Down 2-games-to-0 and with our first-round series shifting to the City of Brotherly Shove for Games 3 and 4, it goes without saying our Penguins are facing an uphill climb. One might even say we’re in dire straits.
Among our myriad issues, an inability to crack the Flyers’ tight defensive structure and put the puck in the net. Unthinkable for a club that possesses as much firepower and as many weapons as our Pens.
Speaking of, to my eye there seems to be some sort of underlying issue lurking just beneath the surface involving one of our biggest stars.
I’m talking about Sidney Crosby.
With all due respect to our captain, he just hasn’t looked right to me for a long time. For lack of a better way to describe it, he just seems slower and somehow diminished, rather than his usual dynamic self. I can even pinpoint the date when he began to seem “off” to me.
January 25. We were playing the final game of a four-game Western swing against the Canucks. On the heels of a five-game points streak, Sid was held off the scoresheet that night. Nothing terribly unusual about that. Except that he managed just two assists over his next five games leading up to the Olympic break and finished a minus in three of them.
I remember at the time many folks commented how great it was that the Pens could win without Sid driving the offense. But to me, his sudden downturn, which seemed to come out of the blue, was cause for concern.
Just prior to that stretch of games, I recall Sid was involved in a net-front pileup that resulted in a foe falling on top of him. I don’t remember the team or the opposing player involved. I do remember watching Sid slowly pick himself up and skate rather gingerly to the bench. I also remember thinking, “Uh oh, I hope he’s not hurt.”
His output since would seem to support my suspicions that something, indeed, occurred that night that hasn’t been revealed.
In his 50 games prior to January 25, Sid rang up 27 goals and 57 points. He seemed a lock to score 40-plus goals.
In his 18 regular season and two playoff games since? He’s scored only two goals and tallied 17 points to go with a minus-6. Perhaps just as telling, his shooting percentage during those 20 games is an anemic 4.1 percent. Considerably below his career mark of 14.7 percent.
Everyone experiences slumps now and then. Even an all-time great like No. 87 isn’t immune.
Still, I wonder if he isn’t dealing with something more…
We know Sid sustained a knee injury during the Olympics that caused him to miss a sizeable chunk of time after the NHL schedule resumed and that he’s very likely still dealing with lingering effects of that injury.
Could there be another explanation for the perceived downturn in Sid’s play? At age 38, could Father Time finally be catching up with our captain? He’s been so incredibly consistent over the course of his 21 NHL seasons, not to mention marvelously conditioned, I tend to think of him as this indestructible machine who’ll continue to produce well into his 40s. The proverbial Timex watch that takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin.’
However, as the old saying goes, time waits for no one.
Not even Sid.
If he is dealing with another significant injury, I’m sure it will be revealed come the offseason. Which judging by the way our first-round series is progressing, may arrive a lot sooner than any of us hoped.
Selfishly, and in a back-handed way, I kind of hope that’s the case, and that he’s not entering the twilight of an absolutely brilliant career.
I’m not looking forward to the day when Sid’s no longer an integral part of the team.
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Rick,
Father time is an undefeated foe. Eventually, everyone falls victim to the pain of his fists. Someday, Sid and Geno will be felled by that universal champion.
I remember a similar discussion being bandied about, even here on these boards, back at the end of 2014-2015 and in the first half of the 2015-2016 season, while Mike Johnston’s hand was on the wheel. Sid was only 27 and Geno 28 but the reactionaries advanced the idea that the two Penguin generational talents aged prematurely. The high-powered Penguins offense had been ground to a halt. Even the two-headed monster were struggling to find the net.
Fortunately, the scoring drought turned out to be players hampered by a team structure focused on absolute dedication to defense; once Johnston was removed from the bench the goals started flowing, once again, from our dynamic duo.
It is now ten to eleven years later; Sid and Geno have gone from standing on the edge of thirty to knocking on the door of forty. Fears that time has caught up to Crosby and Malkin may be more believable than during the Johnston era. However, since both our top Centers averaged more than a point per game during the regular season it would seem that neither really has slowed down. Therefore, the scoring drought should be due to some other cause.
Considering how many Penguins collapsed around the net (all 5 skaters) trying to insulate Skinner from attacking forwards, on that first GA last game; all intently watching the puck rather than picking up opposing players, not trusting Big Stu to make the save, a return to Mike Johnston hockey seems to be the more logical answer as to why the team isn’t scoring.
The second GA, the SHG, also backs up the idea of a team too focused on defense to score goals. Letang and Novak, both closed on the same player crashing into each other like Keystone Kops again too focused on preventing a shot that they both went after the same player.
Furthermore, a quick look at the team playoff stats shows the Penguins as the 2nd best defensive teams in the post-season, limiting Philly to 21.5 shots per game while their Goalie places the team’s Sv% as 2nd worst; our Penguins give up the 2nd lowest number of shots but posting the 2nd worst Sv%.
Personally, I would rather Muse loose the hounds. Our boys of winter would stand a better chance of winning in a track meet than a defensive slugfest. The energy the team is expending in the defensive zone is draining them and making it impossible to get traction in the attacking zone. Once the Flyers get the league, they then just feed into Tocchet’s trapping defense.
Rick
I agree that he appears to be dealing with some form of lingering lower-body injury, which could be impacting his overall performance. Additionally, I was not impressed with the way the Penguins closed out the season. In contrast, the Flyers were competing in meaningful, high-intensity games, while the Penguins, in my view, seemed to be going through the motions.
I have never been a proponent of resting multiple players simultaneously, as it often disrupts team rhythm and cohesion. Regaining that rhythm can be challenging, especially when facing an opponent that is fully engaged and playing with urgency. In this case, the Flyers capitalized on that disparity, applying consistent pressure and taking advantage of every opportunity. Time for the Pen's to turn the tables this evening.
Hey Mike,
Yeah, to my eye Sid just hasn’t had his usual hop, dating back to that incident in late January. Production-wise, there’s been a very noticeable drop-off, too.
Couldn’t agree more with your comments and observations about the way we ended the season. For me, it wasn’t just the fact that we rested guys en masse. Rather it was the way we were winning. Running up nine goals on the depleted Panthers, eight against the Islanders and five goals three other times down the stretch.
Not that you don’t want to score as many goals as you can, Lord knows, but I think it reinforced that we could win in the playoffs with a run-and-gun style, attention to detail be darned. While that kind of hockey is a heck of a lot of fun to watch, it generally doesn’t prevail in the postseason.
Too, you always want to enter the playoffs on some kind of roll. While we were resting guys (and losing valuable momentum as you so aptly pointed out) Philly was honing their game to a razor’s edge. Love the way you put it...competing in meaningful, high-intensity games.
Our final six games of the regular season were anything but.
Rick