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New Year’s Retrospective

With the Olympics-altered 2009/10 season already half over, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back and see where the Penguins stand on this New Year’s Day as compared to last.  Just like the stock market, past performance is no gaurantee of future returns…but it still helps provide some context on how the team has performed so far when benchmarked against where they were at this point last season. 

Last season, you will recall that the Penguins started out under a different coach and began the season with their top two defensemen out of the lineup (Sergei Gonchar for shoulder surgery and Ryan Whitney for foot surgery).  In their stead, the Penguins had to depend on some very young, NHL-inexperienced defensemen in Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski to step up and help hold the blueline.  They also started the season in Stockholm Sweden, and had to deal with the challenges of international travel during the outset of the regular season.  This made for a tumultuous month of October in which they went 5-4-2.  They recovered quite nicely in November, posting an impressive 9-2-1 record, before slipping to 5-8-1 in December.  By New Year’s Eve last season, the Penguins had compiled the following stats:

New Year’s Eve 2008:

• Games Played:  37
• Record:  19-4-4
• Points:  42 (57% points efficiency)
• Goals For:  118 (3.2 per game)
• Goals Against:  110 (2.98 per game)

This season, the Penguins started the season with a healthy roster, and seemed to pick up right where they left off in June.  The Penguins jumped out to a blistering pace in October, going 11-3-0 for the month and outscoring their opponents 48-31.  Then came November, and the Penguins started to drop like flies to injury, with the Penguins’ defense taking the biggest hit.   In November, the Penguins lost 65 man-games due to injury, including 5 of their 6 regular defensive starters and one player from each forward line.  November man-games lost to injuries included Alex Goligoski (missed 7-games), Sergei Gonchar (missed 7-games), Tyler Kennedy (missed 11-games), Chris Kunitz (missed 9-games), Kris Letang (missed 9-games), Evgeni Malkin (missed 5-games), Jay McKee (missed 6-games), Brooks Orpik (missed 4-games), and Max Talbot (missed 7-games).  Despite this incredible challenge, the Penguins still managed an 8-6-0 record in November, but were outscored 46-44 as their defensive lines at one point consisted of over 80% call-ups from their AHL affiliate.  To their credit, the call-ups performed admirably under the ciircumstances, and 4 of the 6 games lost were early in the month at the outset of the injury maelstrom.  Once the Penguins started to get healthy again, they went on to post an 7-5-1 record in December, outscoring their opponents again 38-29.  Sidney Crosby has been having a very good season so far, and is on pace to score 46-goals, while Jordan Staal is right on pace for another 22-goal season.  As of New Year’s Eve this season, the Penguins have posted the following stats:

New Year’s Eve 2009:

• Games Played:  41
• Record:  26-14-1
• Points:  53 (63.1% points efficiency)
• Goals For:  130 (3.17 per game)
• Goals Against:  106 (2.59 per game)

Observations:  The Penguins have arguably posted better results at this point over last season, even with the short off-season, condensed game schedules, and rash of injuries dealt to them in November.  The Penguins have accumulated more wins and points over last season, and while their offensive production has been on-par with last season (even with Evgeni Malkin missing a couple of weeks), their defensive game has noticeably improved.  This is notable given that while the Penguins played last season without their top-2 defensemen, this season they played most of the month of November with just one of their starting defensemen in the lineup.  The Penguins have also benefitted from a sharper Marc-Andre Fleury and a very solid backup netminder in Brent Johnson.  In season’s past, Marc-Andre Fleury has had slower starts and strong finishes.  This season, while he has had a few disappointing outings, he started the season much stronger in net and is second in the league in wins behind Martin Brodeur.   

The Way Forward:  Last season the Penguins slumped over the holidays losing all 5 games from December 27th through Jan 5th.  This season, the Penguins have so far lost 3 games since December 27th with two games coming up this weekend.  Last season the Penguins would go on to win just 5 games in January, losing 9-games that month (1 in OT), with troubles continuing into mid-February before Coach Therrien was released in favor of Bylsma.  Over the past couple of seasons, the Penguins’ big points drive has come down the stretch as they have headed towards the playoffs.  Last season, for example, they went on an 18-3-4 tear under Coach Bylsma after mid-February.  The season prior, they went 15-6-3 in that same timeframe under Coach Therrien. 

While it is impossible to know what this season holds in store, fans can hope that the Penguins will follow suit from the past 2 seasons and have another strong finish.  However, there are a couple of things that could make this season’s stretch drive quite challenging for the Penguins.  First, coming off from back-to-back extended seasons, there is a real question as to whether the fatigue and/or injury factor will set in for the Penguins.  Perhaps they got over that hump in November, but there still remains a genuinely increasing risk that this could become a factor as the season wears on.  Second, what effect will the Olympic break have on the Penguins (and their opponents, for that matter).  For the stars who have been selected to repesent their countries, the Olympics present a distraction and another risk for fatigue and injury that could impact their performance on return to the NHL.  For those not participating, the break could provide a welcome rest, but at the risk of accumulating a little rust in their games.  The Olympic break also runs the risk of affecting team momentum and chemistry.  The Olympians will have to adjust to playing with new linemates, and all players will see their team’s cohesiveness disrupted at a critical point in the schedule as they run down the stretch towards the playoffs. 

It will certainly be an interesting second half to follow, with the Penguins looking for that ever-elusive 3-peat visit to the Eastern Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals.  While the odds are certainly against them, we have to ask whether there is any team better suited to face this mighty challenge?  We think not. 

 

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Get One for the Sarge

On a high-intesity drama scale, the Eastern Conference Semifinals series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals continues to thrill. Game 4 saw a determined Penguins team once again at the mercy of  the cruel humor of the Hockey Gods as another weird development put a Caps goal in the net only :36 into the game.

