For the fourth time in the Sidney Crosby era of the Pittsburgh Penguins, a coach has been fired. This time it was Mike Johnston’s turn to be relieved of his duties, with Mike Sullivan taking over.
The Penguins came into the season with big expectations after loading up on forwards, with Phil Kessel being the big acquisition, but they’ve disappointed in the first third of the year.
The Penguins’15-10-3 at the time of Johnston’s firing is by no means a complete disaster as they’re within striking distance of the playoffs. But it’s a far cry from the usually dominant squad the city of Pittsburgh was used to under Dan Bylsma.
But where exactly are the problems for the Penguins? Is it Mike Johnston’s system? Is it struggling players? Is it wrong players? To find out, we need to see where exactly the Penguins are struggling compared to other teams.
| Penguins | League rank | |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral zone turnover rate | 31% | 29th |
| Neutral zone pass success rate | 70.80% | 29th |
| Neutral zone defensive play success rate | 78.80% | 27th |
| Offensive zone pass success rate | 60.20% | 30th |
| Cycle pass receptions by defenceman per 20 min. | 4.90% | 29th |
| Scoring chance generating play by defenceman per 20 min. | 5% | 26th |
The main struggles the Penguins are facing come in two areas; they’re losing the neutral zone, and in the offensive zone the Penguins are the worst passing team in the league.
Let’s break down each.
The Neutral Zone
It’s one thing to see the statistics laid out, but it’s another to understand what they mean. Check this out: over 31 per cent of the time the Penguins make a play with the puck in the neutral zone, whether that’s a pass, a deke, or an attempted carry, they turn the puck over to their opponents. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning have turned the puck over in the neutral zone more often, and only the Columbus Blue Jackets have failed to connect with passes more often.
This is a problem on its own, but it’s exacerbated by the fact the Penguins are also ranked 27th in the league in defensive play success rate in the neutral zone, meaning their attempts to remove possession from opponents between the blue lines fail more often than 26 other teams.
Losing the puck more often, and having more trouble getting it back than most, severely hampers the Penguins’ ability to transition the puck, and their ability to stop their opponents from entering their zone.
For a long time neutral zone play was largely ignored; you can’t score or be scored on from there unless your goalie is on the bench or named Vesa Toskala, but recent studies have suggested that dominance in the neutral zone may be the most important factor in both offence and defence.
That failure rate in the neutral zone may be system-related, but I have a feeling that it has much more to do with the same problems the Penguins have faced in the offensive zone.
The Offensive Zone
You might wonder how a team with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on it could possibly have the lowest pass completion rate in the offensive zone in the entire NHL, but the answer is simple; they don’t use their defencemen.
The Penguins’ defencemen are the second least involved in the cycle in the NHL, meaning more often than not the forwards only pass to each other in the offensive zone. It’s good to work the puck down low, but if you’re going to only do that, you make it easier for opponents to cut off your passes.
The lack of involvement of the defencemen is seen again in scoring chance creation, where the Penguins see the second least offence come from their defencemen in the league.
I highly doubt that Mike Johnston was telling his forwards to avoid passing to the defencemen at the points, so I find it difficult to lay the blame on him for that. What is obvious though, is how weak the Penguins’ defence is in general.
Kris Letang and Olli Maatta are two strong pieces for a solid top-four, but both have missed time, and have regularly missed time with various injuries over the last few years. In order to compensate for that, the Penguins need more depth at defence than most teams do, and they just don’t have it with the likes of Ben Lovejoy getting the third most ice time on the team.
There are limited ways in which Mike Sullivan can make up for the lack of depth on defence, but one thing that could make a serious impact would be to insist to his general manager that Derrick Pouliot has to be called up from the American Hockey League.
Pouliot put on consistently strong performances in the second half of last season and into the playoffs with the Penguins suffering a slew of injuries to their defence, but had a reportedly underwhelming training camp this year. Since then Pouliot has put up 16 points in 23 games with the Penguins’ minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
He may not be a top-four solution right away, but improving the Penguins’ defence in any area is desperately needed right now. The forwards need to trust that their defencemen can help them create offence.
