ANALYSIS: Penguins at the Season Midpoint

With the Penguins closing out the first half of the season with their win over the Thrashers on Thursday and a 20-17-4 record, there's no better time to step back and analyze what our Boys of Winter have accomplished (or not accomplished) this year so far, as well as take a look at what they may do in the 2nd half of the season.

I'll examine how, in my not-so-humble opinion, the team has performed in each area, and talk about 3 players who must step up for the Penguins in the 2nd half. In addition, with the Penguins currently sitting 9th in the Eastern Conference and out of the playoff field, I'll give 3 reasons why the Penguins may vault back into the postseason picture -- and 3 reasons why they may not.

First, the team breakdown:

OFFENSE

The Penguins offense, like the team as a whole, has slumped lately. Before Thursday's game, the popgun Penguins had gone 7 straight games without scoring more than 2 goals. It's no wonder they lost 6 of those. Overall, the Penguins offense still sits 9th overall in the NHL, though, which goes to show the clip they are capable of scoring at. To get back to putting the puck in the net the way they are used to, however, the Penguins need to get their guns scoring. RW Petr Sykora has been cashing in with some relative consistency, but more players than not are capable of increase prodution -- starting with centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Both can produce more, especially on the power play, and it's essential they do because the Penguins don't have excellent offensive depth.

Miroslav Satan is another guy who has fallen off the map in the last 6-8 weeks, with 4 goals in his last 26 or so games. He isn't consistent enough to inspire great confidence, and it wil be interesting to see if he's still a Penguin at the end of this season (let alone next season). Tyler Kennedy is another guy that has to produce more. He missed a few really good chances in the Atlanta game on Tuesday because he didn't pull the trigger fast enough. Kennedy has 8 goals and, considering he missed a month with a knee sprain, that's not bad production, but half of his total has come in 2 games. In the other 25 games he's played, he only has 4 markers. If those 2 can get going, and the Penguins can continue to get some contribution from their other depth scorers -- guys like LW Ruslan Fedotenko, LW Pascal Dupuis, and C Jordan Staal -- they'll only improve their position in the standings.

Grade: B-

DEFENSE

Defensively, the Penguins have slipped to 25th overall in the league -- which is not where Pittsburgh teams of the past few seasons are used to being. Penguins coach Michel Therein takes pride in sending a good defensive club out on the ice, but there have been too many nights this season when the Penguins have been outworked, and/or when their goaltending has been too leaky. Again, a lot of this has occurred lately, and must improve if the Penguins are going to stay in the playoff mix.

Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi have probably been the Penguins' best defensemen, and even they have not been perfect. Most of the rest of the group has been average, although one has to say that defenseman Alex Goligoski has had a relatively decent rookie season. He leads all NHL freshman defenseman in points, and is plus 7. Phillipe Boucher, who game over in an early season trade for veteran Darryl Sydor, has been average, at best. Boucher hasn't shown the NHL all-star form he displayed 2 years ago, or anything close to it. I believe that he and Mark Eaton are the guys who should be sitting right now, not Hal Gill, and certainly not Goligoski.

You can't talk about the defense without talking about Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar. Whitney recently returned from missing the first 33 games with a foot injury and looks pretty good for taking so much time off. The more comfortable he gets out there, the better Pittsburgh will be. And what more can be said about Gonchar's absence? The Penguins certainly miss him offensively, but they also miss him defensively more than people realize. Gonchar has developed into one of the top 5 two-way defenseman in this game the last several seasons. He's intelligent and efficient in his own zone and the drop-off in Pittsburgh's defensive play overall so far this year can be at least partially traced to his injury in the preseason opener. Let's hope we see him again in about 6 weeks.

Grade: C

GOALTENDING

Like many other facets of the team's game this year so far, the Penguins goaltenders -- Marc-Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin -- started off well. In fact, they were probably the biggest reason why the team had its 3rd best start to a season in franchise history. As the defense and the offense have gone lately, however, so have the goaltenders -- perhaps even more so. Both Fleury and Sabourin are now near the bottom in GAA and save percentage figures. Of course, Fleury missed about 5 weeks with a groin injury, and that didn't help because he's been inconsistent since his return. Sabourin was good for stretches in Fleury's absence, but when the team started to play poorly around him, his play suffered, too. The penguins need more from both if they are going to be any kind of factor in the second half of the season.

Grade: C-

SPECIAL TEAMS

Going into Thursday's games, the Penguins' power play was 19th overall at 18% and the Penguins' penalty killing was 21st overall at 80.3%. Both of those rankings have plummeted since earlier in the season when both of the Penguins' units were in the top 10. Neither unit is going to scare anyone with the way they're playing currently. The power play, in particular has been especially bad.

