Boo! Halloween may be over, but that doesn’t mean the scares are over. The Penguins have another back to back set of games starting tonight! This hasn’t gone well so far in this young season. They are routinely getting clobbered on the second of the two games.
There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered as we continue to move forward in the 2017-18 season. Lately a lot of those questions have centered on the Penguins ability to compete in those back to back games. There have also been legitimate questions about the Penguins ability to suppress shots and win the possession battle. I’m going to throw those on the back burner for now and focus on a trend that I think will eventually move in the right direction
Travis Yost of TSN wrote a nice piece about shooting percentage regression and what it means to be incredibly hot or cold at the beginning of the season.
Before this article Montreal was shooting 4.1%. Since then: 12.1%. And even w/ horrifying start, now at 6.8% YTD.https://t.co/kudo5IIyU2
— Travis Yost (@travisyost) October 31, 2017
This is encouraging for the Penguins. Here is what their 5v5 shooting percentages have looked like since 2007-08.
It always ends up in the same range. I believe it will this year as well. There is valid concern about Pittsburgh’s forward depth and how skilled they are, but there are some Dan Bylsma years on that chart that had the same issue and they still found a way to get their shooting percentage to where it was.
When the regression starts the goals should be easier to come by. Based on how Pittsburgh plays defense they are going to need them.
What’s up with Kris Letang? Tyler Dellow of The Athletic had a really nice breakdown on him today:
Wrote about why Letang's such a crititical driver for PIT and why his possession numbers are down. https://t.co/tWjih0OCcO
— dellowhockey (@dellowhockey) November 1, 2017
What seems to be going on here is an increase in the percentage of what I call disaster shifts – shifts in which a player is on the ice for more than one shot attempt against. From 2015-17 under Sullivan, if Letang was on the ice for a shot attempt against, 70.1 percent of the time, it was the only shot attempt against on his shift. In 2017-18, that's fallen to 64.8 percent.That might seem like a small change. It's not. I attribute about 60 percent of the increase in the rate at which Letang allows shot attempts when he's on the ice to the increase in disaster shifts, with the remaining 40 percent split fairly equally between the increase in the frequency with which the opposition gets at least one shot attempt on a shift and the mix in his shift types changing towards one on which opposition shot attempts are more likely.
Dellow goes on to talk about how the frequency of Pittsburgh getting the first shot attempt when Letang is on the ice has gone down. Pittsburgh’s inability to exit the zone and having disaster shifts has neutered the positives of Letang’s transition and offensive game.
The team really needs Kris Letang to be the player he has always been. So far this year he has been a little bit off. Understandable considering how last year ended for him. Doesn’t change the fact other teams are taking advantage of Pittsburgh right now in areas that they used to struggle in.
Sidney Crosby vs Connor McDavid part two will happen tonight. The United States will be getting Philadelphia and Chicago instead.
Thanks for reading!