The Penguins were humbled by a better team last night. San Jose shut out the Penguins by a score of 4-0. The Sharks are one of the best teams at driving play and it was on display last night. San Jose had a Score-Adjusted Corsi of 58.02%. They didn’t allow the Penguins to generate much of anything
Usually the Penguins are good for some net front chances. This wasn’t the case last night. They were snuffed out. Not good when you aren’t known for being a defensive team. The ability to generate is the Penguins strength. When they can’t do it things are bleak.
Here’s the reality of the Penguins situation. They are average. They are not among the league’s best anymore. It isn’t a given that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin will be sniffing Hart Trophy’s on a yearly basis like it used to be. It also doesn’t help Phil Kessel is in a giant rut right now. We are entering the phase where Crosby and Malkin (and Kessel) need more help than they did.
Make no mistake, Sidney Crosby is having another great year (73 points in 58 games), but he isn’t a standard deviation above the rest of the league anymore. He’s still in the upper tier, but it isn’t to the level that can drag an average team to the top. In 2013-14 Crosby finished with 104 points, Malkin was on pace for 98, and James Neal had 61 points in 59 games. Ryan Getzlaf finished second in the league in scoring 17 points behind Crosby at 87. The big dogs were still ahead of the pack. Right now Sidney Crosby is eighth in scoring and is 27(!) points behind the leader Nikita Kucherov. The league is catching up to the advantage Pittsburgh has had for over a decade.
The big three forwards (87, 71, 81) are in a mild decline and are not receiving enough help to offset things. Looking at the Penguins pipeline there doesn’t appear to be much help on the way. The Penguins are in need of a slip knot to help shelter their issues, but don’t have a rope to do it, at least not one strong enough. The cupboard is bare. They are in desperate need of a Ray Sheroesque trade fleecing where they steal talent from another team.
The only job Jim Rutherford has ever had In Pittsburgh was to provide support for Crosby, Malkin, and Letang. He’s five years into this gig and he’s really only done it for a year and a half. The Phil Kessel trade was an enormous victory for the franchise. There have been other good moves along the way (Hornqvist, Schultz). But if I’ve said it once I’ve said it 1,000 times, Jim Rutherford is an average GM much like Marc-Andre Fleury is an average goalie. You have wild swings where things are great and you also have the times when things are really bad. Things haven’t been great on the roster construction front for the past couple of years. Futures have been spent and the team is treading water in a tight playoff race. There aren’t a lot of tangible assets for Rutherford to use even if they are all in on the present. The team doesn’t drive play like they used to and will have to rely on PDO to get through the playoffs again. It worked in 2017, but the odds aren’t great for it again.
The team as currently constructed has similarities to the 2013-14 version which jettisoned Ray Shero and Dan Blysma. A major difference is Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin aren’t superheroes anymore. Last night was a good window into the current reality.
Thanks for reading!
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