful bid for duty should the Pens encounter injuries in the postseason. Ditto Avery Hayes with his second two-goal game.
Söderblom finished with a very respectable five goals and 10 points in 20 games with the Pens. That’s roughly a 20-goal, 40-point pace over a full season. Yet another incredible find by Kyle Dubas and his staff.
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for Ville Koivunen, who finished a minus-2 with two shots on goal. Especially given the fact that the disparity between his production at the AHL and NHL levels is as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. A better-than-point-per-game scorer with the Baby Pens, the pending RFA was among the least productive players in the NHL on a points per 60 basis.
He’s beginning to draw comparisons in some circles to former Pens lightning rod Dominik Simon. Basically good underlying numbers with zippo production.
Do you re-sign him?
Back to Graves. It’s truly a head-scratcher how a guy who once led the NHL in plus/minus could struggle to such an extent that even miracle-worker Dan Muse couldn’t fix him. I feel sorry for the hulking defender, who must feel a desperate need to prove himself every time he suits up, but business is business. I wonder if Dubas will buy out the remaining three years of Ryan’s contract or pay another team to take him off our hands.
I wish we would’ve prevailed and finished with 100 points, not to mention a little forward momentum heading into the playoffs. Instead, the Pens (41-25-16) closed out the campaign with 98 points, the same as our first-round foe, Philly.
I don’t like the fact that we lost three in a row, even in meaningless games. Mojo’s a fickle thing, and it can come and go. But what’s done is done.
Congratulations, Pens, on a great (not to mention thrilling and wonderfully entertaining) season! Now, on to the playoffs!
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I have a little more time so couple more thoughts
Loved the effort on McGroarty Goal, jumping into the Face-Off Circle, it was only Binnington but his release was super quick.
Also, loved the effort on Avery Hayes' second Goal, following up his own rebound.
How sick was Soderblom's Goal!? Wondering if he could be a power forward in the making?
Wholeheartedly agree with all three of your comments! Great stuff from the kids!
Rick
Wonder if Detroit gave us what could have been their next Franzen?
Hey Jim,
The ironic thing is, Detroit's bottom six (bottom nine actually) is really mediocre. I don't know what happened with the kid, if he just got shunted off to the side and overlooked (a la Chinakhov) but my goodness has he been impressive here.
You have to give Dubas and his staff huge props for sniffing out Soderblom, but also Dan Muse and his assistants for getting the best out of the kid. (And everybody else, too.)
Rick
This is funny Rick,
Not too far in the very, very recent past, you, my friend quipped that Murashov was substandard because in his last NHL outing, he gave up a huge lead and that Big Stu and Silovs had more of a right to squander yet another playoffs rather than give Blomqvist or Murashov a chance. Today, after a pathetic display of Goaltending by the turnstiles that management seems insistent on dying upon, you question whether it was the defense that was the problem. Worse, you now waffle back to saying that you are considering you were right in wondering if was time for Murashov.
You want to have it both ways.
Snuggerud’s first Goal was the only Goal scored on Skinner that was on Graves and the defense allowing the Blues Fwd to stand alone between he circles.
Sundqvist’s Goal was squarely on Big Stu and his inability to control rebounds. He sent that puck, that was easily directed to the corner right back up the slot for a prime scoring chance by the one-time Penguin Center.
Mailloux’s Goal came from almost as far away as it could with a player drifting from big Stu’s right to his left but once again, the ersatz netminder couldn’t read the play and was caught way too long looking over the wrong shoulder of a Blues’ Fwd, screening himself from the play until it was too late. More importantly the shot was so slow that he still should have gotten his blocker on it.
Snuggerud’s 2nd Goal was another case of Big Stu not being able to control a rebound.
I’ll give you, Silovs wasn’t exactly protected but Big Stu certainly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory like you complained about Murashov the other day.
Hey Other Rick,
I know goaltending’s a hot-button issue for you, and has been since the beginning of the year. I get it. I’m starting to have concerns as well.
However, I’ll stand behind my assertion that our defense to a large degree sabotaged our efforts last night. Graves and Solovyov were totally out of sync which led to at least two of the Blues’ goals. St. Ivany and Livanavage may have been worse…they certainly were metrics-wise.
I wasn’t necessarily going to go there, but during Murashov’s last start on Dec. 14 our defense was Karlsson-Wotherspoon, Shea-Letang and Graves-Clifton. Basically five of our six established regulars. On Nov. 22, same top four with Graves-Dumba on the third pair.
In fairness, Murashov's last start against the Mammoth did occur during that nightmare stretch when we were bleeding leads. So there surely was some “team” involved in his performance.
In terms of “waffling,” I don’t think adjusting one’s thinking based on the prevailing trend is a bad thing. I defended Skinner and Šilovs up through the Olympic break, when their inputs were basically positive.
Since the Olympic break it’s been a different story, especially with Šilovs, who you’ve had issues with from the get-go. Some of that no doubt is attributable to our difficult schedule, plus playing for stretches without Sid and Geno. But some of it is a genuine downturn in performance.
To that end, I would like to have seen Murashov get a couple of starts last week. And truth be told, I am worried that our goaltending might be our Achilles heel in the upcoming series against the Flyers…and beyond if we make it that far.
Do I think Murashov and Blomqvist would immediately step in and right the show? We can surmise all we want, but their numbers at the NHL level to date aren’t anything special. You could certainly argue that Blomqvist’s stats may not be a fair indication of his ability given that he played behind some truly awful defense last season. But I’d stop short of anointing them as instant saviors.
Rick
No, I get it Rick, you hate change, you fear it. You tend to want status quo and that only leads to the same outcome.
