“2012-02-04 Penguins at Bruins (139)” (CC BY 2.0) by Dan4th
You don’t need to be an NHL expert to know that having a strong special teams option is a crucial ingredient to a team making it into the playoffs. Without a strong power play and positive penalty kill, it’s hard to make it into the postseason never mind challenge for the Stanley Cup.
Well, you try telling that to the Pittsburgh Penguins. They have struggled on both over the past month and still come out of the period with seven wins from 10 games, putting them in a strong position to secure a Wildcard slot. But while Mike Johnstone’s men have looked to be one of the league’s in-form teams over the past three months, the Penguins head coach will be well aware that there are areas of this team that need addressing.
This hasn’t been an issue for Pittsburgh all season, but the fact the special teams isn’t producing the same level of performance it did earlier in the campaign hasn’t come as a surprise to everyone. From the moment Evgeni Malkin suffered an upper-body injury at the beginning of February, the Pittsburgh power play hasn’t looked anywhere near as strong as it had done with the Russian on the ice. While the centre made a brief return to action towards the end of February, the Penguins will now have to do without one of their best players for as long eight weeks. Without Malkin, Pittsburgh know they need certain players to step up and pull their weight in this area.
Getting the right mix without Malkin in the power player is nowhere near as important as continuing to kill penalties. While Pittsburgh picked up wins in the first two games following their stand-out centre’s injury, a failure to kill their penalty count was one of the obvious negatives to come out of that run. For much of the season, Pittsburgh have been one of the best teams in the league when shorthanded, which has played a part in them being priced at the time of writing at around 17/1 with Bet365 NHL odds to win the Stanley Cup this season.
In the first 57 games of the season, the Penguins killed 85.0 percent of their penalties. That is a figure which has dropped to just 75.0 percent over the past 12 outings. The absence of Ben Lovejoy certainly hasn’t helped Pittsburgh’s cause since his upper body injury and the veteran defenseman’s upcoming return will be a massive boost to the franchise in the run-up to the playoffs, especially in respects to killing the penalty count. Kevin Porter was another important part of the Penguins’ special teams plans, averaging 1:51 minutes of shorthanded ice time per game this season before suffering what looks to be a season-ending leg injury. His absence has also been felt.
But it isn’t just penalty killing where Pittsburgh need to improve, losing a number of important faceoffs over the past few months. If they can tighten things up in the faceoff circle and start getting some of their penalty kill experts back from injury, this Penguins team are capable of making an impact in the postseason even with their flaws. But even though they’ve continued winning without performing at their best, it may be that sooner or later their inefficiencies catch up with them.
Source: Penguins look to solve special teams issues by Content Partner