But the Pens seem to like it that way as goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury joked carefully afterward that that was the plan. One hates to put too much focus on the stat for trivia enthusiasts that in this series, the team that scores first loses, but that’s how it’s shaped up so far. It’s that kind of self-deprecating humor that keeps the mood light and the guys loose, and then it’s back to business.

In this game it was not a case of dueling hat-tricks between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Instead, it was a checklist of contributions from goals to helpers in a well-balanced effort. Guys like Pens defenseman Sergei Gonchar, Bill Guerin, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Max Talbot all scored goals. Others like Jordan Staal, Miroslav Satan, Chris Kunitz, and defenseman Rob Scuderi assisted to make it all happen.

Serious Stuff

The jury is still out on the knee-to-knee hit Alex Ovechkin took on Sergei Gonchar that put “Sarge” out of the game. The Penguins are not saying much on the subject–in interviews they said they had only seen the replay of it once, and many of them prefer to leave it up to the league and the refs. As Bill Guerin noted, it’s not up to him. The Capitals, on the other hand, saw it very differently.

In the post-game press conference, a clearly uncomfortable Ovechkin tried to explain it (several times) that the hit was an accident. His coach, Bruce Boudreau, cavalierly and unabashedly stated that if anyone (implying “with a brain”) looked at the tape, they would clearly see that Ovi led with the shoulder, and, in professorial fashion he proceeded with the physics lesson for the “rubes”: where the shoulder goes, the knee will follow. It was a good hit. Still, one would have loved to have been a Russian fly on the wall as Evgeni Malkin’s father was seen in animated conversation with Ovi after the game.

The league and the refs will ultimately decide, but as Jay Caufield from FSN-Pittsburgh pointed out, using the Donald Brashear 6-game suspension for his hit on Blair Betts as an example, it’s got to be consistent.

Taking his argument further, one need only go back to the Philadelphia series when Daniel Carcillo was suspended for a game after hitting Maxime Talbot in the back of the head with the butt end of his stick on a face-off. The Ovechkin hit on Gonchar clearly falls between these two incidents in terms of severity. The hit on Betts caused a concussion and broke occipital bones. The hit on Talbot did not cause injury but was a situation that could have gone badly. In the case of Gonchar, it is not known yet the degree of his injury, but the term ACL has been bandied about.

The Pens were a bit dazed upon that incident, but they played through it and maybe in spite of it–those band of brothers rallied so that Gonch’s loss would not be in vain. Tonight could easily be a carry-over of that spirit because it’s events like that which can galvanize a team, particularly one that seems to be improving and gathering strength with each period of play in this series. Game 4 was crucial and pivotal. The Caps are on their heels, and Varlamov may have spent Friday night sleeplessly replaying his performance on his second loss in a row.

Penguin Notables

• Coaching–There are many theories floating around about the idea of coaching face-offs. They are hard to accurately emulate in practice, so often, it is not something that is worked on to any major degree. However, Pens coach Dan Bylsma was seen working with Crosby in face-off style scenarios, giving Sid an idea of how to approach an opponent’s stance and positioning. The biggest difference between Michel Therrien and Dan Bylsma behind the bench is communication. Bylsma stays engaged with his players individually but not intrusively. One of the most maddening things about Therrien was that during times when he should have been in the ear of players, he was standing back, arms crossed, gazing out over the ice like a first row season ticket-holder. Bylsma has a talent for teaching on multiple levels.
• Face-offs–To piggy back on the previous comment about face-offs, in game 4 it was not always about winning the face-off. In one draw that Evgeni Malkin took, he intentionally deferred the win to his Caps opponent in favor of exploding past him to follow the puck, which he successfully gathered up after some jostling in the corner. This an excellent stratgey, showing once again that there is more than one way (the conventional way) to skin a cat even if it means sacrificing a stat. Whether this was an idea derived from a coach, a player, or both, it shows that these guys are becoming advanced students of the game–they are thinking out of the box and getting positive results.
• Hitting–When the Penguins control puck possession, whether in their defensive end or in the offensive zone, it all starts with physical play. The more Pens who hit a Cap off the puck, the more pucks come into the Pens’ possession. They have proven it time and again. This style of play disrupts the Caps’ flow and makes for tired, frustrated bodies. As soon as the Pens lay off the hits, the Caps come back and reset their speed game.
• Defensive Play–Given the way these guys played for much of the first 3/4 of the season, if anyone said that Rob Scuderi, Mark Eaton, and Hal Gill would be forces to be reckoned with this year, it would not have been believed. Their often sloppy and lacklustre play during that time was hard to watch, but these guys to a man have dug deep within themselves and found new life–in a huge way. Scuderi and Gill have been tasked with accoutning for Ovechkin, and Game 4′s performance showed that they are equal to the challenge, holding Ovi to only 2 shots in the entire game. To cap it off, Scuderi also figured in the scoring with 2 assists. The 3rd line looked more like themselves, and it is only a matter of time before they get on the scoreboard. Staal chipped in on the Fedotenko goal with some hard jabbing on the boards to break the puck free in the right direction. Marc-Andre proved solid once he got the fluke goal out of the way early in the game.

Keys to Game

It’s simple. Keep the pressure on. keep the hits legal but keep them coming hard and fast. The Caps are starting to hear big steps behind them every time they go to the boards for the puck. Keep up not only the profusion of shots, but follow on for the rebounds. Varlamov is brilliant up to two whacks at the puck, but as the numbers climb to three and four hits at it, he breaks down. Keep drawing strength from each other and take care of individual assignments. Basically, do the things that have translated into success, and do it for 60 minutes.

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