The Pittsburgh Penguins completed an overall successful road trip to California after defeating the San Jose Sharks last night in a shootout by the score of 3-2. The team went 2-1 and it was their first two wins in what was a four-game losing streak prior.
Even if the trip could be considered a success it isn’t going to move the needle much overall. I don’t think Kyle Dubas is suddenly going to change his overall plans for the team. This team is going to be selling and it is probably going to start sooner than later.
The team remains near the bottom of the standings (27th in the league 14th in the Eastern Conference).
If Elliotte is starting to reference these things then we are entering a where there is smoke there is fire situation.
As for the NTC/NMC referenced in the post I don’t think these are necessarily difficult barriers to navigate. I think Elliotte (and others) continue to lump Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang in these conversations while I don’t. Until Crosby, Malkin, or Letang publicly address the situation and say they are open to leaving I think it is a waste of speculation. It isn’t anything new with Malkin. If you remember he was traded to Los Angeles like 25 times 15 years ago.
Erik Karlsson does have a no movement clause. He does have full control. I do think he would be amenable to a trade to a contender. I think there is a path for a reasonable trade for the Penguins. Although, I don’t think they’ll hit a home run with it. I’ll be sad to see him go even if it makes sense.
Rickard Rakell has an eight-team no trade list. That is completely navigable.
Bryan Rust has no trade protection at all. I believe the organization will do right by him, though. I don’t think they’ll just ship him wherever. They will likely loop him in as a show of respect. There should be plenty of suitors for him. The return will be interesting. Rumors say the markets for Rust and Rakell were colder from a value standpoint than what perception might be around Pittsburgh.
Sam Girard has an eight-team no trade list like Rakell. He has played at a much higher level this year than when he first arrived last year. At first, it was thought adjusting to a new team was the issue, but in fact he was pretty injured. He had a broken foot. Who would have thought playing hockey with two healthy feet was ideal?
The issue with Girard isn’t his play. He’s been good. It is that he will be 29 in May and he is on an expiring deal. He doesn’t fit the Penguins timeline. He should be an attractive candidate to a contender. He’s already been a regular on a Stanley Cup winning roster.
Enjoyable Penguins top line
Even if the season is trending towards important parts of the roster being sold off there are still some fun things happening. One of the best things currently happening is Dan Muse’s choice to play Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin together with Rickard Rakell. This gives me something to look forward to each game.
Early returns are not surprising. The line is playing well together and you can see the chemistry growing with their offensive zone time. They had some extended zone time against the Sharks that looked like a power play and I think that is something we will continue to see on a regular basis.
The line has played a shade under 40 minutes together (small sample alert) and here are the underlying numbers
CF 57 CA 36 CF% 61.29
xGF 3.15 xGA 1.47 xGF% 68.19
GF/60 4.5 GA/60 1.5 Actual GF 3 GA 1
Let’s keep it rolling. It’s fun. It’s working. At the end of the day this is an entertainment product, entertain us. With this line, they are.
Power play update
The Penguins power play remains an eye sore. However, the goal Ben Kindel scored last night against the Sharks highlights the path forward to get out of their funk.
Even the most successful power plays in the league (we just saw Anaheim’s) are willing to shoot the puck from distance to create chaos and break the PK structure. Anaheim had great player and puck movement against the Penguins and all of their opponents this year. Even they will toss the puck at the net and see what happens. Mikael Granlund’s goal from the game Sunday night is a good example of what I’m talking about
Nothing fancy there. Get the puck through and hope for a bounce (which they got) or win the loose puck battle.
Here is Kindel’s goal from last night.
Nothing fancy here, either. This is especially important for a power play that is uninspired and isn’t breaking down the PK with their puck movement. The Penguins need to lean more into this approach. By doing so other teams will have to break structure on puck scrambles and then the power play will get the lanes they’ve been searching for, for weeks.
Hopefully they take the queue from both the goal they gave up and the one they scored. Until further notice they haven’t earned a different approach.
Murashov back on track
After three consecutive starts allowing four goals or more Sergei Murashov found his bearings in California. He started against both the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks and only allowed two goals in each game. Murashov had some puck luck with some posts in LA, but he was on the wrong end of some goofy bounces which was especially true on the Corey Perry goal where he batted the puck out of the air on a weird bounce off the back boards.
He stopped 56 out of 60 shots for a .933 save percentage in the two games. He also stopped all three attempts by the Sharks in the shootout and looked good doing it. Something that absolutely cannot be taken for granted given the goaltending we’ve seen in shootouts the past couple of years.
Murashov was back to exhibiting his confident body language and movement in these two starts. He made numerous athletic saves and earned the Penguins two victories. I don’t mind that they have slow played his ice time this year, but I do think as the season wears on at some point we should see a changing of the guard. Silovs has been the 1A so far. We’ll see if this holds true a month from now.
We have a weird stretch of the schedule for the Penguins coming up. They only have one game in the next week and that will be at home against Ottawa. Then they’ll have three games in four days (STL @NSH @DAL).
A lot of down time for a GM to ponder roster moves…