The Penguins defense ranked 12th in terms of least SA but the Goalies rank 21st in terms of Sv%. Blaming the defense for the Goals against has no logic merit. Other team's Goalies are making the saves but not our two clowns.
As for Murashov's last game, let's first talk about Skinner's first game in a Pens uniform 5 GA on 22 SA, his next game 3 GA on 20 SA, the third game 4 more GA on 29 SA, his game against Sea 1/19 3 GA on 20 SA, his game against NYR on 1/31, 5 GA on 20 SA, His next game 2/3, 5 GA on 23 SA, his 3 GA on only 16 SA all game loss to Phi on 3/7 (only 16 SA - yea that was poor defense all right), his 4 GA on 25 SA against Car on 3/22, his 4 GA on 24 SA against Dal on 3/28, and his 4 GA on 21 SA in his last outing. I left out a couple of games where his Sv% was ridiculously low but the SA were relatively high, but look at all of these games, Rick. Quite frankly, your constantly going back to 1 bad out by a rookie while glossing over 10 extremely poor outings by a veteran does cause me pause.
As for Silovs lets talk about his back to back 4 GA on 6 SA on 11/21 and 11/29 - real stellar performances. Let's ignore those and talk about Murashov's 12/14. How about Silovs' 6 GA on 31 SA vs SJS on 12/13. The SA were a little elevated but 6 GA? How about his 4 GA on 25 SA vs CBJ on 1/4, or how about his 3 game stretch between 3/5 and 3/12 when he gave up 4 GA on 25 SA vs Buf, 4 GA on 28 SA vs Bos, and 5 GA on 16 SA vs VEG, then 4 GA on 25 SA v WPG (3/21), 5 GA on 29 SA vs COL (3/24), 3 GA on 23 SA v NYI (3/30), 4 GA on 23 SA the next game vs FLA, his 5 GA on 30 SA vs WAS (4/11), and 2 GA on 7 SA in his last game. But again, you would prefer to talk about 1 game by Murashov.
First of all, Blomqvist is the best Goalie in the Penguins Org right now. However, Murashov was just named to the AHL all - rookie team, like Blomqvist before him. Neither Goalie is playing horrible as your comments about their AHL play may lead some people to believe. Moreover, Blomqvist outplayed everyone in preseason but was injured and never given a real chance to come back. He was buried in WBS and the Coach down there gave the prime TOI to Murashov, relegating Blomqvist to 2nd fiddle scraps. And Murahov was the 2nd best Goalie in training camp but he too was banished for Dubas' darling the Vancouver reject Silovs.
In terms of Goalies that have played more than 300 minutes or more (slightly arbitrary as since I have not done a full look at STDEVs only guessed) but Skinner's Sv% ranks 49th in the league and Silvos' Sv% is tied for 51st. No matter how you slice it, they are bad. Neither Blomqvist nor Murashov could do worse; they can only do better. Not only do I know that those two kids could do better, I also know Taylor Gauthier could do better. However, I do not hold out any hope that management will wake up and smell the coffee. They wouldn't move on from Sully for 8 interminable years.
Also, your fixation on Murashov's one bad game while glossing over Skinner's and Silovs' laundry lists of bad games reminds me so much of Sullivan benching a kid for one mistake while letting veterans commit mistake after mistake.
I know you're incredibly biased when it comes to our goaltending. But your repeated assertion that Murashov had "one bad game" is dead wrong.
Try actually looking at his stats. He had a sub-.900 save percentage in three of his four starts (.865, .857, .889) and a quality starts percentage of .250.
If Skinner or Silovs had put up those kind of numbers, you would've ripped them to shreds.
Rick
Looking Forward to the playoffs, aver the last 3 seasons, the league average Sv% is 0.902 (13690 Sv/15174 SA); Skinner's Sv% over those 3 playoffs - 0.893, Silovs' Sv% over that time is a touch higher but still below the average (0.898%). Going into the playoffs using Goalies that have never showed up when the games got tough is not a great idea. Skinner only managed to get to the finals because his team, the Oilers scored 3.45 Goals per game (2nd best to STL) while limiting opponents to 26.43 SA/GP (5th best defense over that time - 22 teams over 3 years). McDavid and Draisaitl outscored Skinner's pathos.
Add to this the fact that our pathetic veteran Goalies have only managed to win 1 game when the forwards scored 3 Goals or less and that was a 3 - 0 whitewash of SJS authored by Tristan Jarry.
Goaltending will be the failing point of this team in the playoffs.
For Murashov vs Skinner and Silovs the objective stat evidence (slthough limited to 5 games) supports the eye test.
Again, I want Blomqvist, I do think under a good Goalie coach Murashov can develop into a Goalie near MAF, but he is still raw and needs work.
Second, I listed far more than 3 games for both Skinner and Silovs. They have track records of abject failure, Murashov is still close to a blank slate. More importantly he doesn't show the same inability to handle rebounds or very slow glove hands that both Skinner and Silovs so prominently display nor Skinners pathetic puck tracking/play reading ability or Silovs' inability to stop point shots.
Sully may be gone but the Sully touch on young goalies remain. Skinner and Silovs. The combine Sv% of the Penguins' Goalies this season is 0.891, The combined Sv% of Skinner and Silovs is 0.886%, The combined Sv% of Jarry and Murashov is 0.906%. The league average Sv% 0.894% right now. Skinner and Silovs help drag the Team and League averages down.
To recapitulate, first I know that Blomqvist is the best Goalie in the system, Murashov the 2nd best and Gauthier the 3rd best. The insistence on punishing Murashov while letting Skinner and Silovs to continue to be pathetic is extremely Sullivanesque. Skinner and Silovs errors are far greater for far longer and at least Murashov show that he knows how to control rebounds and can make a glove save.