The Penguins are back in action tonight after being off since Saturday. They are in Detroit to play the Red Wings in their first matchup of the season. The morning skate was optional so we are going to go with the lines from practice yesterday. They were unchanged from Saturday’s victory over the Flames
The Penguins are sticking with the same lines/D-pairs:
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) October 17, 2023
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Smith-Malkin-Rakell
O'Connor-Eller-Harkins
Nieto-Acciari-Carter
Graves-Letang
Pettersson-Karlsson
Joseph-Ruhwedel
Ludvig-Shea
After three games, the Penguins third line is performing very poorly from an xGF% perspective. The trio is 37.03% there. I personally don’t have a long leash on any players in the bottom six. Kyle Dubas’ strategy was to flood the organization with nondescript bottom six options. If this line doesn’t perform well tonight I would blow it up. You don’t have to wait ten games or so for them to figure it out because the ceiling with the types of players the Penguins have available aren’t all that high to begin with. You aren’t running the risk of moving on from a potential diamond in the rough offensive depth scenario. The first move if things don’t go well tonight would be to move on from Jansen Harkins. He was a waiver wire pickup dart throw. No reason to be loyal to a fault. You have players like Radim Zohorna, Valtteri Puustinen, Vinny Hinsostroza, Colin White and Alex Nylander who would love their chance to get in the lineup. I’m way more amendable to seeing how those options go than another poor third line performance with Harkins.
Drew O’Connor has a solid history of being a solid xGF% player so I’m willing to bet he isn’t the issue here given his past NHL sample and his preseason this year. The past few seasons Lars Eller has been in the ~50% range in xGF% so being around 41% at the moment seems a little low. That leaves Harkins and his individual xGF% of 25.38, lowest on the team. Perhaps it is just a bad fit for Harkins, but he’s the guy I have the least amount of leeway for on this line. The point of all the depth players, per Kyle Dubas, was the purpose of an honest competition. This is where Dubas and Sullivan have to come together and have a plan of action in case things don’t remedy themselves. I think many had tempered expectations heading into the season with the third line and even then I don’t think the current level of play comes close to meeting them.
It is only three games and tonight could be a very successful night for them. I just wouldn’t let things play out too long if it isn’t.
The Red Wings are supposedly going to have the same forward lines as they did in their last game which are:
Tonight in Columbus. â¤µï¸ pic.twitter.com/hhRlB6hBkQ
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 16, 2023
We have a couple former Penguins in David Perron and Daniel Sprong on the third line. Jeff Petry has been a healthy scratch and no word if he will be in the lineup against his former team tonight. Ville Husso is the likely starter and not James Reimer.
Can the Penguins top six keep cooking and will the bottom six join the party? We’ll find out tonight.
Thanks for reading!