The Penguins simply aren't working hard enough on both units. On the power play, they are playing too much around the perimeter and haven't been willing to get their noses dirty in front of the net. Even impact players like Crosby and Malkin can only do so much damage from 40 feet and out. On the penalty kill, the Penguins haven't been as strong positionally or on the wall in their own zone, and it's costing them. Their goaltenders -- which sometimes need to be your best penalty killer -- haven't helped the PK units much lately either.

The Penguins have shown the ability to be among the better teams in the game on special teams, and will need to do that again if they want to start winning more.

Grade: C

COACHING

With losses and losing streaks come criticism, and the entire Penguins' coaching staff hasn't been immune to that truism lately -- and that includes Therrein and assistants Mike Yeo (who runs the offense and power play) and Andre Savard (who runs the defense and penalty killing).

Recently, the concern around the media has been whether Therein's message has gone stale. I'm not buying it. I might if the team was working hard and winning individual battles out there while still losing, but they are losing without doing either of those things, and they aren't playing the solid defensive system as well as they did last year. The coaching staff and everyone else knows the players can do it, and the players know they can have success with it -- as evidenced by the Penguins' run to the Stanley Cup Final last season. They just aren't getting it done.

None of this is to say the coaches are completely undeserving of some heat -- just that I don't believe they're mainly to blame. Although it seems there has been some hangover in Pittsburgh following last season's successful playoff run, Therrein has earned some slack, in my book.

Grade: B-


3 players who must step up for the Penguins in the 2nd half:

1) Marc-Andre Fleury

Goaltending is so important in the NHL. Fleury showed last season what he can do for the Penguins when he's on his game. He has time to get it together, and needs to if the Penguins have any hope on making a run to, and hopefully through, the playoffs. He has shown that he continues to have to work on his consistency.

2) Maxime Talbot

Talbot has battled a variety of injuries this year, but is certainly capable of more than the 4 goals and 3 assists he has put up in the 38 games he has played. Worse is his minus 15 rating, the lowest on the team by a wide margin. Talbot signed a contract extension about one month ago, and has to live up to that by improving his game notably in the 2nd half, both offensively and defensively, while continuing to give the Penguins' energy, character and grit.

3) Sidney Crosby

The Penguins won't go very far without Crosby leading them in the 2nd half. He has 16 goals and 35 assists for 51 points in all 41 games -- good for 3rd in the league in scoring, right behind Washington Capitals RW Alexander Ovechkin, and 12 points behind teammate and league leader Evgeni Malkin. Despite those totals, I think Crosby has been inconsistent this season. He went through a stretch where he scored 7 goals in 5 games, but take that away and you're left with 9 goals in 34 contests. Crosby is not a sniper, but is the Penguins' captain and even though Malkin is outscoring him, his teammates count on him to set the tone for the club offensively. He needs to generate more pressure on opposing defenses off the rush, which he is typically good at, but which we haven't seen very much of this year. When Crosby can do that more, he'll back off defenders and open up space that his not-always fully capable linemates need.


3 reasons why the Penguins may not vault back into the playoff picture:

1) Lack of scoring depth

The Penguins continue to be lacking in this area, and Crosby continues to be missing the big gun he deserves on his wing. Are you listening GM Ray Shero?

2) Lack of grit/physicality

Pittsburgh is unquestionably missing some abrasiveness and physiciality, both among their forwards and among their defenseman. They just aren't difficult to play against.

3) Goaltending

As set forth above, if Marc-Andre Fleury doesn't step up his play and win games for the Penguins, they'll continue a near decade long trend of NHL Stanley Cup Finalists not even making the playoffs the next season.


3 reasons why the Penguins may indeed get back into the playoff mix:

1) Talent

The Penguins still have top end skill and are capable of getting on a roll at any time. Even if they manage to just squeak into the playoffs, teams will not want to play them.

2) History

Pittsburgh has come on strong in the 2nd half of each of the last 2 seasons. If they go on another run like that this year, they can be just as dangerous as last season.

3) Chemistry

This has been missing for much of the year so far, both with off-season player losses and injury, but the Penguins still have time to right their ship and come together as a unit. Once their players get healthy -- and perhaps with another trade deadline deal by the GM -- you can't rule out the possibility, if not the likelihood, of them galvanizing together once again and quickly recapturing the togetherness that helped take them within 2 wins of the Holy Grail last year.


The Penguins have to start out the second half of their season right, which begins tonight on the road against the Nashville Predators (8 PM EST). The Penguins win against Atlanta Tuesday was a nice victory to stem the tide, but tonight's matchup is 8 times more important for them. They need to put a streak together, and even if it's not quite the beginning of an 8, 10 or 12 game run, it's critical that they get away from the inconsistent, half-hearted play we saw from them recently. To do that, they need at least a few wins in a row, or something like 3 of 4, to gain their footing.

For as poorly as the Penguins have played lately, if they win tonight and get just a bit of help with losses by Philadelphia and New Jersey, they can still be within 5 points of the division-leading Flyers. They are far from out of it.

Recap tomorrow.

GO PENS!