Raise your hand if you had the Arizona Coyotes defeating both the Los Angeles Kings and the Pittsburgh Penguins to start the 2015-16 season on back to back nights. Me neither. It doesn’t change the fact that the consensus choice for worst team in the league out worked and out played Pittsburgh in the beginning stages of the game. The two goals that were scored in that time period were enough to defeat Pittsburgh 2-1.
So I suppose I’ll lead with the one highlight for Pittsburgh. Phil Kessel scored his first goal with the team and it was great because it showcased just how deadly that shot can be.
That was about it for Pittsburgh because then these things happened
The third period push was solid but when the opposing goalie turns on God mode there isn’t much you can do. To avoid this problem you can play better for the first two thirds of the game.
This was a disappointing loss and there isn’t really another way to spin it, but it is also the second game of the year. We don’ know what kind of team the Penguins are yet. Nobody does. Nobody knows about the other 29 teams either.
Concerning last night was the number 36.11%. That was Sidney Crosby’s CF% at even-strength. It was the worst on the team. It is usually a shocking development when that number dips anything below 47% let alone 10 percentage points lower. He just didn’t play good enough last night. I don’t believe this is going to be a regular thing but last night it negatively impacted the team’s ability to win. Crosby still does not have a shot on goal in this young season.
Through two games the Penguins coaching staff does not seem interested in finding anything out about Daniel Sprong. At this rate he is definitely not going to be on the team in 7 more games. I find myself disappointed because I do think he has the potential to be an NHL player now and he really isn’t being put in a situation to give answers on that front. In training camp he was one of the best forwards. I understand that the competition in preseason games is not identical to regular season NHL games but it isn’t like it is way off either. He needs more minutes. In his very limited 16:56 of even-strength action has a CF% of 53.85. That is certainly acceptable.
Pittsburgh’s suspect defense corp. has lived up to its billing to this point. Here is the five on five possession breakdown from the first two games:
There is the top pairing of Kris Letang and Ian Cole and then there is the rest.
Olli Maatta needs to be better. Perhaps at this stage of the game Ian Cole is a better candidate to play with Ben Lovejoy. The Maatta situation is one to keep track of. He has missed a ton of game action due to unfortunate things and he may need more time before he can prop up another defense partner. Pittsburgh needs Maatta to be a productive player. Originally I thought splitting Letang and Maatta was the way to go but the third year player may need a few games with Pittsburgh’s best guy to get him back into the swing of things.
If these numbers continue to track this way Derrick Pouliot is going to be back with the big club much sooner than later.
Three games into the year and we still can’t get a power play with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel on the same unit.
Pittsburgh has their home opener on Tuesday. So far Antti Niemi and Mike Smith have played out of their minds. Carey Price is up next, no big deal.
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Thank you to everybody at the Rochester Institute of Technology Hockey Analytics Conference who took the time to meet with me and have great discussions. I highly recommend attending one of these conferences in the future if you love hockey.
After I go back through the presentations I will come up with some Penguins-centric posts that dive into some of the new information that was presented.
Thanks for reading!
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