Two days after blowing a two goal third period lead to a team missing their star player the Penguins scored an own goal on themselves playing in a college arena. It was a perfect sequence and distillation of how the season has gone.
Per @AZCoyotesPR and NHL Stats, the Coyotes (who were on the man-advantage while this happened) became the first team to score a PPG without recording a powerplay shot in a game. Just crazy stuff https://t.co/K6wWmtPIfR
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) January 23, 2024
The Penguins have decent underlying numbers. They’ve gotten great goaltending. Sidney Crosby is dialed in and giving them yet another superstar caliber season. Yet, here they are. What could this team do if they have a competent power play? We can’t even get the answer to what could this team do if they don’t score on themselves on the power play at this point. It is a damning theme and one I would have never predicted.
Don’t get me wrong not everything else is perfect with this team. They are aging, the free agent acquisitions have largely been blah to catastrophic (Graves), and the second line has gone as Reilly Smith has, underwhelming. The power play remains the most frustrating and harmful. They are the 31st ranked power play in the league at 13.3%. I repeat they are the 31st ranked power play in the league at 13.3%. How is that even possible? There’s bad luck, which this isn’t, and then there’s being disjointed the entire season. It has been a laughable display instead of what it should be, one of their most powerful weapons.
The players deserve and have received a lot of criticism for their performance on this front so far this year. The coaches have been on their end of it, too. For me, I just don’t believe Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson, and Jake Guentzel cannot be the guts of a very good power play. So at what point do you make the changes that are the easiest? You aren’t getting rid of the first three players and you shouldn’t be looking to get rid of the fourth. At some point the coaching has to be held accountable. You can’t keep barreling down this road with no accountability. At some point you have to make some personnel changes.
The Penguins cap situation does not provide the team any flexibility. For the most part they are who they are. Trading away the skilled players just creates another hole and one you likely aren’t filling with a cheaper, let alone as productive, player. This leaves the coaching as one of the options with little barrier to make changes. I’m not on a fire Mike Sullivan at all costs bandwagon. The underlying numbers of this team are pretty darn good all things considered with an aging team. However, the results are not matching the process. The team finishing hasn’t been nearly good enough the past few years. Their inability to cash in has been a running problem and is harming their ability to compete.
It is my understanding Todd Reirden runs the power play and the defense. Two of the most glaring issues with the team. The power play speaks for itself. I think it is a fireable offense on its own and I would have done it by now. The Ryan Graves situation isn’t great. The contract looks awful and we are only halfway through the first season of the five-year deal. Pierre-Olivier Joseph isn’t a top four defenseman, but at times he doesn’t even look like a bottom pairing defenseman. Perhaps I’m being unfair, but the defense coach has some guys severely underperforming. Again, the power play performance is fireable on its own so even if you didn’t want to entertain the defense angle I would still move on.
The other option is to fire Mike Sullivan which I think would be a seismic move. There are valid arguments on both sides of the discussion. Pros to keeping him are that the underlying numbers are solid and the team's leadership group still appear to trust his guidance. The other side of the coin is that Sullivan has been here a long time and the results have been middling for multiple years. No playoff series wins since 2018 and as mentioned above, a big finishing problem in spite of the solid overall play. Fresh voices have shown to turn teams around in the past, albeit no guarantee.
For me, Todd Reirden being relieved of his duties would be the obvious first step in what could be many to make an attempt to help solve some of the more glaring issues on the team. Kyle Dubas needs to do something at this point. YOu can’t just sit there and let this continue to fester.
Even if the Penguins realistic expectations are deflating with each passing day of the season they really have no other option, but to try and fix it the best they can. They went all-in. This is the bed they made. I don’t regret the mindset or approach. I also don’t love how they’ve gone about it with the depth choices.
The reality is you aren’t stripping this roster down or starting a rebuild after committing to the players they’ve committed to. This train is already heading down this track and there’s no train fork in sight. Ownership and Dubas have to own this and now act accordingly. Perhaps start with firing the guy in charge of the power play and go from there.
Thanks for reading!