Obviously, our Penguins aren’t off to the kind of start we’d all hoped for. Since blitzing the hated Flyers, 7-0, in the season opener and racing to a 5-1 lead against the Canadiens in game No. 2, we’ve been outscored by a whopping 20-12 margin in non-shootouts goals while stumbling to a 3-3-1 record.
Our regulation points percentage? An abysmal .357. A mark that I think accurately reflects our level of play.
Small wonder that we’re on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture looking in.
A far cry from last season, when we shot out of the starting blocks with an 8-2-2 record. A start that helped to propel us to a second-place finish in the Metro and a playoff berth.
So what gives? Why are we struggling to keep our collective heads above water?
Too Many Cooks
I’ve touched on this ad nauseam but it bears repeating. POHO/GM Kyle Dubas way overstocked the forward ranks during the summer. Indeed, the Pens opened training camp with no fewer than 20 forwards with NHL experience, nearly all of whom had a legitimate claim to a roster spot. That’s nearly seven lines worth.
His questionable acquisition of erstwhile Capital Hendrix Lapierre and signing of Andrei Kuzmenko only exacerbated the logjam while serving to block the path of deserving prospects like Rutger McGroarty and Avery Hayes.
It’s left a mess for coach Dan Muse and his staff to sort out while creating a revolving door, particularly on the third line where Lapierre, Kuzmenko, Ville Koivunen, Elmer Söderblom and since traded Filip Hållander have been shuffled like a fresh deck of cards at a Vegas blackjack table. Veteran Bryan Rust, too.
This can’t be aiding the development of the affected players or sophomore center Ben Kindel, the lone constant on the line, to say nothing of shredding any sense of continuity.
Same Old, Same Old
I understand why Muse reunited the top line of Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell and Rust. Through no fault of the kid, Sid and RikRak sputtered out of the starting blocks with Nick Robertson on wing. A situation Muse hoped to remedy by returning Rust to the top unit alongside his old linemates.
It worked…sort of. Following a four-game pointless jag, Sid broke out with a pair of goals during the recent loss to Chicago. Rakell enjoyed perhaps his best game with four shots on goal and nine shot attempts.
However, a quick glance at selected 5v5 advanced stats, including Robertson’s, is telling.
| Player | Corsi | GF% | xGF% |
| Crosby | 45.77 | 46.67 | 48.65 |
| Rakell | 48.19 | 50.00 | 48.46 |
| Rust | 42.39 | 42.86 | 38.13 |
| Robertson | 54.17 | 87.50 | 61.80 |
Our venerable top line is taking a consistent beating in terms of possession and play driving despite extremely favorable deployment. Sadly, Father Time appears to be catching up with each member of the unit. Rust’s metrics are especially poor.
The numbers for our aging top guns stand in stark contrast to Robertson’s. To his credit, the spunky winger responded to his unmerited demotion by landing on his feet and providing a significant spark to an increasingly effective fourth line with his speedy, tenacious play. Still, it’s a role that most certainly could be filled by Hayes if you’re seeking similar chemistry. Söderblom if you’re looking to add beef.
Bottom line? It sure would be great to give Robertson a longer look in an elevated role.
Speaking of same old, same old, the power(less) play has gone off the rails and then some. Following a quick 4-for-8 start, we’ve turned Arctic cold while misfiring on our last 16 opportunities.
Far from posing a threat, we’ve struggled at times simply to gain the zone and maintain possession. In those instances when we set up, deference and perimeter passing rules. It’s 2023-24 all over again, when we converted at an abysmal 15.3 percent clip.
While it may seem counterintuitive, perhaps it’s time to put Sid and Evgeni Malkin on separate units. With his lightning quick release and blur of a shot, Egor Chinakhov should be seeing more ice time with the man advantage. If you’re going to dress him, Kuzmenko should, too. He’s built for the power play.
Perhaps an all-comrade second unit of Malkin, Chinakhov and Kuzmenko makes sense, provided they’re not squeezed off the ice by Sid’s unit.
Size Matters
I’ve harped on it over and over (and over) again, but size matters. So does possessing at least a degree of physicality.
Guess which team is not only the lightest in the league (average weight 194 pounds) but dead-last in hits (83)?
