Pittsburgh's defense group carries the most questions for the team heading into the 2015-16. Can Kris Letang and Olli Maatta stay healthy? Can Ian Cole continue to build upon his solid showing in 2014-15 with increased minutes? Will Rob Scuderi still get ice time? Will Ben Lovejoy be able to slot into a more appropriate bottom pairing role?
Those are all valid questions, but the one I am going to try and tackle today pertains to Derrick Pouliot. Can Derrick Pouliot handle top four minutes?
Pouliot is the Penguins top prospect player in the organization and with that distinction carries high expectations. Pouliot has excellent puck skills and is able to combine that with great offensive instincts. In 31 career AHL games he has 24 points for a 0.77 points per game average, very good for a 20 year old defenseman at the beginning of his professional career.
The big question about Derrick Pouliot is his ability to defend at the NHL level. So far we only have an NHL sample size of 476 minutes at even strength. That is obviously not a lot to go on but we'll use what we have.
I had to special order a HERO chart from Domenic Galamini for Pouliot due to his limited sample size.
I think this is very encouraging for the following reasons:
Possession is great in his first 34 games of NHL action. For those that are worried about his ability to defend you can feel a little bit better when you focus on his CA/60 which is at a top pairing level. This does need context and I am going to provide it for you. Pouliot was sheltered in his minutes. He was given a ton of offensive zone starts and did not play against the other team's top competition.
When you shift your focus to the top of the HERO chart you can see that Derrick Pouliot's ability to generate offense so far at the NHL level has been very pedestrian. While he did manage to score a goal on his very first NHL shot he only added one more the next 33 games. Considering that Pouliot's strength and major selling point as a top level prospect is his offensive ability this does not give me any pause for concern. It starts to make a little more sense when you look at the other variable in his player usage, quality of teammate.
There is room for growth on the quality of teammate front and when Pouliot is given extended opportunities with some of Pittsburgh's more gifted forwards he is going to produce offense at a decent rate. In a top four role I expect his offensive contributions to be at least at a top four level
On the flip side as his quality of competition increases I anticipate his possession to drop a bit, but also maintain a top four level at a minimum.
Derrick Pouliot is very skilled and I would trust his ability to defend more than some of the other veteran defensemen on the team which include Ben Lovejoy and Rob Scuderi. Some believe high and hard off the glass is making the "safe play" but in reality it is just a turnover. Instead of making a controlled play with the puck you are just passing the buck onto your other teammates to try and get the puck again. Sure the puck is momentarily out of the zone but you never generate a presence in the neutral zone. Without a presence in the neutral zone a team cannot create controlled zone entries which leads to effective and enjoyable hockey to watch.
Controlled zone exits should be a hockey team's primary goal when in their own end and Derrick Pouliot's skill set is going to contribute positively to that primary goal.
Pittsburgh does have legit question marks with their defense corp. There is no denying that. However, I think Derrick Pouliot and his ability to contribute as a top four defenseman is down on the list of concerns.
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