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Penguins making (good) lineup changes after opening night loss

January 15, 2021, 12:16 PM ET [214 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Penguins are going to get a chance to run things back against the Flyers tonight in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh got the doors blown off in the third period of their 6-3 loss, but they were fine for most of the game. Both teams traded chances and it wasn’t until later in the game where the Flyers pulled away on the score. In fact, the Penguins had more shot attempts through two periods even before the score effects took over out attempting the Flyers 33-26 at 5v5. This is the glass half-full approach if you are partial to the Penguins. If you want a glass two-thirds full approach you can look at the line rushes today




This is a good thing. Putting John Marino back with Marcus Pettersson is the correct move. The Penguins don’t have a luxury of trying to learn about their new players and how they fit in. Every single game is a divisional game and the season is only 56 games long. Stick with known successful commodities. If you get the luxury of being ahead in the standings later in the year to experiment, sure. You can’t do it right now.



You’ll also notice Cody Ceci is out and Chad Ruhwedel is in. This is very encouraging because it shows they are willing to be flexible with lineup decisions whereas before there was nothing to bounce Jack Johnson out of the lineup to the detriment of the team. (Jack Johnson had an xGF% of 24.54 in Rangers debut yesterday).

So here was the lineup from opening night.



Here it is with the changes to the defense



The projected war for the second pairing went from 1.0 to 1.9 with the overall projected war for all defensemen going from 2.7 to 3.6. If you trust the process of using this data anytime you can significantly improve the second pairing while getting a minuscule bump for the bottom pairing it is a slam dunk decision

As for the forwards there isn’t much to be done at the moment. If you want the Malkin line intact long term you are going to leave that alone. The third line was great so you aren’t breaking them up. Evan Rodrigues is a placeholder for the Kapanen thing although maybe not giving him the most minutes among forwards would be a step in the right direction. I suppose you could put Sam Lafferty on the top line, but we are really splitting hairs with a couple of fourth line players who have no business being a placeholder there.

Tristan Jarry is going to get the start again and I am going to make a bold prediction. His save percentage will be better than .760.

With the Flyers Bruins, Capitals and Islanders all winning their first game the Penguins need to respond. Those are the likeliest four teams to move ahead of the Penguins and keep them out of the playoffs. It can get early late this year.

Thanks for reading!
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