The Penguins probably imagined that their power play would be a game-changer coming into this season.
They have a pair of Hall of Fame forwards in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. There's a potential Hall of Fame defenseman in Kris Letang, and another sure bet for the Hall in Erik Karlsson, fresh off a Norris Trophy win and 101-point season. Joined by the likes of Bryan Rust, Jake Guentzel, Reilly Smith and Rickard Rakell, the Penguins have one of the more impressive power play personnel groups in the league.
Anyone who would have guessed that the Penguins' power play would be a game-changer would have been right. Just not in the way they hoped.
The power play is actively costing the Penguins games and valuable points in the standings. Their 4-3 shootout loss to the Flyers here at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday is the latest close loss in which even an average power play could have been the difference between a win and a loss.
The Penguins went 0 for 5 on the man advantage on Saturday against a Flyers penalty kill that only ranked 10th in the league with an 83.9% success rate entering the game. That was a combined 8:07 on the power play -- including a full minute with the wide-open ice of a 4 on 3. Not only could they not take advantage of that time, they allowed a shorthanded goal. It's one thing for the power play to just not be contributing. In this game, it actively hurt them.
The Penguins' power play ranks 29th in the league at 10.9%, with only seven goals on 64 opportunities. Taking into account the four shorthanded goals the Penguins have now allowed, the Penguins' power play has made a net difference of plus-3, for a net power play success rate of 4.7% ranking next to last in the league. The Penguins have scored on the power play in just four of their 23 games, which is also the number of games in which they've allowed shorthanded goals.
The current scoreless skid for the power play has now hit 10 games, having last scored on Nov. 11. They've failed to score on 26 straight power plays, and allowed two shorthanded goals along the way.
The time to turn this around was weeks ago. The Penguins, now 11-10-2 to start the season, already have created an uphill battle for themselves to secure a playoff spot. At this rate, the power play could be the reason they don't make the postseason.
They're well aware of that.
"We've got to find ways to flip that script," Rust said after Saturday's loss.
The answers aren't so easy.
Something Mike Sullivan has often mentioned is that the "underlying numbers" are good with the power play, and he's absolutely right:
• The Penguins attempt shots at a rate of 127.5 per 60 minutes of power play time, the third-best rate in the league.
• Their unblocked shot rate on the power play of 87.3/60 ranks fifth in the league.
• Their rate of shots on goal on the power play is 62.03/60, sixth in the league.
• It would make sense if those were mostly perimeter, long-range shots. But they aren't. The Penguins' rate of high danger shot attempts on the power play is 28.14/60, 10th in the league.
• Their rate of high-danger shots on goal on the power play is 21.25/60, sixth in the league.
• The Penguins expected goals for rate (which simply assigns values based on quality of scoring chances based on the probability of those chances becoming goals, based on league-wide data) is 9.89/60, the third-best in the league.
That was all the case to an extent in Saturday's loss. In regular five on four power plays (so, not counting the 60-second 4 on 3 in overtime) the Penguins attempted 21 shots and allowed just one. But many of those shot attempts were either blocked or missed, and only eight hit the net. One difference tonight was that they didn't record a single high-danger shot attempt. The one shorthanded attempt they did allow was a high-danger one, and it resulted in Scott Laughton's shorthanded goal that tied the game at 2-2. The goal came with a second remaining in the Penguins' power play, one in which the Penguins' top unit of Karlsson, Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel and Rust had been on the ice the entire time because of how much offensive zone time they had. When the Flyers finally did get the puck, the Penguins' stars were gassed:
The patience. 🤌#PHIvsPIT | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/m5rR64clT8
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 3, 2023
"You saw, we got in-zone time," Letang said of the power play's night. "We had chances. It's just not going in. If you look at the power play overall -- like the breakouts the faceoffs, time with control -- it's all in there."
The Penguins' shooting percentage on the power play is next to last in the league at 6.48%, whereas the top power plays in the league have shooting percentages around 20%. The Penguins' power play shooting percentage on high-danger shots is dead last at 5.41% by almost three whole percentage points. The top three teams best at converting on those high-danger shots are all converting at least 30% of them, or even an astounding 40% in the Rangers' case.
Shooting percentage is one of those stats that when it's too high or too low, it can't stay at either extreme for too long. If a power play's underlying numbers are mediocre but they're getting by on an absurdly high shooting percentage, that's concerning, because it will eventually regress. If a team has great underlying numbers but a terrible shooting percentage, the thought is often that the team just needs to "play through it," and that they're just the victims of bad luck. The Penguins are in the latter group, but the terrible shooting percentage isn't getting any better.
What could be behind that other than luck?
