It may not feel like it but the Pittsburgh Penguins have won five out of their last six games. Pittsburgh, mainly Marc-Andre Fleury, held Washington’s lethal attack to only one goal last night.
Fleury has played in every single game so far this season for the Penguins and is boasting a very impressive .945 even-strength save percentage. Only Ryan Miller and Ben Bishop have played more than Fleury so far this season. The team will need to start giving Jeff Zatkoff some starts (very likely he gets first start tonight) before they run Fleury into the ground.
The good news is that this highly productive play has earned victories. It has also hidden some problematic defensive issues with the team. Fleury will not continue to play quite at this level so the team needs to improve in order to sustain success IE: winning.
Currently the Penguins ranked 27th overall in shot attempts against per 60 at 58.8. This isn’t very good and if the team wants to challenge for a championship it needs to be cleaned up. People can blame Mike Johnston’s “system… if they want to but that same system had the Penguins 4th overall in the league last year at 49.9.
So if the team is bleeding shot attempts against anyways why not try to get some personnel in the lineup that have more puck skill? Yes I am talking about both Derrick Pouliot and Adam Clendening. More puck skill on the back end leads right into the next topic…
Last night was the first time that the Penguins have scored three goals in regulation this year. Pittsburgh’s first two goals can be traced to the defensemen getting the puck to a forward for a clean zone entry. This is something that has been lacking so far this year.
Pittsburgh-Washington 5v5 Tracked Turnovers By Zone through 3rd period pic.twitter.com/NWNRiejFYW
— TempoFreeHockey (@TempoFreeHockey) October 29, 2015
You can see the Penguins are dumping the puck in and are not retrieving it at a highly successful rate. They need more controlled entries like the ones that led to goals last night. Even when Pittsburgh has the puck in the offensive zone there is no threat from the blue line to help create offense.
An example I noticed last night was when David Perron and Kris Letang were on the offensive half wall and performed a “scissor play…. It is a play when the defensemen pinches down low along the wall while his team has full possession. It is in effect a cycle with the D man higher up in the offensive zone to create more time and space. You can leave the puck for the d man or do what David Perron did, keep it and gain the middle of the ice up high in the offensive zone. These are very simplistic plays but ones that most of Pittsburgh’s defensemen can’t make effectively. When players like Sidney Crosby work the puck from low to high and there is no real threat from the blue line the other teams notice and leave those guys open and press harder on Crosby’s time and space.
Beau Bennett hasn’t been on the ice enough for the team but when he so far in 2015-16 he has been highly productive. He has a very impressive Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 56.22% and a team leading 5v5 points/60 of 2.75. It might be prudent to try him in the top six to see what they can get out of him even if that means playing the left wing. Let’s face it the other left wingers aren’t doing anything so far this year.
Power play is still atrocious. You can rinse and repeat my prior analysis on the subject.
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Dan Bylsma makes his first return to Pittsburgh since being let go by the team. Dan Bylsma was a very good coach for the Penguins. Like most coaches his shelf live came and went but the Penguins did well under his tenure. Two major themes that defined his playoff shortcomings were atrocious goaltending by Marc-Andre Fleury for multiple seasons and towards the end his tenure his reliance on untalented veteran players over more skilled younger ones.
Dan Bylsma should receive a warm reception. He is the all-time winningest coach in the franchise and his tenure was an overall positive era for the team despite some people upset with only one championship. Injuries, goaltending, and a general manager who did not provide proper depth make for tough hurdles to overcome against the league’s best at the end of the year.
Jack Eichel is a super exciting player and I am looking forward to how he does against Sid and Geno.
Buffalo will be without Evander Kane tonight. He has a knee injury which will keep him out of the lineup for 4-6 weeks.
Thanks for reading!