Through the first two games of the Pittsburgh Penguins 2015-16 season, we have not seen the offense that many anticipated we’d see right out of the gate. In the first game they were blanked by the Dallas stars 3-0. Saturday night in Arizona only Phil Kessel was able to pot a goal off a terrific shot off the rush.
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But is this a product of the Penguins struggling with chemistry or just running into two netminders that played outstanding hockey games in Antti Niemi and Mike Smith? Probably a little bit of both. The third period in Arizona in particular shows the Pens offensive potential when they dominated at times by peppering Smith. However he was up for the challenge stopping all of the golden scoring chances that they had, including stoning Nick Bonino on an A+ one timer opportunity.
We haven’t seen much from Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, as they are struggling to find their way in the early part of the season. But it is not time to panic. Two games is a very small sample size and it wouldn’t be fair to identify any of the issues we have seen so far as a full-blown problem just yet. However, there are a couple of issues that stick out as alarming and if they aren’t addressed right away could hurt this team.
Let’s examine some of these issues the biggest must correct through the first two games:
Sidney Crosby needs to be better
Crosby has zero shots on goal through two games. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence. It is astounding. Josh Yohe of DKOnPittsburghSports.com reported the Crosby has, “zero goals, zero assists, zero shots on goal, one shot attempted, two hits, one takeaway, one giveaway, 26 faceoffs won, 27 faceoffs lost”.
Yikes. That is just simply unacceptable from presumably the best player in the NHL. The good news is that Sid probably will be better, he has too much talent not to be.
The defense needs to do a better job at gap control
One thing I’ve noticed is that the Penguins defense backs way off when opposing forwards are skating into the zone. At the NHL level, guys are just too good if you give them this much space. The Pittsburgh Penguins have to do a better job taking away the other team’s time and space, just like most teams try to do to the Penguins stars.
This was excruciatingly evident on a couple of goals against in Dallas.
On the goal below, Rob Scuderi is our first culprit. Notice how he just backs up and allows Ales Hemsky to fire a blistering shot right between his legs and beat Fleury.
On the next clip, Brian Dumoulin is guilty of the same offense. He just backs up and allows our friend Hemsky to again skate right into the defensive zone without any opposition. He finds Mattias Janmark in front for his first NHL goal. This goal is allowed to happen because Hemsky has all day to survey the ice and find Janmark streaking down the slot.
Daniel Sprong needs more ice time
Sprong played 7:57 in Arizona. In Dallas, he played 8:59.
Sprong has been one of the better forwards in the preseason and training camp, creating offensive opportunities seemingly every time he’s on the ice even though that’s been under eleven minutes of total ice time. If Mike Johnson is going to let the kid ride the bench, why bother even keeping him around?
He has to play. And quite frankly, he has to play a lot more than he has. The Penguins are struggling to score goals and he has been a bright spot in terms of generating offense. Let the kid play.
Load up the first power play unit
Sorry, but splitting up Crosby and Malkin on separate power plays is just not good coaching. This team boasts two of the best scorers of this generation, one of the best goal scorers of the past 5 seasons, a pestering net front presence in Patric Hornqvist, and an extremely talented Kris Letang.
Johnson and Rick Tocchet need to find a way to make it work. It is laughable to have Malkin and Hornqvist on the bench while David Perron and Chris Kunitz take their place on the top powerplay unit.
These Penguins aren’t in trouble yet. It is only 2 games but they look like anything but a contender.
Dejan Kovacevic summed it up best in his column after the Arizona game about what Stanley Cup contending teams do:
"“They build a strong core, a foundation for how they want to play. They instill confidence and cohesion. They deploy their best players in the situations where they’ve got the best chance to succeed. They keep as many together as possible to maximize productivity, rather than spreading them all over creation and hoping for a single tide to raise all ships.”"
The Pittsburgh Penguins coaching staff hasn’t done that yet. The good news is there is still time to right that ship but it is going to take all parties to get it sailing in the right direction.
Next: Kris Letang a Rare Defensive Bright Spot