Tread Lightly (Penguins)

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The Pittsburgh Penguins season came to a close with a 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers. The Penguins scored a grand total of 3 goals in their final 3 games of the season, one in each of the three games.

Games 5 and 6 were a product of a poor work ethic and the Penguins left things to chance in a Game 7. The better team doesn’t always win in a Game 7 situation.

The Penguins played well, Henrik Lundqvist was the difference and hence the Rangers move on.

If the Penguins had put forth an effort like that the past 2 games I’m probably writing an Eastern Conference preview tomorrow.

So what happens now? What do you do with the Penguins moving forward?

Emotions are high and there seems to be this overall entitlement attitude that the Penguins should have more Stanley Cups. I have some breaking news, it ain’t easy to win Stanley Cups, even Mario only had two.

That said, it doesn’t mean that the Penguins should remain satified with the status quo, far from it.

My best advice to the Penguins would be to borrow a phrase from Mr. Walter White “Tread lightly….

The Penguins are in a position where they can do a lot more damage to their Stanley Cup window than they can improving it. Things aren’t quite as bad as a lot of the folks who don’t follow this team on a regular basis would like you to believe.

Crosby and Malkin are not going to be traded, you don’t have to worry about that. In fact anybody who pushes the trading Malkin narrative hard has made it easy for you to gauge their lack of understanding about how winning in modern hockey works. Tyler Dellow said it best last night

OK, now on to things that actually might happen.

Dan Bylsma

Listen, I’m not against moving in another direction but I’m also not going to pretend like this team played awful all the time either. They were pretty darn good possession team (best in the playoffs) and that is a great piece of the puzzle. But it is only a piece.

Bylsma consistently made life tougher on himself when he didn’t have to this season. A prime example was his lineup decision last night. Beau Bennett was sat in favor of Tanner Glass playing 6:09 of useless icetime. In a game where the Penguins couldn’t muster up any offense Glass, Adams, and Vitale all played under 20 minutes combined and put a ton of stress on the rest of the lineup. Play your good hockey players, not your bad ones. When good hockey players like Bennett are playing bad, they still have the potential of playing good. When bad hockey players are playing bad, they have the potential to keep playing bad.

Then there is the entire Simon Despres situation.

If the Penguins are going to make a coaching change it needs to make sense. Hiring a coach who values even more grit/toughness over skill is a huge step backwards and does the Penguins no good. You can have accountability while embracing a skill first approach. Accountability does not mean you play the guy that throws the most meaningless body checks. Skilled players who aren’t getting tangible results on the scoresheet isn’t an automatic indictment on their “battle level….

Recycling a former NHL Head Coach with old school philosophies is the exact opposite of what this team needs. A new coach needs to take the good things that Bylsma has done and go even further with it.

If you want my further in depth opinion of Bylsma you can find it in this article on Hockey Prospectus.

Ray Shero

The GM isn’t free from criticism either. Ray Shero has made plenty of good moves, some have been great, but he has also left him team exposed. The consistent drafting of young promising puck moving defensemen has not worked to this point and it has left their forward ranks in a tough spot. The jury is still out on some of these puck moving D men (Pouliot, Despres, Dumoulin, Harrington) but they haven’t been in a spot to help the big club just yet. The Penguins are a win now team.

It is fair to point out that this season was always going to be a transitional period for the Penguins with the cap being artificially lowered, this impacted the Penguins a lot, if not the most in the NHL this season.

The issues I see moving forward are that I don’t think that Shero will cut the dead weight. The Rob Scuderi contract is a disaster, it has the potential to cost the Penguins big time

Shero needs to aggressively pursue a trade. Keeping the Scuderi contract is not an option. Admit your mistake and move on. It's time for the Orpik’s, Scuderi’s, and Bortuzzo’s to make way for the Pouliot’s, Despres’ and Harrington’s of the system.

Another big move he needs to make is cut bait with Marc Andre Fleury. I don't expect everyone to agree with this opinion.

Was Fleury fine in spots this postseason? You bet, yes he was. But fine shouldn’t come with a price tag of 5M in cap space. The fact is he is an average goalie who makes way above average money. This is not good cap management and it drains potential resources that could be used to acquire more impact players for the Penguins.

Fleury had two shutouts in the Rangers series, Game 4 he was spectacular, Game 3 he was just along for the ride. The other 5 games of the series had his save percentage at .889, .867, .882, .897, .900. Not good enough in my book.

In 7 out of the 13 playoff games this season he did not have a save percentage above .900%. Only 3 times was his save percentage about .915%.

Who would replace him? The statistics say that there are plenty of guys who can play at his level for cheaper and I’ll address more specifics on that issue in the future.

You lose Scuderi and Fleury and you have an extra 8.4M to work with. That can help bring real effective change to the roster.

James Neal was not a productive player in the post season. Neal is a limited hockey player who has a very highly skilled niche. His shot is second to none and he will always have the potential of sniping goals. The problem is that he cannot create for himself and he is also a ticking time bomb. Neal is a dirty player who has a propensity to take foolish penalties. If the Penguins were to make a “major… trade I would put my money on James Neal being the guy that is moved. He still has a perceived good value by enough other clubs. The key to any big trade is that you don’t move a guy for the sake of moving a guy, the trade can only be made if it makes your team better. If you can’t find that trade, you keep the player.

The Penguins lost because they had a very bad bottom 6 forward grouping, even after the trade deadline. The rising cap and the potential for Shero to cut dead weight provides an excellent opportunity to bulk up the problem areas. I still maintain that the Penguins are a lot closer to a championship than they are to missing the playoffs.

The Penguins have a broken product right now, they have to fix it. The biggest key for the Penguins moving forward isn’t them making changes for the sake of doing so.

Fixing the problems involves embracing the new age hockey mentality that includes advanced metrics and skill over grit. The Penguins don’t need to be tougher, they need to be better. Chicago and Boston are very good teams because everybody on their rosters can play, they don’t have dead weight. In Chicago’s case they openly admit to using advanced metrics.

Abandon the PK specialists and stay at home defensemen, acquire players who are very good at even strength and assist in driving possession.

Don’t live in the past, embrace the future and all the potential that comes with the new data available. You can buy into it, or be left in the dust. It is here to stay. The smart teams will utilize it the most.

This offseason in Pittsburgh will sure be interesting, I just hope it makes sense. The situation has a real chance to blow up in the Penguins face and send this ship in the wrong direction. Tread lightly.

****

Lastly I would like to thank each and every one of my readers this year. Thank you for a tremendous first season here at Hockeybuzz, you have all been terrific. Readership continues to grow and I will continue to write, I hope you keep reading.

Season is over but the intrigue is just beginning. I’ll be here covering all of it.

Thanks for reading!

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