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How do these Penguins stack up against last year’s squad ??
by Tony on 03/30/09 at 12:45 PM ET
Comments (7)
It’s close, it’s very close.
If you would’ve asked me two months ago, it would be a moot point, since the playoffs were quickly becoming a unlikely possibility.
But now, barring a collapse in their final six games, as the Penguins head towards the playoffs, it begs the question:
Is this year’s roster better or worse than the one that was two wins away from winning the Stanley Cup last season ??
Let’s break it down into three areas: Better, worse, and push.
Better
- First Line (By a smidge) - The Sidney Crosby/Marian Hossa tandem, as the playoffs went along, really started to roll. However, most of the time they had Pascal Dupuis on Crosby’s other wing. The trade deadline acquisitions of Chris Kunitz from Anaheim and Bill Guerin collectively makes the first line clearly more dangerous than Crosby’s line with Dupuis and Miro Satan or Tyler Kennedy or Matt Cooke or Max Talbot or Ruslan Fedotenko.
- Depth - The aforementioned dealings for Kunitz and Guerin has pushed ham-n-egger wingers like Max Talbot and Pascal Dupuis into fourth line roles, rather than on the top two scoring lines. While those forwards are not vastly superiors to last year’s fourth line of Adam Hall, Jeff Taffe, Georges Laraque and Gary Roberts, they (along with either newly acquired Craig Adams or enforcer Eric Godard) provide a speedy, puck possessing style of play that causes problems for the opposition. In addition, it allows IHCDB to move disappointing wingers Miro Satan all the way to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Ruslan Fedotenko to the third line.
- Gameplan - It appears that the aggressive, forechecking, physical play the Penguins have done since IHCDB has taken over the reins has made the Penguins much harder to play against. Opposing teams are having a harder time just getting the puck out of their own zone, instead of having the Pens back on their heels waiting for the play to come to them.
Worse
- No Marian Hossa - Can’t put it any clearer than that. Kunitz and Guerin are certainly valuable assets that have done well since coming to Pittsburgh and will mostly do well for the Pens in the playoffs. That said, neither Kunitz nor Guerin is Marian Hossa, not really close. Hossa proved in last year’s playoffs just how good of a two-way beast he really is. The fact that he’s now in Detroit, with fellow two-way beasts Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg just makes them that much more dangerous.
- Net Presence (not by much though) - Ryan Malone was a monster in front of the net in last year’s playoffs, including when he took the slapper in the schnoz during Game 5 and came back. While the addition of Kunitz and Guerin has significantly improved this area, I don’t feel that it’s quite at the same level.
- Backup goaltender - This area could, of course, be a moot point, since hopefully Marc-Andre Fleury will remain healthy and therefore get the vast majority of the workload in goal. However, if the need arises for the Pens to go to the backup, Mathieu Garon has only gotten into three games since his arrival in Pittsburgh, going 1-1 with a .862 save pct. and a 3.70 GAA.
- Powerplay - The PP has gone from being ranked 4th in the NHL last year with a 20.4% success rate all the way down to 23rd at 16.6%. Since the Kunitz/Guerin acquisitions, they changed some things around, but for the most part, it hasn’t reflected on the scoreboard. This was evidenced as recently as Saturday vs. the Rangers, going 0-for-9. If somehow, if the hockey gods ever make it so that this powerplay starts kicking again, this could be one hard team to beat in the playoffs.
Push
- Toughness - While the Pens lost Jarkko Ruutu, Roberts, Malone and Hall, they have since gained Cooke, Kunitz, Guerin and Adams. In addition, the enforcer factor, often a non-entity in the playoffs, changed from Laraque to Godard. The physical presence of Brooks Orpik remained as well. With Ruutu, they had more of an agitator role than the checking role of Cooke. They lost the warrior mentality of Roberts. But while the Pens don’t have those intangibles, what they have is four forwards who can not only play physical but also be offensive contributors, something that Ruutu and the aging Roberts didn’t provide that much of.
- Penalty kill - The actual league rankings for the Pens’ penalty kill show that they’ve improved from tied for 22nd in the league last year to 14th this year. However, the success rate has nearly stayed the same, going from 81.0% last year to 81.9% this year.
Of course, this is all pure speculation. There are many other attributes that will come to light once the playoffs start that could easily wipe all of the above out. That’s what makes the playoffs great.
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Tags: NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,
Comments
If you believe that the Pens are now almost equal to last year’s squad, then you should take the 18-1 odds of Pittsburgh winning the cup. Fifty dollars wins nine hundred if the Pens pull it off. It’s crazy but how fun would the playoffs be then?
Posted by Jp23music from CA on 03/31/09 at 07:04 PM ET
The only disagreement in this article is the Marian Hossa idea. Yes, he is better than any of the personnel that we traded for this year, but he was injured until around 10 games left and had no chemistry with Crosby until the Conference Finals. He didn’t get us any farther than we would have without him until the Conference finals. He wasn’t that much of an improvement simply because he wasn’t there.
