Jeff Carter's logged more ice time over the Penguins' past 10 games than at any stage of this NHL season, averaging 20.1 shifts.
In that same span, Valtteri Puustinen's played half as many games, averaging 15.8 shifts, spending four other games in the AHL and another as a healthy scratch, the latter coming Sunday despite his having shown quite well in the previous game in Chicago.
Stay with me on this. It's worth it.
A couple nights ago, in what wound up a 5-4 overtime loss to the Islanders before a capacity crowd that'd been virtually begging for any semblance of life from the home side, Carter took 24 shifts to Puustinen's 18. When Carter was on the ice at five-on-five, New York had a 10-3 edge in shots, and 16-6 in shot attempts. When Puustinen was on the ice at five-on-five, Pittsburgh had a 12-1 edge in shots, and 18-7 in shot attempts.
Not to mention this:
That's Puustin-EN THE NET! pic.twitter.com/wSuTAOxAgP
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 21, 2024
Carter's 39, and he's played 1,429 NHL games. Puustinen's 24, and he's played 24 games.
Yesterday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, Kyle Dubas met with reporters and, within that 27-minute session, he spoke the following five words: "We need to get younger."
You don't say.
He also spoke, as related to Jake Guentzel's status approaching the March 8 trade deadline: "We have a lot of guys in their 30s signed. Some are some of the best players in the history of the franchise. It’s tough with Jake, as I’ve said to him, because he’s an excellent player and playing at an elite level. But we have to find a way to continue to get younger at the same time."
You don't say.
He also spoke, after affirming that none of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang will be traded -- parenthetically throwing in Erik Karlsson -- of having that Core to help bring along Brayden Yager, Owen Pickering, Sam Poulin and Joel Blomqvist: “What they can pass on to the players who come into the organization, in terms of the standards that we have here ... the impact that being around them each day can have on a young player is impossible to measure."
You don't say.
He also spoke of how he's tried to acquire help for the current team in recent weeks, but that such options "haven’t really been there, and we’ve exhausted them.”
You don't say.
He also spoke, after emphatically rejecting any discussion of Mike Sullivan's status, of how he could be a coach for all settings: “With the coaching staff, with Sully, based on what I've learned from him in our discussions this year and his ability to take the development of each individual player seriously, I think he's the type of coach that can both help you win, but also that he can develop people and develop players.”
You don't ... wow, just wow.
Look, I respect Dubas making himself available and, per his own term, "accountable" to local reporters for the first time since mid-December, particularly since he'd made himself available to Toronto media in that time. This is where he works now, and this is how it's done.
I also happen to share more of the stances he expressed yesterday than not. I've been writing since last summer that, if this didn't work -- and it sure hasn't -- there's only so much longer this storyline can be stretched. If that means trading one or more of the many thirty-somethings, so be it. If it doesn't hurt at all, like sending out Reilly Smith or Ryan Graves, awesome. If it hurts a little, like sending out Rickard Rakell or Alex Nedeljkovic, that's the price to be paid. If it hurts a lot, like sending out Bryan Rust ... ugh.
And if it stings right down to the soul, like sending out Guentzel ... yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. I've been told forever that the team'll make every attempt to keep Jake, the best left winger Sid's known, and I'd imagine all avenues would first have to be exhausted on that front.
But let's be blunt about this: Nobody needed to wait to four-plus months to publicly put forth the notion that this team -- the one right in front of us -- needed to be younger.
Yeah, they could still achieve some of the speed metrics and still aren't as slow as so many lazily portray, but the rampant, maddening inconsistencies in nearly every category -- with the exceptions I'd say of Sid, Marcus Pettersson, Kris Letang, Lars Eller and the goaltending in general -- have bordered on the insane at times. And there's no way to view that outside the prism of this being the NHL's oldest roster. This is precisely what happens to aging athletes or, in this case, an aging collective: They can do it once in a while. They can't do it as often.
(I swear, no innuendo was intended there.)
So tell me, and pardon the profanity for a moment, but why in hell will it still be true tonight, against the visiting Canadiens at PPG Paints Arena, that Carter will keep logging more shifts than younger, more energetic, more effective players like Puustinen?
The same will occur with Drew O'Connor, the Penguins' peak performer a couple nights ago despite being out-shifted by Carter or any other unproductive elder:
THE DOC IS IN! 🩺 pic.twitter.com/LJN8KPoF0P
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 21, 2024
How does Dubas duck blame when he could've, in theory, traded any of the above for younger legs as far back as training camp?
How does he duck blame for failing, as the individual heading hockey operations with multiple titles, to implore or even instruct his supremely stubborn head coach to stick by a younger player for the first time since ... what, Jake way back in 2016?
What's prevented Dubas from at least having a conversation with Sullivan on the subject?
What's prevented Dubas from implementing a radical change to either the coaching staff or methodology to address the power play that's almost singlehandedly sunk this season?
What's prevented Dubas and his expansive analytical department from analyzing that Puustinen once was summoned from Wilkes-Barre to get the power play back on track, did exactly that, then hasn't been seen on it since? While Carter went over the boards before Sid on a power play the other night in Chicago?
Yeah, the coach is culpable, for favoring his vets and for the power play. That stubbornness starts with Sullivan, especially on the first count. I stress that only all the time. But there's a hockey hierarchy in place, and it doesn't appear to have put any of this straight.
Believe it or not, I'm talking about the present, too. I'm talking about Dubas telling the team's leaders they need to win soon or else: "It's been outlined to them. They know what's at stake. We've got the last two remaining games of this homestand, the Western trip, and then we're back here again to show where we want to go. ... If there's ever going to be a chance where we're going to shake ourselves free, starting this next game would be it.”
Dubas' words sounded wonderful. It's about time someone spoke them.
Ask me how serious he was after I count up all of Carter's shifts against Montreal tonight.
