We are 64 games into this Pittsburgh Penguins season and this team has shown us who they are time and time again. They are a good team with a lot of heart and compete level, but have some warts that just won’t go away. Dan Muse has a group of players who play hard for him and play until the final whistle. Last night was a great example of this.
Last night was also another great example of their wart(s). The biggest wart of all is the shootout and it is costing them what should be some comfort in the standings.
Shootout woes continue
They are now 1-10 in shootouts this season, a horrific number. This is beating a dead horse, but it is tough to ignore. The Penguins clawed back against the Carolina Hurricanes scoring two improbable goals late in the game to earn a tie at the end of regulation. It was a great accomplishment and doing it on one of the league’s best teams isn’t easy to do. Unfortunately, if the Penguins don’t score in overtime we already know that they will not collect the extra point.
Both the shooters and the goaltenders are to blame. Neither side of the equation have been good enough this year.
The goaltenders have been comically bad. PIttsburgh used to be spoiled with Marc-Andre Fleury in net because he is one of the best shootout goalies we’ve seen. He had a career .724 save percentage in them. The current Penguins goaltenders aren’t close to that.
Arturs Silovs has only made seven saves out of the 20 attempts he has faced for a .350 save percentage (yikes).
Stuart Skinner is slightly better, but not by much. He has saved ten out of the 18 attempts and has a .556 save percentage.
The fact is the Penguins rarely get two saves in a shootout which is way below the norm. Since the shootout was introduced the league average for goaltenders is right around .678. Pittsburgh goalies being a combined .447 this year is woefully below that average. It puts a lot of pressure on the shooters. You don’t want your shooters gripping their sticks tight because they know they have to score. You want them loose and confident. This hasn’t been the case.
However, you also need the coaching staff to pick the right guys to go and I don’t think that has been the case this year. Sidney Crosby is not a good performer in shootouts anymore. His attempts are stale and predictable. He is 1-7 on the year. He will always be in that second slot, when healthy. Other veterans like Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust are also given slots a majority of the time. They aren’t great at the shootout, either combining to go 2-9.
It is time to turn the keys over to the younger players. The younger generation grew up with the shootout. They also grew up with better skills training. What younger players may lack in on-ice awareness I think they make up for in raw skill. Moving forward I think Ben Kindel should be a go to option for the shootout. Everything about his skill set speaks to someone who should do well in a shootout. Egor Chinakhov is another must use option.
Last night, those are the two players Muse led with. Kindle scored and Chinakhov did beat the goaltender with his deke, but missed the net. Anthony Mantha has a hot hand and he had a quality attempt where it looked like he beat Frederick Anderson five-hole, but missed the opening.
While the result of this shootout was similar. I liked Muse’s strategy with the shooters a lot better. The goaltenders have to give them two saves more often.
These points matter and considering the difficulty of the Penguins schedule it may come back to bite them. Imagine having just four more standings points from the shootout at the moment as the Penguins eye down this schedule.
The reality is the Penguins are 1-10 in shootouts. They do have this schedule in front of them and the Blue Jackets are only three points behind them in the standings now.
