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Penguins trying not to be the Blackhawks

December 12, 2018, 1:32 PM ET [25 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Pittsburgh will continue its run of playing mediocre/bad teams tonight when they face the Chicago Blackhawks who have lost eight straight. I remember a time when the Blackhawks were much more highly regarded than the Penguins only a mere four to five years ago. Time hasn’t been kind to Chicago. They found out the hard way what happens when your best players aren’t on RFA deals anymore. Stan Bowman has not done a good job of transitioning the roster from what was the best in the league to whatever it is now. Bowman overpaid a lot of veterans and the pipeline of young players has not been impressive.

Pittsburgh’s descent after their 2009 Stanley Cup win was clouded with horrific playoff goaltending while the team was still highly competitive. It wasn’t until 2013-14 when they really started to fall from one of the best teams in the league. The only reason Pittsburgh was able to rebound is because the salary cap situation was kept manageable and the AHL team consistently provided impact depth players. Something that hasn’t happened in Chicago, yet. Things were easy when Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane made 6M per season. When that 12M total turned into 21M the value just wasn’t there anymore. These aren’t players on par with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin who make less. Kane has lived up to his contract a lot more than Toews has. Paying 10.5M for a center to finish below 60 points the last three seasons is an overpay. When you throw in the terrible Brent Seabrook contract and voluntarily saying goodbye to Artemi Panarin you have yourself a less than ideal situation. That situation currently has Chicago as a 45.26 xGF% team which is 29th out of 31 teams this year.

Pittsburgh is flirting with this problem as their big guns (Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Letang) get older. The youth pipeline that differentiated the Penguins from the Blackhawks looks just as depleted as it has in Chicago. Pittsburgh’s ability to call up players like Jake Guentzel, Matt Murray, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust, Scott Wilson, Dominik Simon, and Chad Ruhwedel provided inexpensive and productive options for various roles on the NHL club. The Pittsburgh pipeline is currently dry because Jim Rutherford has been in a complete win now mode. The positives are making the roster better for a Stanley Cup. The con is that the team is very limited in futures and the strategy is not sustainable. The Penguins are also entering a time period where their previous ELC players are starting to get paid. When you pay a player like Bryan Rust 3.5M and he has a season like he’s had that makes things very difficult. Matt Murray has not lived up to his 4M price tag which would have seemed preposterous just two years ago. Jake Guentzel is about to get paid this summer. The Penguins don’t appear to have any ELC candidates who are ready to make NHL contributions on a Stanley Cup contending team. With few high value ELC players the team is going to have to make choices about some of their 3-5M players who are underperforming. The alternative is being the Blackhawks.

All that said the last time the Penguins won in Chicago was Chris Kunitz’s first game as a Penguin per Andy Smith of the Garage League Podcast. It was also Dan Bylsma's fifth game as coach.

Matt Cullen is a game time decision.

Matt Murray has been activated from IR and is the backup this evening. Casey DeSmith will make the start.

Thanks for reading!
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