The Pittsburgh Penguins dropped a decision to the St. Louis Blues by a score of 3-2. The game was decided in overtime so Pittsburgh was able to muster a “bonus point” during the game. Considering it is the second straight game they were playing down a roster spot due to a Christian Ehrhoff injury and are missing both Malkin and Hornqvist, I thought this was a decent result for the game considering the opponent.
Pittsburgh desperately misses Evgeni Malkin, any team would. This is especially true in a climate where there isn’t much going on in the penalty department. It is so incredibly tough to find time and space in the neutral zone for clean zone entries. Another variable that is impacting the Penguins ability for clean zone entries is the lack of clean zone exits, another Malkin specialty. Malkin is a one man machine for zone exits and entries. He is also highly entertaining to watch which has been sorely missed as well.
Chris Kunitz had a rough go of it last night. I have not had a problem with his play as much as others, but he wasn’t particularly good last night. I do not believe he is washed up. When I watch him play I don’t have a problem with his skating. That is usually the first thing that goes when somebody is “losing it”.
He did look a little fatigued last night which can be explained by his 19:29 in ice time due to the forward shortage. Mike Johnston decided to ride some of his forwards into the ground last night. In fact, Sidney Crosby led the team in ice time (25:28) which was even more than the minute monster Kris Letang (25:15). When is the last time Sid played more than Letang?
Johnston did not use Beau Bennett (7:52) or Craig Adams (6:48). That left the Penguins with nine forwards (one of which being Max Lapierre). Not an ideal situation.
Back to Kunitz though.
The problem I see on the Kunitz front is that his hands are failing him. This is strange to me because your hands shouldn’t start to fail you when you are on the ice every single day handling the puck. Furthermore, his hands were completely fine at the beginning of the year. I don’t know if this is a result of Kunitz pressing because of his goal scoring slump or if it is injury related, but his hands aren’t doing the things that we have all seen them do over the years.
So what is the recourse here? You can do one of three things:
1. Reduce both his even strength role as well as his role on the power play.
2. Leave him in the top six but take away his power play time.
3. Stay the course and hope it works itself out
I would go with choice two. Unless you are promoting Bennett there isn’t anybody who has a proper skill set and hockey IQ to take over a top six spot for a long period of time.
Kunitz doesn’t need to be on the first power play. The Penguins have a wealth of talent in that regard, especially once Malkin and Hornqvist are back. Not playing him in this role will also serve as a way of limiting his minutes and keeping him fresher for even strength play.
Make these changes and continue to monitor the situation. If his hands don’t come back the Penguins are in a world of hurt because I don’t know where they will find the production that Kunitz normally gives them.
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Craig Adams fought Steve Ott after the Penguins took a 2-0 lead. This had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. It was a meaningless event even if some of the Blues players made claims about “momentum”.
Travis Yost actually did a study back in August of 2013 that found the team that lost the fight actually scored the next goal in the game 54% of the time.
So, just to be clear here: if you're an enforcer / fighting-specialist and beat the living hell out of some poor guy in a hockey game last year, there was a better than 54% chance your team was going to concede the next goal.
Colton Orr, Mike Brown, Jared Boll, Brandon Prust -- a bunch of guys who fought last year, and a bunch of guys who saw the opposition go on to score the next goal more often than not.
Everyone's favorite top-six power-forwards Milan Lucic and Chris Stewart won a combined seven fights in more or less bloodbath-fashion last year. Never once did the Bruins or the Blues, respectively, score the next goal.
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Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of how little something like fighting should have on future outcomes can see that this 54%-to-46% data set is nothing more than getting lucky (or, unlucky) on a series of coin-flips. Realistically, the number should be just about 50%-50%. The methodology in this study is questionable, too. My guess is that an even-more rigourous aproach, with score-effect adjustments and the lot, will turn up what everyone expects: there's truly nothing to see, because fighting is irrelevant to future performance.
I suppose Ian Cole’s fight with Matt Hendricks when the Oilers were down 3-0 to the Penguins got Edmonton’s juices flowing for their comeback? Well, actually the Penguins scored the next goal to make it 4-0. The Oilers then scored four straight to tie the game. So who gets the momentum points here?
Sidney Crosby fought Brandon Dubinsky on February 19. The captain fought his rival. Shouldn’t that have fired the Penguins up? Penguins lost 2-1 on a Brandon Dubinsky goal that happened more than a period later.
On February 17 Robert Bortuzzo fought Michael Latta of the Capitals in the second period in a 1-1 game. Washington scored twice late in the third period to win 3-1. Momentum points for Latta!
The thing about these momentum claims is that they are always in hindsight after the fact. You can’t make these claims in the moment because it is a coin flip on who will score the next goal. This stuff doesn’t matter and it is just people reaching to justify the existence of these meaningless game events. Yawn.
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I really like what Daniel Winnik has brought to the Penguins. He is a legitimate bottom six player on a team that has struggled to find them. Winnik played his best game of his Penguins tenure last night. It also coincided with being on Sidney Crosby’s wing.
While Winnik had his best game Sutter did not. Losing Winnik to the Crosby line had the opposite effect for him. Sutter looked lost and did not play well. Sutter led all forwards in shot attempts against with 20. This is just another example of why player usage matters.
You have players that drive quality play like Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Martin.
You have complementary players who do a really nice job when partnered up with drivers IE: Perron, Hornqvist, Kunitz, Dupuis, and Winnik.
You have passengers who aren’t awful but don’t really do anything with improved usage like Nick Spaling.
You have anchors like Brandon Sutter, Max Lapierre, Craig Adams, and Zach Sill who drag the players they are with down.
And then you have guys like Beau Bennett that are stuck in a gray area between complementary and passenger.
When you understand who these types of players are you can better allocate where the players are positioned in the lineup. This will improve success rates and also temper what realistic expectations are of each player depending on who you pair them up with.
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Christian Ehrhoff left with what appeared to be another head trauma related injury (my own speculation). Considering he is coming off of a concussion this could potentially end his season. This is not good news. It has been a rough year for Ehrhoff during his Pittsburgh tenure.
Penguins will face Jordan Staal and the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.
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