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Some Penguins stats that you might have overlooked during their freefall; Wallace sent down

by Tony on 01/12/09 at 02:23 PM ET
Comments (4)

Statistics are always convenient when a team is going poorly, just as it is when it’s going good.

In reference to the Penguins’ downward spiral, a lot of the scrutiny has been focused on the poor performance of the powerplay, once considered a staple of the Penguins’ offense.  In addition, the influx of injuries, simply cannot be overlooked, despite attempts to downplay them (which I’m guilty of).

But there are some other statistics that are sometimes brought up, but not nearly as much as they should, in my view anyway.

So let’s take a look....

1.  Goaltending - Last season, the hockey world basically wrote the Penguins’ season off after the December ‘07 high-ankle injury to Marc-Andre Fleury.  However, the sensational play of Ty Conklin was a major factor in effectively saving the Penguins’ collective hides.  This season, once again Fleury sustained a “lower-body injury”, suspected to be a groin, and for a short time, Dany Sabourin did a yeoman’s job in relieving Fleury.  It didn’t last very long, though, as his stats slowly but surely went south.  In addition, even after Fleury came back, he hasn’t regained his top form of a year ago.  So far this season, Fleury (.904 Sv. Pct/2.97 GAA) is performing well below last season’s levels (.921 Sv. Pct./2.33 GAA).  In addition, Sabourin’s totals to date (.898 Sv. Pct./2.85 GAA) are much lower than Conklin’s (.923 Sv. Pct/2.51 GAA).  So while it wouldn’t hurt to see the Penguins put the puck in net more, it’s not going to matter much if the goaltending doesn’t improve at the same time.

2.  Defense - Of course, good goaltending is greatly assisted by good defense.  A good defense stops many pucks from not even getting on goal, much less in the net.  Well, the Penguins’ defense, for much of last year receiving praise “the most underrated” and similar comments, To date, the Pens are giving up 3.07 goals per game, good (bad) enough for 25th in the NHL.  That percentage was 2.58 last season, good for 10th.  Individually, there hasn’t arguably been one defenseman that it could be said is having a “good year”.  Maybe Rob Scuderi, particularly dealing with blocked shots.  But the stalwarts on the back end, namely Brooks Orpik and recently activated Ryan Whitney, have had numerous defensive lapses.  Whitney has only been back for 10 games, and he’s already a -9, Orpik having a -5.  Actually, the only defensemen to be in the plus category are Scuderi’s +8 and Alex Goligoski, who in the infinite wisdom of HCMT has been a healthy scratch the last few games, with a +6.  A common sight recently has been offensive rushes by the opposition where there were forwards given free reign around the net, as well as very little physical play along the boards, outside of Orpik and forward Matt Cooke.

3.  Faceoffs - Until this year, the Penguins of recent years have never been good in the faceoff circle.  But this season, specifically with the addition of specialist Mike Zigomanis, they were among the top handful of teams in the NHL.  However, Zigomanis, with his NHL-leading 62.9 faceoff percentage, suffered an undisclosed injury on December 3rd, and that has sent the Penguins back down the NHL faceoff ladder.  The Pens’ leader now in faceoffs is Sidney Crosby, whose 49.2 faceoff average is only good enough for 60th in the NHL.  Jordan Staal is 71st with a 46.8.  Overall, it has to be noted that the Pens actually have a higher faceoff percentage as a team compared to last year (49.0% versus 46.1%), but the majority of that has to be attributed to Zigomanis.

----------------------------------------------------

In other news, Tim Wallace has been sent back down to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.  Hopefully that means Pascal Dupuis will be back in the lineup tomorrow night vs. Philly.

Filed in: | The Confluence | Permalink
 Tags: NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,

Comments

How about just the fact that the Penguins overachieved last year. Look at who they played in the playoffs, Ottawa(don’t need an explanation), a Rangers team who probably couldn’t score against the Mongolian national hockey team, and a Philly who lost their top 2 defencemen. They were exposed vs Detroit, outplayed in every game. It took Fleury to make like 60 saves to win game 5. In the offseason they lost like 8 players who probably were the leaders in that locker room, Malone, Roberts etc. and Crosby isn’t a good leader, he was just given the C because he is Sidney Crosby.

Posted by Chris from San Jose on 01/12/09 at 07:46 PM ET

Well, the fact that they lost several players, such as Hossa, Malone, Roberts, etc. would be an argument that they DIDN’T overachieve last year, but is an argument that their expectation maybe shouldn’t be as high this year…

Now THAT I could see....

Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 01/12/09 at 08:04 PM ET

I wonder how much of the discontent is because people tend to project linear progressions even where they aren’t appropriate, with both teams and players.

Two years ago they weren’t as good, last year they were better than the year before, so OBVIOUSLY they are going to be better yet this year, right?  Like assuming that a player who got 15 goals two years ago, and 20 last year, is clearly on a pace for 25 this year because he is young and only going to get better ... except then he only has 16 because he is fighting injury and is playing more of a defensive role than he was before, so some fans start talking about what a disappointment he is and want him to be traded, since he is already 22 years old and will certainly not get any better because his ability has certainly peaked.

When a clear linear progression is not always (if ever) the way things go.

I think you are right that expectations were too high this year.  It would be a shame if the coach were to be fired because others were too optimistic - if he is fired it should be because the team decides someone else would be a better coach, not because they were wrong and he is a scapegoat for their elevated expectations.

Crosby strikes me as a young man who has had very little experience with losing, and it’s frustrating for him to deal with it when everything he tries to do or say doesn’t seem to help.  As he gains maturity and experience he’ll be better able to deal with it, and will be a better leader for the team, I think.  How can he know how to captain a poor team if he hasn’t been on a team like that before?

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 01/13/09 at 06:37 AM ET

The Penguins have displayed a noticeable lack of toughness this season.

I don’t mean fighting and checking, I mean the sort of toughness that makes a team difficult to play against.
They are not going to the net, they are not forcing the opposition away from their own net, they are not forechecking hard, they are making it far too easy for opponents entering their zone and having far too much difficulty entering their opponents’ zone.

On offense you could point to the loss of players like Ruutu, Malone and Roberts for their lack of toughness, but their defensive core is the same as last season (minus the injured Gonchar.)

I’m not sure why their defense has suddenly become so “soff.”

Posted by PenguinsExperience on 01/13/09 at 01:08 PM ET

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Welcome to The Confluence, a Pittsburgh Penguins blog since 2006.  Originally at Blogspot, then at MVN, The Confluence has over 1000 articles reporting Penguins news as well as jumping on my soapbox to opine constructive Penguins criticism.  My posts are regularly linked by hockey websites such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters and Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy, and I’ve done guest blogger spots on such websites as the New York Times.  I invite you to spend a little time and peruse the archives at all of the sites for some of my better work.  I am a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, but don’t confuse me with my fellow Chief at A2Y.

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