Having Kunitz and Guerin on a line with Crosby doesn’t seem that incredible, but they have great chemistry right off the bat. This is important to have going into the playoffs.
I agree with miami85 in that we don’t need the best players, we need the right ones.
Justin
http://www.everythingpittsburgh.net
Posted by toad268 from Monroeville, PA on 03/31/09 at 09:38 PM ET
@miami - that’s a good point, the experience factor is definitely “Better”....
@JP23 - Hmmm, well my son lives in Vegas, so…................
@toad - I’ll give ya the Ottawa series, but you’re saying Hossa + Crosby didn’t have any chemistry during the Rangers series either ??
Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 03/31/09 at 09:43 PM ET
I wouldn’t say they didn’t have any chemistry, but as of right now, they didn’t have as much as Kunitz and Guerin do with Crosby….
http://www.everythingpittsburgh.net
Posted by toad268 from Monroeville, PA on 03/31/09 at 09:54 PM ET
Well, my girlfriend comes from Pittsburgh and she was a huge Steelers fan when I met her. I was a miscast hockey lover from Los Angeles. I turned her on to the Penguins last year during the playoffs, having no clue Pitt would make it all the way to the championship.
During the process she fell in love with the Pens. But I, being a hockey lover on the West Coast, started to see the potential of this team. I did not think Pitt would beat Detroit last year, and I don’t see Pitt winning it all this year. But the future could bring multiple championships to the Penguins.
Anyway, here in LA I am more of a Kings fan than the Quacks. Staples is only 10 minutes away (without traffic) but Honda Center in at Disneyland, at least an hour away. You may have noticed the Kings have a bright future but the Ducks are at an impass.
Anyway, I love the Pens and they have given me lots of excitement as of late. But I do not expect them to win the cup. Not this year. But maybe next and the year after and the year after…......or never at all…. That’s Sports… But I am a Peguins convert from LA and I love the Pens.
As far as my 18-1 bet on the Pens to win it all. That’s what hope is all about.
NCAA? I hate Villy. It time for them to get clocked. Look for N.C. and Conn in the final. And—sorry Obama….. I say UCONN Can…...
Thanks For Listening Pittsburgh….... I Love This Site…... Beat The Devils!
JP23
Posted by JP23music from Los Angeles on 04/01/09 at 12:54 AM ET
The thing that make us Penguins fans is the fact that we always believe the Pens can and will go all the way, no matter how unlikely it seems. That was proven last year when they went all the way up, almost to the top.
This year the Pens went through a stretch where everything went to hell, but they held themselves within striking distance. The Pens then got hot at the right time, the end of the season, and will take this hot-streak with them into the playoffs.
People seem to be writng the Pens off this year because of the cold streak from Dec. - Feb. and because not since the Oilers of the 80’s has a team lost in the SCF and won it the next season.
We all must believe they can do it again and finish on top with the hardware in hand in June. The Pens may not be the same as last year, but the playoffs have a strange way of changing peoples views of teams and players. Hossa (damn him and the Red Wings’ coat-tails he’s riding on) was thought to be crap for the playoffs last year, but played on another level in the SCF, remember that.
Posted by Kevin G. from Erie, PA on 04/01/09 at 09:48 AM ET
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One thing to bear in mind is as you said the playoffs are a completely different game. Last year going into the playoffs Hossa was consistently the guy who “disappeared” in the playoffs until he came to the penguins. Malone was considered a nice complementary player to Geno and Sykora. And though he stepped up big time in Fleury’s absence, Ty Conklin was nowhere on the depth chart to start the season.
This year we have Kunitz and Guerin who will have played 15+ games with Sid as opposed to Hossa who had 5 going into the playoffs. We have Cooke, Guering, Kunitz and even sometimes Geno who can all bring a net presence on top of their grit. There also seems to be that unless WBS needs him and we’re in a goalie bind John Curry could likely fill in—though Fleury managed just fine last year.
My point is that we remember guys like Hossa and Malone because of what they became during the SC final but that’s because the playoffs brought out those qualities. This years squad has filled in the holes it needed to—there is only one Hossa so this seems like a reasonable solution. Besides, there’s one important thing that last year’s team didn’t have—EXPERIENCE. This year (with the exception of 2-3 guys) EVERYONE has playoff experience—fresh playoff experience. This team is hungry. They have Cup winners, and they have guys who almost got there. They also have a healthy Sid and a better Geno. They also have young guys who have improved.
There’s a line that I loved from the movie “Miracle” that I love: “I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right ones”
Only time will tell if this year’s team had the “right ones”
Posted by miami85 on 03/31/09 at 11:00 AM ET