Decisions Loom as Penguins Return to Health
What will the roster construction look like for the Pittsburgh Penguins when everyone returns and is fully healthy?
While the Pittsburgh Penguins have compiled just three wins in their last six games, they haven’t lost in regulation. Meaning they’ve at least salvaged at least a loser point in every one of those games.
Two of the overtime losses did, however, come against Metropolitan Division opponents in the New Jersey Devils and Washington Capitals. The Washington overtime loss on Thursday night is a bit more crucial as the Capitals jumped Pittsburgh for the top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Certainly, three loser points is better than three regulation losses and count for three more points that could be a deciding factor in making the playoffs later this season.
As the Penguins continue to try and rack up points, they’ve got one more game before the All-Star break in which they will get nine days off before playing Colorado on February 7th.
Currently, the Penguins are without forwards Kasperi Kapanen and Josh Archibald, defenseman Jan Rutta, and goaltender Tristan Jarry. Kapanen and Archibald are day-to-day while Rutta and Jarry remained in Pittsburgh according to head coach Mike Sullivan and likely out through the break.
I’d expect Kapanen and Archibald to be out again Saturday night when the Penguins take on the Sharks just to give them the extra time to recover.
For most of the season, the Penguins’ culprits to sit would be fairly easy to point out. However, on this six-game point streak, the Penguins are starting to get some production from the bottom-six and specifically the fourth line.
Drew O’Connor, Ryan Poehling, and Danton Heinen have constructed a fourth line that’s been pitching in with their scoring as of late. They’re not guys you can rely on to carry the team, but the biggest gripe about the Penguins this year has been finding depth scoring.
O’Connor was used as more of a scorer in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton but now he’s being told to play with more of a sandpaper and grit type mentality because of his limited minutes with the parent club. Poehling is a big body that can fly and kill penalties. Heinen has been fairly useless this season save for the first seven or so games and then the last three of four games recently.
If they find a legitimate chemistry on that line, it would be hard to break it up.
The third line is the bigger problem at the moment and both Kapanen and Archibald could arguably replace the wings on that line.
Teddy Blueger has been bumped up to the third line center with Jeff Carter clearly proving he’s unable to anchor a line as the center at this point of his career. The problem is that Blueger has one goal in 33 games this season. For a third line center on a team in need of scoring depth, that isn’t acceptable.
Carter and Brock McGinn are the wings on Blueger’s third line that could soon find themselves in danger of becoming the team’s fourth line. McGinn reached the 10-goal plateau fairly quickly this season but hasn’t scored in 15 games. That’s not going to cut it.
In Archibald, the Penguins have a player that they need in the lineup. He’s not a star but he’s a league minimum salary cap player that provides intangibles that the Penguins don’t have enough of. Kapanen has loads of talent but often seems to disappoint when it comes to using that talent to its most effective ability.
The Penguins will have a decision to make on that front. Do they finally sit Carter and/or McGinn or do they run the risk of breaking up the Penguins’ current fourth line that has contributed lately and un-ironically lines up with a six-game point streak?
It’s never a bad problem to have depth, assuming everyone is performing to their expected standards.
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