The Penguins will be missing out on the playoffs for the second consecutive season. They have nowhere else to look, but inward. It is their fault. Montreal’s goalie letting in terrible goals and the refs not interpreting icing correctly isn’t the reason. The Flyers pulling their goalie when they were already mathematically eliminated isn’t the reason. The Penguins dropping games in October to Chicago, Anaheim, and Ottawa are the reason. The Penguins blowing a 4-0 lead to Colorado and blowing a two goal third period lead to the Red Wings this past week are the reasons. It is very much their fault.
A lot of the banter surrounding this team heading into the season was their age and rightly so. They were the oldest team in the league. I don’t think being the oldest team in the league is ideal and I wouldn’t say otherwise. However, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson will all have played in 82 games. Crosby played at an elite level while the other three were good to very good. These old players weren’t the problem, unless of course you set unrealistic expectations like perfection for them.
I can already hear it now. I know those players were on their atrocious power play, which was certainly a big variable in how the season turned out. I find that to be a coaching problem. I do not accept that those four players cannot run an acceptably functioning power play. These players didn’t struggle at 5v5. They need to change who is calling the shots on the power play. It might need to come at the cost of Mike Sullivan’s job. The coaching malpractice in this area cost them the season. Sullivan is ultimately the guy in charge.
My only concern about moving on from Mike Sullivan is I don’t think the team has positioned themselves to be prepared to do so and as a result I don’t think they would actually have an improvement lined up. I would probably start the year with Sullivan as long as the team hired somebody like Bruce Boudreau as an assistant who could very easily take the reigns, or at the very least improve the damn power play.
While the power play was incredibly frustrating it was only one area of concern and one I think is fixable with current personnel. A bigger picture issue is one that is very similar to what the Penguins were experiencing in the years prior to their back to back Stanley Cups. Their depth isn’t good. Kyle Dubas leaned into defense first forwards and what he got was inept offensive play with minimal impact elsewhere. The league is trending towards scoring and the Penguins doubled down on less skill. Given this approach it was remarkable those four (87, 71, 58, 65) held up all year and were able to function like they did.
Kyle Dubas’ depth players were not functional. In fact, you could argue the only reason the Penguins were able to make the run at the end of the year that they did is because Ryan Graves, Noel Acciari, Jansen Harkins, and Matt Nieto were all unavailable to play. Noel Acciari, Jansen Harkins, and Matt Nieto combined for five goals in 121 games played. Not that Graves was signed for offense, but throw him in and it was 191 games and eight goals scored. Part of why Erik Karlsson's tangible point total wasn't as good is the team had little finishing talent to actually finish off the space and lanes created.
Targeting these style of depth players was an enormous misstep that wasted time and resources. It needs to be amended moving forward regardless if the team is a playoff contender or not. They are boring and ineffective. It is bad from an entertainment and competitive standpoint.
Reilly Smith isn’t going to get left off the hook, either. He deserves scorn for his mailed in season, but I don’t lay that on Kyle Dubas. This is a lot like the Derick Brassard trade in many ways. It made sense on paper and filled a needed role at an acceptable cap hit and cost of acquisition. The player just laid an egg. Unfortunately, when you combine that with the other depth mishaps you are really scraping to find some offense outside of the core four.
There’s a lot to be done this offseason and hard lessons are going to have to be learned by the GM. Defensive depth is a misguided strategy and always has been for the Penguins when you look at how they’ve achieved their success over the years. He needs to learn from this season and adjust. If not, this will be the closest the Penguins get to the playoffs in the foreseeable future.
Anyways, the Penguins play the Islanders tonight.
Thanks for reading!
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