Inside Penguins Playoff Drive, Down the Stretch they Come (+)

PHN+ Lead in: From Kanata, Ontario, the Pittsburgh Penguins begin their stretch drive toward the club’s first playoff appearance in four years. Not all is well, but there are some situations showing improvement and some that need immediate fixes. PHN beat writer Dan Kingerski delivers the last State of the Penguins column with inside info from the locker room on the biggest issues and opportunities confronting the Penguins, all for PHN+ subscribers.

With just 11 games remaining and a desperately wanted playoff berth hanging in the balance, the Pittsburgh Penguins must look past the distractions of the rotten goaltender interference reviews and their abysmal 6-16 record in extra time. The anxiety of losing their best players to injury is no longer an issue, but now they are dealing with the pressure of needing wins, and plenty of them.

Of course, an extra five points to an 11-11 overtime/shootout record would put them comfortably in the playoff picture. Instead, there ain’t no rest for the wicked as the Columbus Blue Jackets have surged to second place in the Metro Division and the New York Islanders are merely one point behind, though the Penguins also have one game in hand.

Records and points are now a sprint to the finish, but the trends are not in the Penguins’ favor. It has been anything but the March of the Penguins, as they’ve compiled only a 5-5-3 record.

Worse than their mediocre record, the previously stingy team is bleeding goals. They’ve allowed at least four goals in their last four games, and in nine of their last 11 (including a shootout winner to the Philadelphia Flyers on March 7).

The worst is how the team is defending. It’s not merely a goaltending issue or some great opponents, but the inconsistency of the team’s zone coverage. The best example of the sketchy defending was the Colorado Avalanche’s fourth goal Tuesday.

In the replay below, watch defenseman Kris Letang jump forward to break up a neutral zone pass, but miss. Second, Sam Girard called off Rickard Rakell, who would have had Nazem Kadri covered in the corner. Girard should have chosen between the front of the net and Logan O’Connor behind the net. Had he done so, it would have been a nothing play. Instead, he was late to Kadri and Rakell was late getting to O’Connor behind the net.

Third, Letang came back, but if you freeze frame it, you’ll see Letang turned the wrong way and never saw Parker Kelley bolting off the wall toward the net. Lastly, goalie Arturs Silovs didn’t recognize the play and had his shoulders parallel to the goal line, not to the shooter. It was a breakdown covering two zones and four players. With all of that in mind, watch:

The repetitive, loose play is bad, very bad news.

The Penguins’ neutral zone forecheck has not been especially effective lately. They’re revamped 1-1-3 was suffocating for much of the season, and they were one of the stingiest teams in the NHL. Yet, lately you’ll also notice how often teams have been able to create pressurized, controlled zone entries.

In very short summation, the Penguins’ game has been messy.

However, playoff hockey begins Thursday. It is all-in, all-heart time. Everyone’s legs are tired, and everyone needs a few days off, but the prize is close.

“That’s this time of year. Every everything matters so much. You’re fighting for every point. You know, in every single game, it’s on the line,” Muse said. “And so I think the games now for us, and I think you’ve seen it across the league, they absolutely have that (playoff) feel, and that’s where everything gets elevated. Everything matters a little bit more. Everything’s a little bit harder, everything’s a little bit more detailed. And so we have to make sure that we’re elevating in all these different areas.”

There are two bits of good news. Girard and Letang had by far their best game together Tuesday against Colorado. They were a plus-1, but also they moved the puck forward crisply and efficiently.

In most of the advanced analytics categories, the duo were above water. And more importantly, the defensemen did not get pinned in their own zone or otherwise gift goals with brutal mistakes and turnovers.

Yes, they were partly responsible for the goal above, but that’s a game mistake born of decisions made in split seconds, rather than the ghastly missed coverages or puck generosity they had been showing.

Against Colorado, the Girard-Letang pairing had a 53% Corsi (shot attempts), a 53% goals against, a 62.5% scoring chance rate, and a 66.67% high-danger chance advantage in their 14:10 at 5v5.

