CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Over the past three seasons, the only pairing on the Penguins’ defense to even come close to the ice time of Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang’s partnership was the duo of Marcus Pettersson and John Marino.
At times, the Pettersson-Marino pairing showed flashes of brilliance. Both consistently ranked in the top quarter of NHL defenders regarding their impacts toward limiting quality chances against. The pairing was, however, susceptible to lapses around the net-front, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t an issue, as no Penguins D-pairing produced better goals against rates and expected goals against rates since the two started playing together in 2019-20.
When the two of them were clicking together, they were staunch in their own end and moved the puck up the ice efficiently. Pettersson often took a beating in the corners doing so, but he could be counted on to make a strong first pass from the defensive zone, and Marino was great at using his legs to transition the puck on his own.
The problem is that, even though their defensive results were great against mid-level competition, they really struggled to create tangible offense at an acceptable frequency for a No. 2 pairing. It wasn’t that they were incapable of doing so entirely, but overall, their offensive shortcomings severely diminished the value they were providing in their own end.
Last season was Pettersson-Marino’s best defensive season together yet, but it was also their weakest offensive showing. Pettersson was healthy-scratched for a number of games in the latter half of the regular season, and Marino saw his average ice-time drop by over three minutes per game from the start of the season to the end.
"You never wanna be outside of the lineup," Pettersson told me following Day 3 of training camp at the Lemieux Complex on Saturday. "They (coaches) were helping me out a lot, just trying to reset my game a little bit. I think I came back from that and had a strong finish to the season."
The pairing went on to have a dominant postseason series against the Rangers, controlling a whopping 65.4% of the expected goals during their 118 minutes on the ice at even-strength, but one or the other could also be directly pointed to as reasons for several of the Rangers’ goals in the Penguins’ Game 7 loss.
Even though Pettersson was the one who found himself out of the lineup a few times throughout the season, Marino was the one Ron Hextall elected to move on from, dealing him to the Devils in exchange for Ty Smith and a third-round draft pick in 2023.
We know that Pettersson was a name involved in Hextall’s trade talks before Marino was ultimately dealt. The situation was a bit uneasy for Pettersson, but he went about his business as best he could during the offseason.
"It was tough, but you try not to think about it," Pettersson said. "Kinda try to keep your head down and work. Whatever happens, happens. You gotta prepare the same way. You’re playing the same game anyway."
As glad as Pettersson is to still be a member of the Penguins, it was disappointing to see his longtime D-partner in Marino shipped away.
"He’s become a friend to me, so it was tough. We all know it’s a business and things like that happen," Pettersson said. "I called him right after it happened and we’ve been texting back and forth a little bit, but not too much. I try to leave him to focus on that. I talked to him a little bit after and he was excited for a new challenge."
Several hours after Marino was shipped away, Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling were acquired from the Canadiens in exchange for Mike Matheson and a fourth-round draft pick in 2023.
Petry, a right-handed defender, will slot into Marino’s place on the Penguins’ second pairing. Through the first three days of training camp, Petry has skated on a pairing with Pettersson. As Mike Sullivan loves to remind us, nothing is etched in stone, but all logic points to those two starting the season together and getting an extended look.
"It’s felt good," Pettersson said of his brief time skating alongside Petry. "He’s such a pro and such a good player that it’s kind of easy to read off him. … We try to talk with each other, try to find small things that he likes to do and I like to do and feed off each other that way."
There’s reason to believe the two of them could become one of the more effective No. 2 D-pairings around the league.
Petry's defensive impacts are slightly inferior to Marino's, but he makes up for all of it and then some with his offense and finishing ability. Over the past three seasons, Petry's isolated impact on offense ranks in the 89th percentile of NHL defenders, and his finishing ranks in the 97th percentile, per JFreshHockey. That is ... significant. For comparison's sake, Marino's isolated impact on offense ranks in the 35th percentile, and his finishing ranks in the 64th percentile over the same timeframe.
In theory, since Petry is such a high-end offensive defenseman, that should allow Pettersson to further leverage his strong impacts on the defensive side of the puck. I asked Pettersson if he believes that to be the case.
"Yeah, I think so," Pettersson said. "We gotta play to each other’s strengths, that’s what we’ve been getting these three days now into camp and playing with each other a lot. We’re getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses the further we go, but like you said, he’s such a high-end offensive player that I can kind of let him go and focus on that. At the same time, I want to be able to contribute offensively, too."
Pettersson went on to tell me that his offensive game has slipped, and that he wants to get it back to where it was in 2019-20, when his isolated impact on offense ranked in the 75th percentile.
"If I get an opportunity to jump in the rush, I can go and I know he’s got my back, and I’ve got his back when he goes," Pettersson said. "It’s something I felt like, when I came here first, I was in a really good place with my offensive game, and then I felt like the last two years I took a step back on that."
He's right. In 2020-21, his offensive impact took a slight dip to the 64th percentile, but last season it fell all the way to the 29th percentile. Even getting back to average on the offensive side of the puck this season would be more than enough.
Following my chat with Pettersson, I asked Petry about his first impressions on their partnership.
"It’s nice to be with a guy that’s been here for a while," Petry said. "He knows the system, he knows it well, and to be able to communicate and ask questions … it’s nice to have a guy to bounce things off of like that."
Regardless of who his partner is, Petry absolutely loves the Penguins' system and believes it caters to his strengths and the game he likes to play.
"I like how we’re trying to play in teams’ faces and to move the puck up to our forwards as quick as possible," Petry said. "I think those two things work well with my game."
If things go according to plan, the Penguins will be able to utilize the Pettersson-Petry pairing against any level of competition and won't have to worry about their zone-start usage at all. That alone will bode well for the overall success of the team, but if the two of them are able to get the most out of each other as I suspect, the Penguins' defense corps will be rock solid from top to bottom.
You should start getting really, really excited about this pairing.
