They have two of the worst defense pairings in the NHL through two weeks, while Bunting has already been a healthy scratch.
Through the first seven games of the regular season the Pittsburgh Penguins have beaten three very bad teams (Buffalo, Detroit and Montreal — and need to come-from-behind in all of them) and lost to four good teams. It is not the most encouraging start for a team that has missed the playoffs two years in a row and seems stuck in the middle between a full rebuild and making an effort to contend.
Even with the inconsistent start, there have been some positive developments.
Evgeni Malkin is off to a great start offensively.
The depth scoring has been better than anticipated, with Lars Eller, Kevin Hayes and Drew O’Connor already combining for 10 goals.
Rickard Rakell has looked more like the Rickard Rakell we saw two years ago.
There have also been a lot of disappointing developments throughout the roster that have managed to undo and overshadow those positives.
Let’s talk about some of them, and I am not including goaltending here because that has been mostly what we expected it to be. Tough to be a disappointment when you are just fulfilling expectations.
The defense pairings are a mess
Honestly, everything about the team defensively is a mess. Blown assignments, no real structure, odd-man rushes going back the other way and just too many defensive breakdowns that have resulted in the Penguins having some of the worst defensive metrics in the entire league.
The eye-test is not any kinder to them.
Entering play on Tuesday they are allowing the third-most expected goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, sitting ahead of only the Montreal Canadiens and Anaheim Ducks. Granted, it’s early and it’s only seven games, but it’s been a mess and everybody has to share in the blame for it.
There is also not a single defense pairing that has worked out so far or produced anything close to positive results, and given the personnel I am not even sure what other options you have.
Let’s just consider some numbers here.
There have been 55 defense pairings in the NHL this season that have logged at least 50 minutes of 5-on-5 ice-time together. When it comes to suppressing scoring opportunities, all of the Penguins pairings have been awful and among the worst in the league.
When it comes to expected goals against per 60 minutes, the Erik Karlsson-Marcus Pettersson duo and Kris Letang Matt Grzelyck duos rank 43rd and 51st in the league respectively. The Ryan Graves-Jack St. Ivany duo is fairing a little better (18th) but they are also playing against other team’s worst players, and there is no way you want to trust them in bigger minutes.
The concerning thing about the Letang-Grzelyck duo is they are getting absolutely crushed across the board, ranking 35th or worse in expected goal share, expected goals against, scoring chance share and high-danger scoring chance share despite starting more than 65 percent of their shifts in the offensive zone. Despite the hefty offensive zone starts, they have only been on the ice for two goals scored, are bleeding chances against and are not doing anything to tilt the ice.
At least the Karlsson-Pettersson duo, for as bad as it has been defensively, is producing some offense.
Do you try swapping Pettersson and Grzelyck? Swap the roles and give Karlsson-Pettersson more offensive zone starts to take advantage of their ability to at least score?
It all seems like rearranging deck chairs. This is the situation.
The Sidney Crosby line has not really taken over any games
By extension of this, neither has Sidney Crosby.
This not to say that Crosby has been bad, but he also hasn’t been what we have come to expect from Crosby. Or his line. I feel like part of that has been the absence of Bryan Rust for the start of the season, as well as the fact Anthony Beauvilier should not be skating on the top line of an NHL team, as well as the fact that, as much as we hate to admit it, at some point Crosby is going to slow down as he gets into his late 30s. He has already defied everything we know about aging curves and production in the NHL, but at some point the fact he is 37 years old is going to cut into some of that production.
The Rust-Crosby-Beauvillier trio has only a 39 percent expected goal share, which is 76th out of 88 line combinations with at least 25 minutes together. Their 2.5 goals scored per 60 minutes is 32nd. Their 5.27 expected goals against per 60 minutes is 85th out of 88 line combinations.
I still wouldn’t bet against Crosby going superman here at some point in the near future and putting the team on his back for a few wins, but so far that top line has not been anything close to what the Penguins want it to be or need it to be if they are going to even pretend to be competitive this season.
Where is the Michael Bunting we saw at the end of the 2023-24 season?
The one encouraging thing about the Jake Guentzel trade at the deadline was that it brought back an NHL roster player in Michael Bunting that at least had the potential give the Penguins a different element from what they had at forward. And he played really well, scoring six goals with 13 assists in 21 games and scoring a lot of the garbage, trash goals around the net that the team had been lacking.
I’ve suspected over the past couple of years that one of the factors in the Penguins’ massive gap between their expected goals and actual goals was the lack of a net-front presence (like a Patric Hornqvist or Chris Kunitz) that could rattle cages near the crease, disrupt goalies, and score off rebounds, deflections or just have the puck hit off of him into the net.
While I never expected Bunting to be on the Hornqvist or Kunitz level, my hope was that he could at least be a reasonable facsimile of that.
But so far this season he has been a ghost on his line, resulting in a healthy scratch during Sunday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets.
I am certainly not giving up Bunting, because he does have a track record of at least being a productive player in the NHL, but he has not yet been the factor I was hoping.
[Data in this post via Natural Stat Trick and MoneyPuck]