Pittsburgh left another point on the table in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. The Penguins started very flat and improved as the game went on, but as has been the case this year they were unable to score enough.
I’ll start with the good and then finish up with the bad.
Sidney Crosby looked great again. He registered two assists on the night including a beautiful feed to Chris Kunitz from behind the net. It was reminiscent of something we would have seen prior to the 2014-15 season. He also won a faceoff on his forehand side which led to the Kris Letang goal. Crosby has five multi-point games in the last ten. He is noticeably more assertive when the puck is on his stick the past month. It is fun to watch him play again.
Patric Hornqvist played one of his better games of the year. He was bumped up to the Crosby line after the midway part of the game. It was his keep in at the blue line that led to the Chris Kunitz goal. He’s never going to be a player that excels at making controlled plays so you just have to hope that the chaos he creates on the ice is effective chaos.
Kris Letang continues to play great hockey under Mike Sullivan. Last night he led the team in shot attempts for while on the ice and also saw 65% of the shot attempts at even-strength head towards the other teams goal.
So far it has been night and day from the beginning of the year to now.
Chris Kunitz scored a goal and that is a rare thing these days. It is painful to watch him plod around out there because everybody knows the kind of player he used to be, but he continues to be playing OK. Let me elaborate on that. He is not playing at an acceptable level to be Sidney Crosby’s left winger, but he isn’t a huge liability when it comes to territorial play on the ice. He is still a good possession player (54.3% 5v5 SAF). The problem is more with the team’s depth at left wing which keeps him as one of the legitimately better options to play that left wing spot up with Crosby. Kunitz has regressed but can anybody honestly say that there is another player who has stepped up to the plate and deserved that ice time? I don’t think there has been.
Marc-Andre Fleury played well again. The bounce that led to the second goal against the Penguins was just utter nonsense. You can’t plan for stuff like that you just have to deal with it. Unfortunate break for Pittsburgh.
Evgeni Malkin took a very bad penalty in the overtime session. Can’t do that. However, Evgeni Malkin continues to generate controlled zone entries that nobody else is able to do on the ice (Crosby included sometimes). The penalty is what will get most of the attention but I think the other stuff gets taken for granted way too often.
Not to excuse Malkin’s extremely poor decision but maybe Pittsburgh isn’t even in that shorthanded scenario in overtime if the coach would do what I feel is one of the most obvious roster choices in the entire league: Play Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang together in 3 on 3 overtime. Why isn’t that the default setting? If the coach is going to play trios like Patric Hornqvist, Eric Fehr, and Trevor Daley anyways why not legitimately load up with your best players? And while I am talking about trios there is another thing that has been under-utilized ever since Dan Bylsma left and that has been loading up lines at the ends of periods. A Crosby-Malkin-Kessel line should be used more frequently to take advantage of the intermission rest period.
Another curious roster choice is how Mike Sullivan has been constructing his bottom six lately. Right now he has two very blah lines in the bottom six that aren’t very capable of generating legitimate offense. Nick Bonino’s strengths as a player are offensive based. Placing him with the call-up flavors of the week isn’t going to help him contribute effectively and he hasn’t. “Load up… the third line with Matt Cullen on the left wing, Nick Bonino at center, and Eric Fehr on the right wing. Shelter the crap out of what remains of the fourth line and see if the third line can do anything at all. Truth be told the depth at forward is going to be very mediocre until Beau Bennett is cleared to play again.
Sergei Plotnikov is a better player than the AHL guys and should be in the lineup more often. Plotnikov’s floor is a good fourth line player. That might also be close to his ceiling but I do think that is better than Kevin Porter. Out of the forwards who have played in at least 20 games this season Kevin Porter has the lowest Score-Adjusted Fenwick at 46.7%. He also only has two assists. Sergei Plotnikov is no offensive behemith (only has two assists) but at least his SAF of 53.8% has play going in the right direction.
Brian Dumoulin has been very good this season. Ben Lovejoy has been his partner nearly the entire 2015-16 sample size. To Lovejoy’s credit he has not held Dumoulin back and has just kind of “been there… without being a complete anchor like a Rob Scuderi-type. That said Ben Lovejoy is only capable of making the most basic plays with the puck. He is unable to contribute consistently to plays that lead to offense. I would like the Penguins to separate this pairing so they can attempt to generate more offense. If the wingers are going to underperform they need to figure out other avenues in which offense can be generated. I would like to see what kind of results a Dumoulin-Daley pairing would provide and shelter the bottom pairing of Ian Cole and Ben Lovejoy.
David Perron is a good player who is having a terrible season. He isn’t lacking effort, he isn’t afraid to go to the “tough… areas of the ice, and I don’t believe for a second that he is finished as a decent NHL player. However, as far as 2015-16 goes he is in a funk and it is not helping out the Penguins at all. His puck management last night was very poor and led to his demotion from the Crosby line. The puck management was disappointing because he was actually winning battles for possession to have the puck in the first place. Multiple cross ice passes were just lame ducks that led to turnovers. This is what should be a strength in his game and has been in the past. A big part of the reason left wing is such an issue for Pittsburgh has been the play of David Perron.
Eric Staal, who was written about yesterday, picked up a goal and an assist in regulation to help lead the Hurricanes to victory. The goal was a wide open back door play when the Penguins irresponsibly had three players behind the net. If you are going to play with fire you have the chance to get burned. You better win that puck battle if you are going to go all in like that.
Pittsburgh will play another Eastern Conference team that has underperformed so far in 2015-16 when they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday evening. A win over Tampa Bay would place both teams at 48 points which is currently good for the #1 wild card spot. Both teams played last night and will have both Wednesday and Thursday off as far as game action goes.
Thanks for reading!