Haase: If performance matters, it's well past time to scratch Grzelcyk

The Penguins' 3-2 overtime loss to the Lightning on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena was a continuation of several concerning trends this season.

It was yet another blown multi-goal lead. The Penguins led 2-0 through two periods courtesy of goals from Jesse Puljujarvi and Rickard Rakell, along with stellar goaltending from Tristan Jarry. But for the eighth time this season, the Penguins blew the lead and fell to 3-3-2 in games in which they blew two-goal leads, according to historian Bob Grove. And once again, it was the third period in which the Penguins fell apart. The Penguins lead the NHL in third-period goals allowed at 28, and have been outscored 8-0 in the third over their past five games combined.

"We've got to find a way to keep playing aggressive and possess pucks," Matt Grzelcyk told me after this one. "We can't just sit on our heels. It's happened too many times now. We've got to continue to try to play down the other end of the rink."

It's certainly happened too many times now. And too often, Grzelcyk is at the center, as was the case tonight. If "performance matters" when it comes to lineup decisions, as Mike Sullivan spoke over the weekend in explaining others being scratched, it's past time for Grzelcyk to have his turn in the press box.

The Lightning's first goal in the third period came right at the start of a shift for Grzelcyk. Brayden Point carried the puck up the left wing into the Penguins' end with Grzelcyk trailing. Point whipped around the back of the net and Grzelcyk cut through the front, and just watched as Point finished a backhand shot top-shelf:

"That was a weird change," Grzelcyk recalled to me. "Point made a good play in the corner and just wrapped it and shot it on net."

Anthony Cirelli tied the game later off a tough bounce. He whipped around the net and tried to set up Brandon Hagel in front for a redirect, but ended up bouncing the puck off the back of Jarry's stick and in. The goal ultimately forced overtime, and it was again Point who was the difference-maker, with Grzelcyk being a difference-maker for the wrong reasons.

Grzelcyk was more than close enough to Point at the start of the rush to try to disrupt it but failed to do so. Point got the puck to Conor Geekie, who dropped it back to Janis Moser. Jarry got drawn way out to his right, leaving Grzelcyk to cover for him near the crease, and Grzelcyk watched as Point slammed the puck home:

"I'm not really sure, Grzelcyk said when I asked what happened there. "It's kind of two-on-one turned into a three-on-two, a shot off the end boards, and then he just tucked it in short-side."

It's not the most egregious of games by Grzelcyk. He did some good earlier, too, setting up the quick-passing play with Sidney Crosby and Rakell on the power play for the Penguins' second goal. But it's the continued lapses in his own end that should have him sitting.

Zooming out and looking at the season as a whole, we can look at how the Penguins' defensemen rank in various on-ice defensive metrics, using numbers based on rates to account for differences in ice time. Just for comparisons sake, here's how Grzelcyk and another left-handed defensemen in Ryan Graves rank among the six most commonly used defensemen (excluding Ryan Shea and Owen Pickering because of smaller sample sizes), with first being the best and sixth representing the worst:

Unblocked shot attempts against
Graves: First (42.37/60)
Grzelcyk: Sixth (48.32/60)

High-danger shot attempts against
Graves: First (11.06/60)
Grzelcyk: Sixth (15.38/60)

Shots on goal against
Graves: First (28.48/60)
Grzelcyk: Fifth (34/51/60)

Expected goals against
Graves: First (2.42/60)
Grzelcyk: Fifth (3.17/60)

And for those who would question if deployment is a factor in the above: Graves sees the lowest share of faceoffs in the offensive zone of any defenseman at 39.69%. Grzelcyk sees the second-highest at 59.31%, edged out only by Kris Letang. Grzelcyk's pairing is often the one getting the easier deployment when it comes to zone starts, even as it's producing the worst results. Graves' pairing is most often deployed in a defensive role, but still manages to limit chances against the best.

So guess which one watched the past two games from the press box and which one's still seeing top-four minutes? 

Right. When Sullivan scratched Graves in favor of Pickering after the embarrassing loss in Columbus, he called the decision to do so (along with the decision to bench Valtteri Puustinen in favor of Vasily Ponomarev) a result of “an accumulation of events over time," adding, "Performance matters.”

Yes, Graves has done a 180-degree turn in his play compared to the previous season, but he hasn't been perfect, and that game in Columbus was his worst this year. But how does that performance outweigh his overall strong season as a whole and result in two scratches, while Grzelcyk has more than had his own "accumulation of events" and the most that's happened is he's been knocked from the first pairing to the second?

The biggest argument in favor of keeping Grzelcyk in the lineup is that the power play by far sees a higher rate of unblocked shot attempts, high-danger attempts, shots on goal, expected goals and actual goals with him quarterbacking, as opposed to Letang or Erik Karlsson. But Grzelcyk also attempts a fraction of the attempts himself compared to those two -- roughly a third of the attempts Letang records, and about a fifth of the attempts Karlsson gets. What seems to be happening to result in the success with Grzelcyk on the power play is that he's capable of distributing the puck, the forwards aren't as likely to defer to him as they are to Karlsson and Letang, and the cumulative result is that the forwards take more shots (including from closer range) themselves. The power play being better with Grzelcyk is a real thing. But if power-play distribution is why, then couldn't someone like Marcus Pettersson step in and see similar results?

Sullivan isn't one to call out specific players, even when players probably make it tempting. But when asked about the trend of blown leads, he came as close as he ever gets to singling out players.

“We have to compete harder,” Sullivan said. “We need more guys to compete harder and pay more attention to detail, and we need to take more pride in playing defense.”

No, Grzelcyk isn't the only player he could be citing. But there's little doubt that he's one. 

Sullivan has scratched established NHL players in an effort to get their game back on track multiple times this season. It happened with Michael Bunting early. It happened to Jarry. It's happening now to Graves. But there's still room to go here.

If performance does matter, Grzelcyk should watch Friday's game against the Jets from the press box.