Yep, our Pens.
It certainly agrees with the eye test. We look tiny on the ice, especially compared to behemoth teams like the Caps.
It stands to reason we’re not exactly dominating play along the wall and in the traffic areas.
When asked what the power play needed to do to improve during a recent between-periods interview, assistant coach Todd Nelson didn’t hesitate. “Win some puck battles,” he replied.
Employing the massive Söderblom and hulking Justin Brazeau (when he returns from IR) would help in that regard while adding considerable beef and making us more difficult to handle. However, the Pens seem hell-bent on living or dying (probably the latter) with their speed game.
Big guys need not apply.
Chemistry
To me a very overlooked element to our rough start. Last season our chemistry was exemplary. We exuded a palpable Vegas Misfits, all-for-one spirit.
This season? The vibe feels “off,” for lack of a better way to describe it. As if the guys aren’t quite sure of each other. Entirely possible given the changes that occured over the summer, which seem to have fueled our disconnected play.
Put another way, last season the team seemed greater than the sum of its parts. This season, the opposite feels true.
Can the dynamic be fixed?
Perhaps. But only if our POHO/GM and coaching staff are willing to go against the established grain and make some difficult decisions. Decisions that might ruffle the feathers of some of our more seasoned players.
Last night’s game against the Avs was heartbreaking to watch. I know you guys are all big on hitting and whatnot, but to me, the biggest problem I see is on turnovers. Carlisle and Korczak turned it over a lot in our defensive zone last night, which is the worst place to turn it over, obviously.
I see a lot of puck watching from Carlisle, Korzcak and Girard. sometimes Girard is fine, but like on the PK, he completely never noticed the Avs player next to Silovs. that’s his main area to watch!
I would prefer to have some defenders who actually know how to play defense and look before they pass pucks blindly to the other team. Thought that was the bare minimum to play in the NHL, but I guess I am wrong about that.
Also i know Letang gets a lot of hate from, well, the entire internet, but he and Stastney have looked good. They didn’t give up a single goal last night and had less crazy shenanigans going on when defending. I also wonder if he is a better PP QB, seeing as the 2nd line was having more success in the beginning of the season when it had Malkin on it with Letang.
EK65 seems to be trying to play hero ball or something. Can’t do that against fast and skilled teams like the Avs, that’s how he got burned on one of the goals.
Pens need to really just spend some time working on defense, defense, defense. Turtle for a game or two and get some muscle memory built up, before going back to normal offensive play or something. there’s a long season ahead.
Silovs played great, he faced a crazy amount of high danger shots, and only got beat on basically things no one could stop. too bad it’ll make his SV look worse than his actual play.
Hey Keeger,
I understand that the amount of time spent talking about size and grit often has people talking about Hits, and Hits, when taken in the Offensive Zone, trying to pressure opposing D and/or separating them from the puck is a good thing, but super high levels of hits may mean that team didn’t have much puck possession. And perhaps some people to get fixated on Hits, but I think the main point here is just being hard to play against, not letting opponents freewheel, getting in their way, winning puck battles and commanding both net fronts.
An interesting stat that gets overlooked is Hits Taken. I say this because it leads into Turnovers. Sometimes a Turnover is caused by a player Giving the puck away in an unforced error (Gv), sometimes the Turnover occurs from an opponent delivering a Hit. Marcus Pettersson used to league the league in Hits Taken every season when he was in Pgh. At t he start of his career in Pgh, Pettersson would take the hit to make the play. Later on he started giving away the puck rather than take the hit. And that is why Offensive Zone Hits are really a good indicator of how tough a team is to play against.
Another good example of this was last game against the Hawks, on Chicago’s 1st Goal, Carlile was so afraid to take a hit that he gave the puck away and Chi scored.
As for last Game, I am no fan of Carlile, Korczak, or Girard, but the stats show that Stastney led the team in unforced Turnovers or Gv with 3; Letang, Kuzmenko, and Crosby tied for 2nd worst Turnover guys with 2. I don’t want to defend Carlile, Korczak, or Girard, but they weren’t the Gv artists. Carlile, Korczak, and GIrard didn’t even take the most Hits, Stastney (no wonder he Gv the puck away the most) and Novak at 2 each.
