The injury front for the Penguins is going to get worse before it gets better. Mike Matheson has recently been assessed to be week to week.
Coach Sullivan said defenseman Mike Matheson is going to be out week-to-week with an upper-body injury.
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) February 25, 2022
As much as the forwards have been hurt this year the defense has been very healthy, until now. The Penguins have been fortunate to play the same lineup night after night. In fact, this will be the first change in quite some time
For the first time since November 13, the Penguins will be without one of their top six defensemen.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 25, 2022
Updates from today's practice: https://t.co/saNWlV6UPP pic.twitter.com/CmdNjyOnmB
This injury will be felt. We can have a discussion about if it is really the best allocation of resources to pay a bottom-pairing defenseman 4.5M for years and years, but the fact is in his sheltered role Matheson has been effective this season. He has utility when his deployment is easier and plays to his strengths. This has been the case in 2021-22 and Mike Sullivan deserves credit for affording him the opportunity to do so instead of force feeding him minutes he can’t handle because of his cap hit.
You can see the spike on the line graph and what his new role has done to his results. Whoever is replacing Matheson isn’t likely to play at that level. The good news is whether it is Pierre-Olivier Joseph or Mark Friedman replacing Matheson they won’t be thrown into the fire. They are entering a sheltered role. You can’t ask for much more than that. This isn’t like losing a player with difficult deployment and then having to force a square peg into a round hole and watch the player flounder with a difficult assignment. Matheson is a luxury item and while it is nice to have you should also be able to navigate its absence, as long as the others remain in the lineup.
I think this is a good opportunity to see what Pierre-Olivier Joseph has. He’s been in the AHL for an extended period of time and I like seeing he has 28 points in 40 games this season. The offensive pulse is a good indicator things are going well down there and it is reasonable to expect him to perform at an acceptable level in a bottom pairing sheltered role with the big club. The more the Penguins can learn about him the better and while the Matheson injury doesn’t help seeing Joseph get an extended look can be the silver lining.
Thanks for reading!