The Pittsburgh Penguins have a new coach and with that comes a new approach. A new coach is going to have their own thought process and preferences with the things get done. Included in that are line combinations.
There is no telling what Mike Sullivan is going to do with his forward lines. These are things we will learn as time goes on.
Something that may come up again with a new coach is the idea of Phil Kessel playing with Sidney Crosby. On the surface there may be hesitation to consider that again but the notion that those two completely lacked chemistry is probably an over the top assumption. If you recall Phil Kessel led the Penguins in the preseason with three goals and two assists in the four games he played, all while with Sidney Crosby. Crosby had two goals and two assists in those same four games.
Their short lived regular season sample size did not produce enough tangible results. Sidney Crosby started off the season ice cold and was unable to register a point until the team's sixth game. Phil Kessel was bumped over to the Malkin line and those two did indeed start producing points.
However, the Malkin-Kessel duo has been relatively quiet lately. In the last seven games Phil Kessel only has two goals and if you recall they came against San Jose. One was an empty netter and the other one was a fluke bounce. Given the cold streak I wanted to see how the Crosby-Kessel and Malkin-Kessel duos stacked up against one another:
Crosby and Kessel had an extremely low on-ice shooting percentage when they were together. This completely hampered their ability to generate tangible offense. There is no chance those two would continue to have an on-ice shooting percentage that low if their sample size was increased.
The Corsi For per 60 numbers for each duo are very close to one another with the Crosby duo having a slight edge. Possession edge goes to Malkin, but overall there isn't anything here that screams one duo is a whole lot better than the other.
The point I am trying to make is that perhaps the idea Crosby and Kessel can't play together is premature. The door should not be closed forever on those two getting back on the same line.
I personally think that Phil Kessel can play with either of the Penguins top two centers. I don't really have a preference on which one Kessel plays with.
The team has a new coach and one would imagine a new system. What didn't work with Mike Johnston might not be the case with Mike Sullivan. Remember, all Penguins players were experiencing a drop in production under Mike Johnston.
Don't be surprised if Crosby and Kessel get back together at some point this year and don't just assume it won't work now because it didn't before.
Thanks for reading!