The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Mike Sullivan era are off to an 0-2 start. Is the team playing better?
People that view things in black and white are going to struggle with trying to figure out the 2015-16 Penguins. There are so many layers to what has gone on so far this year it does not lend itself to easy analysis. You have a coach who was successful in 2014-15 changing his system to something that didn't work in 2015-16. You have a lot of roster turnover from last year. You have injuries (as all teams do). You have a goaltender who was hiding those systematic issues for most of the year. You have roster holes that have not been addressed which were evident as far back as July (top four defense holes). And now have a new coach.
The team is playing better than they did under Mike Johnston through two games, but don't confuse playing better as an acceptable standard for the bigger picture. They still need to generate more offense. The only have one goal in the last two games despite 148 shot attempts on goal. That isn't going to cut it.
Against Washington it was a case of bad luck. They had 64 shot attempts and 14 of those were considered high danger. Holtby was excellent. Last night against the Bruins only 7 of their 59 attempts were from the high danger area. Boston had 10 high danger attempts out of their 37 shot attempts. Tuukka Rask was barely challenged and the Bruins ratio of danger attempts was problematic. That is going to happen when you open things up more than they've been. The key is you need to also generate high danger chances. Last night the Penguins did not.
Despite those 10 high danger chances for Boston the two goals they scored weren't anything to write home about. Max Talbot "sniped" Jeff Zatkoff who needs to have that shot and the other one was a fluky bad angle pass/shot that went off of Ian Cole's skate and in the net. Those are examples of why shot attempt volume is important in the modern NHL. There are a lot of weird/lucky goals in the sport.
The good news is that the past two games the Penguins are not bleeding shot attempts like they did under Johnston and they have still been able to generate their own. Over time that will lead to better results than they have been getting.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons they didn't generate many high danger shot attempts against Boston. They gained speed through the neutral zone and earned a 3 on 2 only for the trailer to bail out on the play inexplicably:
Ben Lovejoy doesn't have time for odd-man rushes https://t.co/VgyDdnWYF0
— Chad....... (@MadChad412) December 17, 2015
What on earth was that?
Also not helping Mike Sullivan's cause is not having Kris Letang in the lineup. Even a mediocre Letang is better than the rest of the lot.
The Penguins are 1-7-2 in their last 10 regular season games with Letang out of the lineup.
— Bob Grove (@bobgrove91) December 17, 2015
Last night against Boston was a nightmare for Sidney Crosby. Each time he had the puck there was literally no puck support. It is impossible for any player to function in the modern NHL if he has no puck support. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to bump Phil Kessel back to the Crosby line for a little bit considering there is a new coach and a new system.
It hasn't led to anything yet but Phil Kessel is a lot more noticeable through the neutral zone in the two games under Mike Sullivan than the larger sample with Mike Johnston this year.
One negative you can say for Sullivan is that whatever he is trying to accomplish on the power play is void of logic. I don't know a single star in the NHL that does well playing the strong side wing on the power play yet there was Sidney Crosby on the left side. Stop with that.
Every Penguins power play should have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel as the core trio. Make it work. This is probably one of the most frustrating things to watch about the Penguins.
The fixes are so incredibly simple yet I haven't seen any evidence of the team working towards them. The key is to have the defenseman up top be an active skater who is also willing to shoot. Another flaw I see is that when the player on the half wall passes the puck down low he doesn't clear the half wall and cut to the net. The cut to the net does two things. The first is that you may catch a PK guy napping and have a quick high quality give and go. The more likely result is that it draws a PK guy with him and it clears out the passing lane up to the defenseman. That pass needs to be quick (bank it )The player down low who makes the pass to the defensemen follows his pass up and skates to the half wall. The D man then walks the blue line fast. He either has a shooting lane (great) or the PK guy chases into his lane which allows a return pass to the player who is now filling that half wall/top of the circle position. The nice thing about the earlier give an go that started this sequence is that if the defenseman has a shooting lane you already have a built in screen from that player going to the net.
This movement will create lanes whether they are shooting or passing.
Until that happens they will continue to be a perimeter power play that looks longingly for East/West passing lanes that don't exist.
Overall this is probably the proper take on the team at the moment
@Jay32600 @vinnybatts This is where I am. Still a deeply flawed team, but good evidence so far the previous system was a big issue as well.
— Andy Smith (@thatandysmith) December 17, 2015
The Penguins get the Bruins again tomorrow night. Will we see Matt Murray's NHL debut?
Thanks for reading!