You were almost correct, the Letang – Stastney pairing did control play from a shot/shot attempt stand point but they did concede 2 SOG. However, they had no Defensive Zone Starts but ended up with 4 Defensive Zone Face Offs – So they did drive play perfectly, just better than the rest.
Silovs on the other hand faced less High Danger Shots than Blackwood. Blackwood Faced 14 HDSA and stopped 13 of them – Silovs faced 8 HDSA but only managed to stop 4 of them. Silovs lost the Goalie Battle for the Pens. Of the 8 HDSA that Silovs faced, 5 of them came from rebounds (Blackwood was only marginally better 7 of his 14 HDSA were from rebounds). Reality is Silovs may have made some good saves but he is his own worst enemy and has no idea of how to play the position. On the final GA, it was a tough shot facing down McKinnon, but the reason he never had a chance on the shot was because he was frozen, unmoving, watching the pass rather than moving with it. He is as much of a problem as the players in front of him.
Hey all,
A couple of examples to illustrate how un-physical our Pens are. Sharks forward Kiefer Sherwood has 44 hits. Our 15 forwards combined have 57.
Same thing on d. Bruins bruiser Nikita Zadorov has 25 hits. Our 7 defensemen combined have 26.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Great post. This needs to be talked about and the noise needs to get up to the ears of management.
1. Size does matter – it takes away time and space from opponents, wins puck battles, and controls both net-fronts.
2. Chemistry matters
My only pushback is that it isn’t the players whose feathers need ruffled. They weren’t the ones causing a revolving door in UFA signings that blocked prospect development. It is Dubas and Muse whose feathers need ruffling. They are the ones that need to move out of their comfort zones. If the players are starting to push back against them right now, I get it. Their decisions have certainly not put this team in a place to succeed.
Hello My Friend,
You found a succinct way to sum up what I was fumbling to say, especially with your two points.
When I speak of size and physicality, I’m not neccesarily referring to a hammer ’em through the endboards approach, although a little bit of that would be welcome, too. Rather, just as you say, it’s about taking away time and space, being strong along the wall and having a net-front presence at both ends of the ice.
It reminds me of a comment Paul Steigerwald made back in 1990 on the eve of the big trade with Hartford that brought in Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings (a guy named Ron Francis, too).
We’d just gotten our lunch handed to us by Calgary. Steigy noted that an overhead photo showed our crease was packed with Flames, who set up shop in front of Tom Barrasso with impunity. “We had no net-front presence whatsoever,” he lamented.
Mind you, our defense at the time included Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy and Zarley Zalapski, two Hall-of-Famers and a very talented guy in ZZ-Top. The point being, you just don’t win with all skill and no grit.
You’ve often referred to last season’s “Big Line” of Malkin, Mantha and Brazeau as an example of the point we’re trying to make and I wholeheartedly agree. They didn’t do much hitting but they really didn’t need to. They were very difficult for foes to handle thanks to their unique blend of size and skill.
How quickly our braintrust seems to forget.
Taking it a step further, I’ve never seen anyone get anywhere near winning a Stanley Cup with the Smurfish type of team we’ve assembled. Even our back-to-back champions had guys like Patric Hornqvist and Chris Kunitz, who were plenty difficult to deal with. Yet we always seem to back our way into icing a team that’s lacking physically.
Rick
The worst part is, every time our Pens start building the team the right way, the backslide and revert to their “go to”, moderate skilled veterans with no grit, even as their own experience screams get bigger! I always would laugh at Sully when he would preach “be tough to play against” and then trot out a team that didn’t contest the any part of the ice, not the crease, not the corners, not the boards, and certainly not open ice. After a brief half season of playing big boy hockey, actually contesting pucks and space, Dubas has reconstructed a team that allows opponents to freewheel wherever the choose. They give opponents time not only to look the net over, but to have lunch and dinner as well. It has only been because Muse’s boys have had to play several snake bit teams (Phi, Mon, and Dal) and a couple of stellar Goalie performances by Murashov that the team doesn’t rank dead last in Sv% If this was last season, with Skinner and Silovs, our hometown heroes would be 0-7 tight now.