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Fair or not Sid has to be better at even-strength |
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The Penguins are one of the better teams in the league on the power play. This has been the team’s lifeblood this year. Without this power play the team would be in even worse shape than they are. There are two major factors holding the team back this year. Goaltending and even-strength offense. Both will probably rebound a little bit from their league worst levels, but when?
When looking at the even-strength scoring issues the easiest scape goat is the Penguins depth at the forward position. This is certainly playing a big role. It can’t be ignored and it won’t be ignored on this blog. However, there should be some pause for concern with the Penguins best player.
Pittsburgh is a top heavy team and one of the key components of the roster is not pulling their weight this year. Sidney Crosby has been a bad even-strength player as it pertains to tangible offense. In fact, he’s been horrible. I’d rip on Tanner Glass or Craig Adams for putting up these rates of offense and Sidney Crosby isn’t immune to it either. Sidney Crosby has 33 points so far this year and 16 of them are on the power play. Obviously, there is a huge difference in his time on ice 5v5 when compared to his minutes on the power play (495 vs 137). I understand it is easier to generate points on the power play, but it’s been “easy” for Sidney Crosby to also generate offense at even-strength throughout his career. The Mike Johnston era was previously Sidney Crosby’s lowest offensive output at even-strength. He went from god-like production (3.0 pts per 60 or higher) to just another regular top line player. This was considered “bad” for Sid. It made sense because of the standard that he had put forth for nearly a decade. Right now Crosby’s production is at a career low.
Johnston era: 2.23 5v5 points per 60
2017-18: 1.09 5v5 points per 60.
Ouch.
In a year where the team is really relying on Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel to produce they can’t afford to have one of those three producing like Tanner Glass. It is a lot of pressure on those three players to bring it every night. It’s even tougher now to expect nightly dominance now that all three are in their thirties. Right now Sid is going through a rough patch. I don’t believe for a second he is going to stay around 1.09 for the rest of the year. However, this highlights just how risky it is to be top heavy with your roster. Between depth and Crosby’s down year that is how you end up being one of the worst even-strength producing team in the league. Pittsburgh is only better than Arizona and Buffalo right now. Not great company.
Could the downfall be Sid’s offseason training? Absolutely not. The only reason I bring that up is to tie in the fact that he is playing his offseason training partner Nathan MacKinnon tonight. The Avalanche center is the proud owner of a 2.65 5v5 points per 60.
Fair or not Sid has to be better at even-strength or this team will be in a dogfight for the playoffs all year instead of pulling away in the standings like a team going for a three-peat would like to be. This is the situation the general manager has put Sid, Geno, and Phil in. Rutherford could and most likely will help in getting some depth to help Sid get some easier minutes and that never hurts when you are going through a rough patch. This would be a great start to not only solving Sid’s issues, but the team’s overall issues. Another way to get him going could be to play him with Evgeni Malkin at even-strength at the end of periods or by manipulating TV timeouts like Bylsma used to. Something has to give before the Penguins dig themselves a hole they can’t get out of.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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