Pens Labyrinth
Fansided

Pittsburgh Penguins: What the Pens Are Getting with Matt Cullen

By Nicholas Treu

facebooktwitterreddit

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins shocked their fan base once again and signed 38-year old center Matt Cullen to a one year, $800,000 contract. Many of the Penguins faithful had penciled in Oskar Sundqvist, or possibly Eric Fehr as the fourth line center for the upcoming season, So why would Rutherford sign a 38 year old player to fill this role?

More from Penguins News

Well, like we tend do with every player now a days, let’s look at his stats, both advanced analytics and traditional statistics.

Starting with the more traditional statistics, Cullen recorded 25 points (7g, 18a) in 62 games. He was a +16, had 16 penalty minutes with an average of 13:01 TOI per game. He also won 54% of his face-offs and just to put that in perspective, that would have ranked first on the Pittsburgh Penguins last season.

Anyway you shape those stats, they are better than anything the Penguins were rolling out with the likes of Craig Adams, Maxim Lapierre, Bryan Rust, Bobby Farnham or Andrew Ebbett last season.

For a more advanced analytics point of view I invite you to check out the following charts courtesy of ownthepuck.blogspot.ca.

These two charts show that Cullen can still play quality hockey, despite his age. As our own Mike Necciai correctly pointed out about Matt Cullen:

"Matt Cullen is old by hockey standards. He’ll be 39 in November. But, at this point for the Pittsburgh Penguins it isn’t his age that’s important, it’s his price tag and production that made him necessary."

Exactly. Cullen is only signed for next season at a very reasonable cap hit. By both traditional stats and some advanced metrics, it shows that Cullen is still a viable NHL player. Playing in a fourth line role where we will only see 12-15 minutes each night will be advantageous to the Pittsburgh Penguins depth.

Another thing to consider is that his line mate is likely to be Beau Bennett. Don’t you think Beau could use a veteran presence that could maybe help him find his game this season? All indications are that Cullen is a great locker room guy and leader. When looking for someone to play with the inconsistent Bennett, maybe this is exactly the move needed to help him get over the rough start to his NHL career.

More from Pens Labyrinth

You can see by the HERO chart that his GF60 (goals for when on the ice per 60 mins) and GF% (which is calculated by goals for / (goals for + goals against)), Cullen produces at a first line rate. Except for the very brief stretches where Bennett has played with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, Beau has never had a center that can help him create offense and tap into all that potential. This could be his chance to play with someone that can have a large impact on him on and off the ice.

Defensively, for a fourth line center those are very respectable numbers. Again, much better than recent fourth line centers like Joe Vitale and company.

Many will ask and make a solid point that Oskar Sundqvist should play in the NHL this season. While I would love to see Sundqvist lace them up in Pittsburgh, he has not played in North America for an extended stretch of time. Isn’t that a knock Pens fans always cite that the organization didn’t give Beau enough time to develop in the AHL? Rutherford even came out and said that they mishandled his situation.

Sundqvist refining his game to the North American style and playing in the AHL isn’t the worst case scenario. I would expect to see him with the big club for stretches this season as well, as there undoubtedly will be injuries.

Signing Cullen fortifies that the Pittsburgh Penguins have five NHL caliber centers. For the first time in recent memory, the Pens have a full compliment of depth down the middle. While Cullen will turn 39 in November, it doesn’t mean that he still can’t play. In fact, far from it.

Next: The Pens are One Trade Away From a Perfect Offseason

More from Pens Labyrinth

Home/Penguins News