A check-in of what is going well, and not so well for the Penguins at the moment
Welcome to best three/worst three, where we point out three areas or individuals that are clicking well at the moment for the Penguins, and three other areas that are struggling.
Best: Old guys rule
—Lars Eller already has more multi-goal games in 2024-25 than he did last season. Evgeni Malkin was off to a better start than anyone in the league at one point, and remains among the early-season scoring leaders. Kevin Hayes is tied for the team-lead in goals. The Penguins are an old team, but it’s helpful that their old players are actually pretty darn good still.
Worst: Scratching a $5.375 million goalie
—The Penguins don’t have a good defense right now (more on that later) but only one of the three goalies they’ve played has been abjectly drowning out there. And it happens to be the highest-paid and most important goalie on the roster. Not a pretty situation right now. Tristan Jarry has crumbled early in the game when he’s played and the team can’t recover around him. Say what you will about Alex Nedeljkovic allowing five goals or Joel Blomqvist being only OK, but as far as timely stops go, they make them and Jarry does not. Jarry looks miles from playable right now. For now maybe the only thing the coaching staff can do is focus on day at a time and in such a narrow view based on how each game or practice goes, but zooming out for wondering just how this riddle gets solved is going to be fascinating. And perhaps not in an awesome or positive type of way.
Best: Switching things up
—For all the talk of people wanting change and seeing different things, Mike Sullivan has been delightfully unpredictable. Michael Bunting taking a scratch after a dull start is a perfect example. The team has numbers, might as well use it. Drew O’Connor has played well, and been promoted. Same with Jesse Puljujarvi. Neither are particularly young-young at 26, but for the Penguins they’re fairly young and rising up the ranks with merit. Those that aren’t performing are finding lesser/worse roles. It’s been refreshing and hopefully will continue to an even larger degree. The Pens seem married to some in PK roles (Noel Acciari, Cody Glass) but it should be on the table for even those players to not be lineup staples when Blake Lizotte is back and can slot into that area.
Worst: Lack of “smarts”
—Check these two quotes from coach and captain after yesterday’s loss to the Jets:
- “From an effort standpoint, I thought our team played really hard,” Sullivan said. “I think we’ve got to play a little smarter. And that’s on all of us to try to cure some of those areas.”
- “The effort we had today was the way we should play every night,” Crosby said. “We just got to find a way to be a bit smarter. We were competing a lot more and got rewarded because of it. We’ve got to find a way to bring that every night bit smarter” talking point.
It’s always telling when coach and players use the same key word(s) after a game, really gives a sense of what the messaging was to the players and how they want to address it outwardly. Unsurprisingly, Crosby and Sullivan were in lock step with virtually the exact same quote. “Effort good, smarts bad” being a clear takeaway from the internal perspective of that game.
But can the Pens be “smarter”? It’s not in their DNA, their personnel isn’t strong in that area. Their coaching isn’t geared to that way. The forwards do little to slow opponents down in the neutral zone, the defenders aren’t the best at defending in their own end. It’s been a woeful mix so far that speedy/skilled/good teams have feasted on when they play the Penguins. Is a little more attention and focus going to change the big picture? Color us skeptical..
Best: Power play?
—Yeah, it’s early but the Penguins sit today with a top-10 power play in the NHL at 23.8%. (Another goal was scored just seconds after a power play expired). For as key of a talking point as power play improvement from last season’s 30th ranked (15.3%) group was, their very early success has flown under the radar considering the other issues that have popped up. Maybe that’s also because it’s only five PPG, but hey five PPG in seven games is a stat that last season Pens’ fans would have killed for.
So it’s understandable that for now the power play results are being overshadowed, but at the same time, shout out to the power play in the early going. The longer it stays hot, the better chance this team has of winning games.
Worst: Sidney Crosby linemates
—One of the weirdest things about the Penguins is how they’re constructed for this season. They’re not really there to make a huge run at anything special, but they’re also not truly building with youth in the NHL roster either. Jake Guentzel was traded due to his contractual situation, but yesterday Pittsburgh had nothing to show in the lineup from that trade. With any seller trade, you have to hope the long-term futures blossom — but that doesn’t help 37-year old Sidney Crosby any at the moment.
The Pens didn’t replace Guentzel in any way over the off-season, instead opting to use the cap space they had to take on draft picks and undesirables (Hayes, Glass) or sign players who haven’t been good in several seasons to one-year deals (Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk). That direction is being felt right now to the highest degree after Bunting’s early-season faceplant has only compounded the issue of lacking skill.
Bryan Rust’s elevation to main Crosby running mate hasn’t gone well (Rust has zero 5v5 points in five games since returning from injury). Crosby himself only has an unimpressive three 5v5 points in seven games this season as a large result from his teammate impact and linemate issues. It’s got to be a major area of concern right now, to the point where Malkin and Crosby took several shifts together to finish the game yesterday.
O’Connor has rotated up and has been playing hard. Malkin has been used more frequently as a Crosby linemate. Rust you’d have to think and hope will be producing sooner than later. But it’s been a tough go for Crosby, who lacks real skill and a top player to play with again. The last time this happened when Chris Kunitz went in decline, the team traded for Patric Hornqvist and then soon had Guentzel coming of age. It doesn’t seem as obvious this time around for how Kyle Dubas and the Pens will solve this issue.