In both the eye test and analytics, their game Tuesday represented a gargantuan step forward.

Muse has essentially tossed the pair together and is forcing them to figure it out. It has not been easy. As Letang told PHN a before Girard missed a handful of games because of injury, “We’re still communicating a lot in the defensive zone.”

Indeed, the players are similar. They are smaller, skate-first defenders better with the puck than defending without it. So, each will have to be better in the defensive zone, and both will have to figure out where each other will be when it is time to break out.

“It takes a little bit of time. You want to see growth. There’s little things too, that we’ve seen within their time together, that shows us that this is going in the right direction,” Muse said Thursday. “This is what we want to see. This is progress. A lot of it just comes off that comfort level of making reads off each other that I think within any D-pair you want to have.”

There is also a “Muse Factor” at play. This is his first time in the big chair as his team fights for a playoff spot, but there remains an air of encouragement even as the pressure gets heavy.

As one player told PHN this week, “If I played like I did Sunday, I wouldn’t have to look at the lineup today; I’d know I was in the seats. Now I can shrug it off. I’m not in my head like I was. You know what I mean?”

If you want to know why the Penguins are getting elevated performance from several of their bargain bin free agents and cast-off players, right there.

And no, I don’t think any of us knew quite how oppressive it had become in the Penguins’ room over the last couple of years.

Thursday night against Ottawa will be a fight for the defensemen to get the puck out. As a matter of function, watch the Penguins’ breakouts. When they’re getting that first pass to the forward who can then get to the next level, the team is infinitely better.

They’re not a good scramble team. If the defensemen are chipping it off the glass to alleviate pressure, or floating it out to center, the Penguins are not a fast enough team to swarm the opposing defensemen and create turnovers or prevent quick counterstrike zone entries.

With the hope-and-a-prayer breakouts, the Penguins are in deep trouble, but when they’re able to connect, the game opens up and quickly they are the better team and usually dangerous.

Ottawa does not send the house on the forecheck like Colorado and Carolina, but Ottawa has tight neutral zone structure. Oh, and they send a forechecker with ill-intent whose sole job is not to create turnovers but bruised defensemen who become timid playing the puck.

Call it the Tkachuk effect.

With games remaining against the Islanders and Washington Capitals, two other teams who like to capture the neutral zone rather than send a heavy forecheck, the Penguins will need to regain their good first passes in order to be able to force opponents into no-win decisions at center ice or the defensive blue line.

No pressure.

Another issue we’ll be watching is the physicality of secondary scorers. The Penguins are a banged up bunch. Sidney Crosby is not 100%. Evgeni Malkin remains out. Anthony Mantha needed a maintenance day.

But also, the Penguins are relying on softer players to play hard. When Tommy Novak and Justin Brazeau dip their shoulders and get involved in the play, the offense follows. However, Brazeau especially has largely been limited and ineffective.

Novak has also had to fight through the tighter play of opponents without the same success he had in the weeks from the Christmas break to early March.

Novak is especially important. The Penguins cannot solely rely on Crosby, Rakell, and Rust.

Oh, and Egor Chinakhov, who might be a candidate for NHL acquisition of the year. In 33 games with the Penguins, with a handful of different linemates, Chinakhov has scored 14 goals with 26 points in just 33 games.

That shot is just fun to watch.

Another silver lining to the loss Tuesday to Colorado was Ben Kindel, who had a surge of energy beginning in the second period. He quickly became one of the Penguins’ best players. He created several chances for his linemates and had a couple for himself.

Certainly, more of that would not hurt either.

It’s a race to the end. Watch the Penguins’ breakouts. Watch their neutral zone structure. Those two things open everything else.

And that’s the inside of the Penguins’ playoff push.

The post Inside Penguins Playoff Drive, Down the Stretch they Come (+) appeared first on Pittsburgh Hockey Now.

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Inside Penguins Playoff Drive, Down the Stretch they Come (+)

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