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Penguins need on-ice help, not a Dad

December 9, 2017, 10:58 AM ET [114 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Matt Cullen was recently a healthy scratch for the Minnesota Wild. Naturally, this will raise the eyebrows in Pittsburgh. He was a beloved depth player in his two years with the Penguins and when you look at the current bottom six forward situation it makes sense on the surface to consider perhaps making an inquiry about him.

Let's go a little deeper than the surface to see if this is even worth entertaining. First things first why was Matt Cullen valuable to the Penguins? The biggest thing that comes to mind for me was his offensive production in a fourth line role. He was regularly producing at the rate of a solid third line player. That has great value. It's one of the many reasons Pittsburgh was a runaway train in the 2016 playoffs. Teams couldn't match their scoring. Throughout Cullen's career he was a good possession player as well. That side of things has declined and last year Cullen wasn't very good at playing in the other end. Now some of that has to do with the ridiculous amount of defensive zone starts (~45%). The other factor is age regression. The dude is closer to grandpa than dad in NHL years.

There was always a risk of age catching up with Cullen when the Penguins had him the previous two years. In 2017-18 Cullen has been objectively bad. The offense that made up for poor possession has gone away. HIs possession now is horrific and when combined with paltry offense you have a much deserved healthy scratch. Even penalty killing isn't very good, at least not an improvement on what Pittsburgh has now. In 4v5 CA/60 Cullen is the 111th ranked forward at 106.88. Pittsburgh has Riley Sheahan (97), Tom Kuhnhackl (95), Carter Rowney (49), and Carl Hagelin (22) all with better shot suppression metrics.

Here is how Cullen's 2017-18 stacks up next to Carter Rowney so far this year




Cullen does produce more offense than Rowney, but again, it's not enough to move the needle to overcome the other stuff. Minnesota is one of the worst possession teams in the league this year and Cullen is -11.22% relative to his teammates. That is really bad. His defensive zone starts have actually gone down by 11% (34.24%) as well.

Given all of the evidence there is nothing here to suggest that bringing Cullen back in a niche role would be an improvement for the Penguins. Pittsburgh should be looking to make Riley Sheahan their fourth line center. Bringing in Cullen would be a step towards the team leaning on Sheahan on the third line for their quest to three-peat. I'm not sure that's going to be good enough. I think the team is going to have to trade for another winger and put Guentzel at center or just straight up acquire a better center option.

Matt Cullen was a great signing for the Penguins. I don't think he'd be a great trade at this point. This would be a nostalgia driven move. Not one based in Cullen's 2017-18 underwhelming on-ice production.



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