• The Penguins don't have a good, solid net-front presence. Guentzel is frequently in that role, and the thought is that he's agile and good in tight spaces. But he's far from the big, sturdy players who can wreak havoc like a Patric Hornqvist or Chris Kunitz, who can deal with the abuse, cause some chaos, and capitalize on rebounds or deflections as a result. The Penguins just don't have a guy like that on the roster. Radim Zohorna is big, but he's not that kind of player. He did get a promotion to the top unit regardless for a net-front role in the Penguins' loss on Nov. 24 Buffalo, but it was a short-lived experiment. Jeff Carter is the closest the Penguins have to a player who can step into that role. Maybe that's worth a shot. It's no surprise that a team like the Rangers, who have the best net-front forward in the league in Chris Kreider, are exceptional at converting on high-danger chances.
• The Penguins could also shoot for more rebounds -- aim lower for the pads, rather than high shots the goaltender is just going to glove down. Looking at the data, Malkin ranks second in the league in the rate rebounds created on the power play, at 6.3 per 60 minutes of power play time. But nobody else is quite close. Among players with at least 40 minutes of power play time this season, Guentzel's rebound creation rate of 3.18/60 ranks 49th. Crosby's 2.41/60 ranks 94th.
Rust was asked what the answer was for solving the power play, and he was terse in his response.
"If we had an answer, we'd do it, first of all," he said. "I'm not sure there. But we've got to find it. And we've got to find it quick."
Rust was then asked if it's a structure issue or something else.
"Talk to the coaches about the structure," he said. "But no, I don't think so. I think we have five good players on the ice. We've just got to execute and make plays. I don't think structure has anything to do about it."
It's hard to say whether a personnel shakeup is the answer for making those plays happen, given that the Penguins haven't exactly experimented with it much. The Penguins mixed up the power play groups for one single game on Nov. 24 in Buffalo, putting together a first unit of Karlsson, Crosby, Guentzel, Zohorna and Vinnie Hinostroza, and a second unit of Letang, Malkin, Carter, Smith and Alex Nylander, with Rust sidelined due to injury. The Penguins only had two power plays that game. The first was pretty rough, the second looked markedly better, though they didn't score on either. The units were restored to their usual groupings next game. Since then, the only real change has been adding Lars Eller to the second unit. Given how little the second unit sees the ice, that hasn't really made an impact.
Other than maybe giving Carter a crack at the net-front role just to see how it plays out, one move that could make sense is switching Letang and Karlsson. Letang obviously has a different level of familiarity with the rest of the personnel on that unit than Karlsson does.
Sullivan said after Sunday's game that he wasn't ruling anything out in terms of personnel.
“Well, we're going to certainly consider everything at this point, because we have to find a way to get better and make improvements," Sullivan said. "I don't think we can keep anything off the table just as far as personnel groups or tactics or whatever."
The frustration surrounding the power play was evident in the locker room after this one. While the power play has been an issue for quite some time now, this was the clearest example of it being a detriment so far, between the lack of goals on five attempts and the goal allowed. Ideally, for the Penguins, this was rock bottom, and those solutions come to fruition soon.
“Obviously, everybody that's involved is really invested, and everybody cares about what's going on there," Sullivan said. "The players that are on it are proud guys. Obviously, the fact that we haven't got some traction with it, we haven't got it going yet, is a little bit disappointing for all of us. But we can't let that get in the way of our motivation to get it going forward. That's where our mindset needs to be.”
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Jake Guentzel, Penguins LW
2. Sean Couturier, Flyers C
3. Tyson Foerster, Flyers LW
THE INJURIES
• Forward Noel Acciari missed this game with a lower-body injury and is still being evaluated.
• Forward Matt Nieto missed this game with a lower-body injury and is still being evaluated.
• Defenseman Chad Ruhwedel is week-to-week with a lower-body injury sustained Nov. 19. He's on injured reserve.
• Forward Rickard Rakell is out "longer-term" with an upper-body injury sustained Nov. 19. He's on long-term injured reserve.
• Defenseman P.O Joseph is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. He last played on Nov 4. He's resumed practicing in a full capacity.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Drew O'Connor
Jansen Harkins - Lars Eller - Jeff Carter
Radim Zohorna - Joona Koppanen - Vinnie Hinostroza
Ryan Graves - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea - John Ludvig
And for John Tortorella's Flyers:
Tyson Foerster - Sean Couturier - Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee - Scott Laughton - Cam Atkinson
Owen Tippett - Morgan Frost - Bobby Brink
Nicolas Deslauriers - Ryan Poehling - Garnet Hathaway
Cam York - Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler - Sean Walker
Marc Staal - Rasmus Ristolainen
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice at noon on Sunday at the Lemieux Complex before flying to Philadelphia. They play the Flyers there on Monday at 7:08 p.m..
THE CONTENT
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