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The Pittsburgh Penguins have a possession problem. It isn’t entirely their fault but the problem still exists.
Losing Kris Letang and Paul Martin has neutered the Penguins ability to take the puck away from the opposition and then keep the puck away from the opposition.
To make a run through the Stanley Cup playoffs recent history suggests that puck possession is an important factor. It isn't the only factor, but it certainly is one of the more important factors.
Let’s take a look at some of the possession trends for the Penguins during the 2013-2014 season.
All graphs are courtesy of Extra Skater , which is one of the best resources on the internet for hockey data:
At the beginning of the year the Penguins were fairly dominate with the puck. Mostly all the bars are north of 50%. As the season wears on the bars start to consistently stay south of the 50% mark.
That bar that looks like the Empire State Building is the game where the Penguins crushed the Washington Capitals (Penguins opponent this Monday and Tuesday) 4-0 while putting on a clinic. It was one of the Penguins better games of the year. A few days later the Penguins didn’t allow the Maple Leafs to get a shot on goal for the entire 3rd period and overtime en route to a come from behind shootout victory, good times.
This chart just shows the obvious, the Penguins have been trending in the wrong direction. Up until mid December the Penguins were one of the elite possession teams in the league.
More times than not the since the turn of the New Year the Penguins find themselves south of the 50% line.
Here is a chart that measures the Penguins “luck” over the course of the season. PDO is a luck stat that combines shooting percentage and save percentage. Teams will always progress or regress to 100 on the chart:
Remember early on in the year when the Penguins were outplaying mostly every team but sometimes losing? I remember that, and I remember the complaints about it. The fact was that the Penguins were playing great hockey but going through a spell of bad luck. The process was correct; the end results weren’t as fruitful as they deserved to be. Hockey has a way righting wrongs if you stay the course.
As the year went on the Penguin saw their luck progress back to normal levels and then even turn into very good luck. That very good luck time period coincided with the Penguins bottom 6 forward group not scoring a goal for a month. That is when the Crosby and Malkin lines took over and single handedly won games. The good luck couldn’t have come at a better time and did a nice job of masking some of the Penguins issues.
The Penguins “luck” has since regressed back down to normal levels, but the Penguins puck possession still continues to slide. The concern I have moving forward is if the Penguins hit a bad luck stretch like they did earlier in the season it is going to get ugly. They aren’t going to be able to fall back on their sparkling possession numbers. It’s a real concern and one that I’m not sure gets fixed with the current group of players.
On a positive note the Penguins do have some things going for them that can help out with bad even strength possession numbers, they are dominant on special teams. The Penguins own not only the league’s best power play but the league’s best penalty kill as well. That can certainly assist a team who is down on their luck in the possession department.
Another factor that can help out with bad possession numbers is goaltending. Marc Andre Fleury is coming off a sparkling performance against the Anaheim Ducks in which he literally stole the game for the Penguins. That kind of performance will have to become the norm for the Penguins in the playoffs if the status quo remains. No offense to Fleury, but I don’t believe he can consistently play at that level night in and night out, I’m not sure any goalie can.
At the end of the day Pittsburgh lost their two best defensemen and it shows.
It would be no different if the Blackhawks lost Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, if the Kings lost Drew Doughty and Slava Voynov, if the Blues lost Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester, or if the Sharks lost Dan Boyle and Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
Some losses you can’t account for.
The injuries to Letang and Martin and the direct results they have had on the Penguins possession are why I have a tough time declaring Pittsburgh as one of the Cup favorites at this current time.
Paul Martin will have to be playing at close to 100% right when he gets back from injury and Kris Letang will have to make a miraculous recovery in all likelihood to change the current trends. If they can’t, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Marc Andre Fleury are going to need a playoff run that will be talked about for generations to come in order for the Penguins to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Thanks for reading!
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