The Pittsburgh Penguins played a team that is below average and treated them as such. Pittsburgh defeated the Colorado Avalanche by a score of 4-2 and controlled the flow of the game from start to finish. The Penguins were able to generate over 50 shot attempts for only the sixth time this season (twice against Edmonton).
There were a few variables in play that made that happen. The first was playing against one of the worst shot suppression teams in hockey. The other reasons were personnel related. The Penguins were without their worst defenseman and their worst forward. Rob Scuderi was benched and Pascal Dupuis retired due to his blood clot condition. The result was the team being able to move the puck much better and were also able to sustain more offensive zone time.
Rob Scuderi will find his way back into the lineup. That much is a guarantee. It can’t be on Friday though. The Penguins need to play a good team and evaluate how the roster from last night can function.
Beau Bennett is starting to make the most of his increased role. He scored two huge goals last night, both of which highlighted his ability with the puck on his stick. The Crosby line hasn’t looked this good in a while. Beau Bennett has been injury prone but many have confused him as a player who plays “soft…. The fact is he wins his board battles and frees the puck up for Crosby to skate in to. Those are the kind of plays that feed Crosby’s explosiveness on the ice. Those are the plays that Kunitz used to make all the time. Bennett did find himself in a bad collision towards the end of the game that looked much worse than it apparently was. The collision appeared to be knee to knee and dropped Bennett to the ice right away. The good news is that it appears all is well and Pittsburgh can continue to give him time on Crosby’s right wing.
Speaking of the ‘struggling’ Sidney Crosby. He had another assist and now has ten points in his last nine games. The NBCSN broadcast couldn’t help but sell their narrative that Crosby is still struggling. It is incredibly weird to me that the biggest star in hockey is on what most would consider a good run of points and they don’t talk that up but instead focus on things that are almost two months in the past.
Olli Maatta continues to generate offense from the back end. Generating offense from defensemen is supposedly a huge part of Mike Johnson’s plan of attack. To this point it has been a complete failure. Since Maatta has returned to game action he has two goals and two assists in three games. Given Maatta’s ability to generate offense it is probably past due to give him some power play time.
He and Kris Letang were tremendous against Colorado and led the way on the possession front
David Warsofsky is making the most of his opportunity. He has a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 57.00% in his four games with the team. He may not be on the active game roster the entire year but he is just another option the Penguins have that is better than Rob Scuderi. His ability to make plays with the puck is something that has been sorely lacking on this team. His willingness to shoot the puck is also a welcomed addition.
Patric Hornvist found the scoresheet again. He was the beneficiary of two plays from Olli Maatta and it resulted in a goal and an assist. Secondary scoring has been an issue for Pittsburgh lately and if they are able to generate offense from the third line that will go a long way in improving their odds of winning games.
Here is some buzz about the Penguins on the trade front
Dreger: Rutherford has "got his eye on a couple of defensemen he thinks would help" #Pens. But has to be dollar in, dollar out w/ cap.
— Chris Nichols (@NicholsOnHockey) December 10, 2015
There was a string of tweets from Chris Nichols about the Penguins. Here is the transcript of those tweets:
There's lots of chatter. There's lots of trade discussions." Part of convo on difficulty of making trades w/ cap situations in NHL. Dreger, asked if Jim Rutherford still has the trust of Mario Lemieux: "Yes, I believe he does. The confidence is still there."Dreger: "I don't feel like that win in Colorado is going to change things a whole lot.
Dreger: "I know that Jim Rutherford is working hard, trying to make a trade. He's still looking for that defenseman."
If it is going to be a dollar in and dollar out trade you are talking about players like Patric Hornqvist, Chris Kunitz, David Perron, and Rob Scuderi. It goes without saying that each of those players carries a different value on the trade market and one of them has negative value.
Dupuis’ “retirement… does change the landscape of what the Penguins can do. Freeing up 3.75M of cap space is significant. For right or wrong players like Dustin Byfuglien can now enter the conversation as a trade target for Pittsburgh.
Last but not least Daniel Sprong returned to the lineup. He only played six minutes of game action. The Daniel Sprong situation isn’t as black and white as a lot of people want to make it.
Should Daniel Sprong have been playing in more games this year? Yes, that really isn’t debatable. However, Sprong was not playing good hockey in the minutes he was being given. The calls for him to join the top six at the present moment are extreme and should probably be tempered. Last night he did a good job in his limited action. The coach needs to start playing him more than six minutes a night and Sprong needs to continue showing improvement with those minutes. As time goes on an increased role can be discussed. For now 10-11 minutes a night with a role on the second power play unit seems appropriate.
Thanks for reading!