Next up on our historical cards we are going to take a look at the 2007-08 defense for the Penguins. This was a team that was really leaning on the star forwards to make things tick. Sure, you had Sergei Gonchar, but as you’ll see he was probably miscast in the role they were asking of him. This was Ryan Whitney’s last go of it with the Penguins in the playoffs. Then you had the defensive defensemen of Brooks Orpik, Rob Scuderi, Darryl Sydor, and Hal Gill. Lastly, there was an unknown rookie on the squad just getting his feet wet.

The model isn’t kind to Gonchar. It leans into the defense and penalty killing metrics. It also shows the Penguins were using Gonchar in a shutdown role with his quality of competition being in the 100th percentile in the league. So I personally don’t think it is as bad as it looks at a first glance. Offensively he is solid and has good finishing. The assists are fine although I did think that and the power play were going to be higher considering who he was with and how good those star forwards were. They really leaned into Gonchar as he played the 7th most minutes per game in the league at 25:42 this season

Ryan Whitney’s boxcar stats were good and he looked the part at times. He was also not driving success on either end of the ice so the tangible points needed to be there and were this season. The one thing that is the most surprising to me is how low the power play number. It is a bad number considering who he was with. It appears he was holding the unit back. Given his 5th overall selection status many fans were hoping for more which is understandable.

He’s not the piece quite yet, but you can see how he’d get there. Rob Scuderi’s first stint with the Penguins is night and day from the second. He was a terrific defensive defenseman during this time period. You’re not going to get a lick of offense out of him, but if you’re in that 92% area for defense and 99% on PK there’s certainly a role there. Defense only players aren’t my cup of tea. I have time for them when you are among the very best. Putting these numbers up with a 90% QoC is really good. Unfortunately, you can look ahead and when the Penguins reacquired his services it was not the same guy and left a bad taste. Here’s a reminder of the very best version of Scuderi and why people were excited to get him back on the team after his run with the Kings.

This isn’t nice, but I think Orpik might be my most overrated Penguins player of this era. His reputation never quite fit the results. There are certainly better defensive years on the horizon for Orpik. The two Stanley Cup Final runs he was pretty poor defensively and offense outside of a two year stretch in Washington was never his thing. This was the year where he cemented his reputation. The famous shift where he laid out multiple Red Wings in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, it was the Red Wings 4th line and the Penguins were getting hemmed in which was evident by his 35.84 xGF% in the series. I seem like I’m being a little aggressive here, but you have to remember Orpik was involved in the mini-mutiny of players who wanted to name a different captain when Sid was out with a concussion. Then when Sid is finally fully back he took a slap shot of his jaw, so yeah.

Per Josh Yohe:

"It was 2011. Crosby was still out with the concussion and had been out for the better part of a year. There was a now infamous meeting in the Penguins' locker room. On one side stood Brooks Orpik, Jordan Staal, Craig Adams and Matt Cooke. Those four were exploring the possibility of naming someone else team captain until Crosby came back. On the other side of the debate were Marc-Andre Fleury, Malkin, Pascal Dupuis and Arron Asham. A rather heated discussion broke out. At the end, Malkin made his point clear: 'Guys. Sid is the f****** captain.' Then he left the room. And the conversation was over."

From year one he was a stud. What makes this timeframe unique is that Letang had better defensive results than his offensive ones way back then. It didn’t last long and I mean that more as a compliment because Letang evolved into one of the best defenseman in the league on the back of his offensive contributions. I don’t think anybody really knew what the Penguins had in Letang at the time. It wasn’t until the next season where the talk surrounding his play picked up steam. One reason might be that his most common partner was Orpik and with him they had a ~45 xGF% and when Letang wasn’t with him he jumped to ~55 xGF%. This card was enjoyable to see all these years later. The forwards rightfully get a lot of the attention in Pittsburgh, but the Penguins have been really spoiled with Kris Letang all these years as well, even from day one.

Thanks for reading!

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