The Pittsburgh Penguins are straight fire right now. Winners of six in a row after sweeping the weekend slate of games against Philadelphia and Washington.
Pittsburgh isn't getting by on flukey bounces and PDO they are suffocating their opponents. In the games this weekend Marc-Andre Fleury only saw 35 shots total.
A game after holding the Flyers to a season low 17 shots, the Pens limit the Caps to a season low 18 shots. @NHLonNBCSports
— Liam McHugh (@liam_mchugh) March 21, 2016
Pens tonight matched their all-time low of shots allowed to Caps in a home GP (18, done twice, most recently April 15, 1992).
— Bob Grove (@bobgrove91) March 21, 2016
Daily xG Chart - WSH vs. PIT 2016-03-21 pic.twitter.com/KvcAru40eF
— DTM About Heart (@DTMAboutHeart) March 21, 2016
Pittsburgh continues to improve on the possession front and it is moving in the direction of championship caliber level. Washington has been considered the favorite the entire season but they are trending in the opposite direction right now
*Chart created at Corsica Hockey*
I added two red dots which signify two impactful events, one for each team. The first red dot is the coaching change for the Penguins. It is pretty clear the impact that it has had. The other red dot is John Carlson's injury for the Capitals. It is no coincidence that when Carlson went down the Capitals were not able to maintain their previous standard. When Washington is able to swap out scrub defenseman Mike Weber for Carlson they should bounce back. Will the bounce back be enough for a potential round 2 matchup with the Penguins? It might not be.
2nd in CF% and 1st in SCF% since Sullivan took over. pic.twitter.com/Q5iXtKpXD2
— Shane O'Donnell (@shane1342o) March 21, 2016
Here is the obligatory Sidney Crosby point streak update: It's now up to 12 games after putting up two assists last night. He is in sole possession of third place in the scoring race and is only 4 points back of Jamie Benn with two games in hand.
Sidney Crosby was also named the first star of the week by the NHL today.
Kris Letang is officially in the midst of his most productive offensive season
Kris Letang set a new career high in points (55) with his assist on the Kunitz goal. Set new career high in goals (14) in Sat win vs PHI.
— Josh Getzoff (@PensJG) March 21, 2016
He deserves some Norris attention as the third candidate.
Tom Kuhnhackl is an interesting player moving forward. Big body, decent enough skater, and has a knack of finding open players in dangerous spots after curling. Both his goal and assist last night were top notch efforts. Here is the nice assist
Rust goal pic.twitter.com/Yxo0HGJHiN
— Stephanie (@myregularface) March 20, 2016
Kuhnhackl doesn't have a huge sample size and he is still adjusting to the NHL game, but not everything is roses. His relative possession numbers are very low. In fact other than Oskar Sundqvist he has the lowest relative Score-Adjusted Fenwick on the team at -6.28% this year. The good news is that the raw possession number is still decent enough at 50.87%. The team is playing great so even if you are on the lower end of the spectrum you are still staying afloat. This is a huge change from years past. Oskar Sundqvist is the obvious candidate to lose his roster spot when the Penguins get another healthy forward back but if Pittsburgh has two forwards come back who comes out? Using relative metrics is a good place to start the conversation and will be a bridge that needs crossing eventually. At the end of the day this is a great situation for the Penguins to be in. They haven't had these kind of playable options throughout the lineup in some time.
Trevor Daley has scored two big goals in as many games. That just wasn't going to happen with the other guy.
Mercy, what a shot by Justin Schultz to score his first goal with the Penguins.
Schultz piles on to the #Pens lead with a blast from the blue line. Goal replay: https://t.co/OnKDLri2UC pic.twitter.com/v4pSfKw8en
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 21, 2016
If Brian Dumoulin is out for a stretch somebody will have to replace him. That somebody should be Derrick Pouliot and not Ben Lovejoy. In fact for all the praise that people are throwing Ian Cole's way because he hasn't been a complete mess he still isn't playing better than Pouliot did.
The reason for the split stats for Cole is the first sample is before he was scratched for a long stretch of time and the latter is his performance since being included back into the lineup. Kudos for Ian Cole for shoring up his defensive shortcomings from earlier in the year but he still pales in comparison to Pouliot. One of these players should be a very important piece for the franchise moving forward and the other is just another run of the mill bottom pairing guy. The handling of Pouliot remains perplexing.
I am told no NHL hearing is scheduled from Mike Weber's 5-minute boarding major on Bryan Rust. #CapitalsTalk
— Chuck Gormley (@ChuckGormleyCSN) March 21, 2016
Business as usual for the league. Mike Weber is a scrub for an NHL player and brings no entertainment value or tangible benefit to his team. He was a bad player in Buffalo on a team that ranks as the league's worst ever possession in its history. Let that sink in for a minute. Why is Mike Weber? Because the league lets him be.
"That is not good."#CapsPens pic.twitter.com/R7z0x7GKBK
— NHL on NBC (@NHLonNBCSports) March 21, 2016
Pittsburgh has the day off to bask in the glory of their weekend. They won't play again until Thursday against the New Jersey Devils.
Thanks for reading!