Two roster moves of note this morning.
The first will get the Penguins six defensemen again:
#Pens have recalled D Taylor Chorney from WBS.
— Wes Crosby (@OtherNHLCrosby) April 3, 2015
Why Taylor Chorney? He is the cheapest and only guy they can fit into the salary cap even with the emergency recall. The Penguins have done a poor job with the cap ceiling management this year even with the influx of injuries they have sustained. This is a product of signing a multi year extension to a below-replacement level player like Adams. Ray Shero's extension to Craig Adams was a 35+ deal meaning he can't be sent down to the AHL to hide salary. Only ~100k would be saved by that demotion.
Adam Gretz of CBS Sports expressed why he feels the Penguins cap management this year has been unacceptable. You might see a few similar themes in his work that you have seen in this blog this year. Overpaying for player production you can get elsewhere cheaper can bite you in the butt and it has.
You can find Adam's article here.
The second move is the more interesting one in my book even if it pays no dividends at the NHL level this season:
The #Pens have re-assigned forward Kasperi Kapanen (@kaspara1tis) to the @WBSPenguins: http://t.co/SSBQ0yuvBe pic.twitter.com/QkL1FEAH8k
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) April 3, 2015
Kasperi Kapanen is North American bound. I am looking forward to watching him play with the Baby Penguins and I also have absolutely no expectation of NHL game action for the 2014-15 season. I don't think that is a realistic expectation to place on him.
There is only one spot he can play at the NHL level and that is with other skilled offensive players. I don't think he is quite there yet. I think sticking in the AHL for a playoff run is beneficial at this point in time.
The only exception would be if he hits the ground running and starts to average over a point per game, but remember Beau Bennett had five points in only two AHL games this season. The points don't translate if the player isn't ready or if the player isn't put in proper situation to offensively succeed (QoT).
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For our friends who feel as though the sky is falling and the Senators are hot on the Penguins trail:
In fact I would argue this slide hasn't hurt the Penguins at all. Let me draw attention to these odds:
See that 10% on the right hand side. That is a playoff team that is ripe for the picking. Michael Therrien's "system" is not good despite some claims to the contrary. It stifles skilled play and relies on insane levels of PDO to sustain success.
Don't believe me? Go look at the 2007-08 Penguins team and then take a gander at Marc-Andre Fleury's statistics. He was an animal that year and hid a lot of flaws. The Penguins were a bad possession team (28th overall) riding Crosby, Malkin, Hossa, and Fleury. Fast forward to the next year and that same system had the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions missing the playoffs. Fleury didn't play out of his mind and the whole thing came crumbling apart. It isn't a system as much as it is my goalie is playing out of his f'ing mind.
Long story short if Carey Price slips up even a hair the Canadiens goose will be cooked. In the last 20 games the Canadiens have a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 46.8% which is 24th overall. Only the Calgary Flames are lower among playoff hopefuls at 27th overall 44.7%. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the best team during this sample size at 54.8%.
Using the last twenty games of Score-Adjusted Fenwick and picking the team who is better has a predictive power of 68.2%. Any betting man will tell you how great those odds are.
Perhaps this slide in the standings will pay huge dividends.
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Hard to assess Malkin's status w/o knowing nature of injury, but there's no overt evidence of anything that would prevent him from playing.
— Dave Molinari (@MolinariPG) April 3, 2015
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