Flavell's Five Thoughts Through Penguins First 15 Games

Through the first 15 games, the Pittsburgh Penguins sit at 6-6-2 and have had one streaky start to the season. They’ve banked 15 points and currently sit seventh in the Metropolitan Division and 13th in the Eastern Conference.

It’s early enough in the season that a lot of points don’t separate the Penguins from the playoffs. However, teams that are in a playoff position at Thanksgiving often make the playoffs and those out of a spot by that time are usually left out of the dance.

While there is usually only about 20 games played by Thanksgiving, it has always been seen as the barometer.

The Penguins possess enough talent that they certainly could find themselves back into a playoff spot after racking up a few more wins. The biggest problem with the Penguins is that they are the league’s oldest team and their durability to stick it out for a whole season and play well in the playoffs is the big question.

Regardless, we’ve seen a four game winning streak to open the season followed by a seven-game losing streak after that. It has been a tale of two seasons so far.

I’ve got some thoughts and takes about the beginning of the season for the Penguins so without further ado, let’s discuss.

Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby currently sit atop the Penguins in scoring with 16 points in 15 games. That much is expected.

What hasn’t much been expected is the nature in which they’re doing it.

Crosby has looked a bit off the past few games. He was his usual dominant self to open the year but the past three games or so he just hasn’t seemed to be 100% there. Even he is human and giving it your all for 82 games plus the playoffs is nearly impossible regardless of how good you are.

Malkin, however, has looked dominant in just about every one of the 15 games he’s played so far.

Much was made about the fact that the Penguins even re-signed Malkin due to his turnover-prone game and his worries about coming off of the knee surgery this late in his career. He has quickly quelled any of those doubts.

Malkin is flying again and it’s clear to see that he’s got no hesitations anymore and is pushing himself to the limit every night to prove that he still belongs among the league’s elite.

He’s got seven goals, two of them on the power play. He spent the early portion of the season taking faceoffs in place of Crosby on the power play and has won 52.8% of his faceoffs throughout the year.

Malkin’s play is elevating his linemates as well, namely Jason Zucker.

Zucker’s biggest issue has been staying healthy during his Pittsburgh tenure. Every injury he’s suffered has been of the longer-term variety as well. All he’s done this year on Malkin’s wing is put up four goals and 13 points in 13 games for a nice point-per-game pace.

Rickard Rakell has played with Crosby a bit but has recently been a staple on Malkin’s line and has six goals and nine points so far himself.

Pittsburgh’s bottom-six has struggled to produce offensively so Malkin anchoring a line that is carrying the Penguins right now is a pretty huge deal for the 36-year old.

Head coach Mike Sullivan shocked a lot of people, including Casey DeSmith himself, by starting the backup goaltender against the Capitals on Wednesday night. DeSmith earned the victory and was awarded the start in Toronto on Friday night in the first game of a back-to-back. DeSmith backstopped another victory and seemed to help lift the spirits around the team.

Tristan Jarry was given the start on Saturday and the Penguins lost. Jarry was peppered in the game allowing five goals on 42 shots but he didn’t make the crucial saves when the Penguins needed him as they blew three different one-goal leads in the game and eventually lost in overtime.

Jarry is in the final season of his current deal and looked primed to get paid with a solid season. It’s only been nine starts for him but the numbers aren’t particularly good: 4-3-2, 3.55 goals against average, .900 save percentage.

DeSmith, who does have a contract for next season, didn’t start off much better but his two starts this week certainly helped his numbers. DeSmith now sits at 2-3-1 through six starts and owns a 2.67 goals against average and a .916 save percentage.

Neither have great numbers but the Penguins need to win some games in a hurry to really get themselves back on track heading towards December when they’ll finally get to do some home cooking with nine of their 13 games coming at PPG Paints Arena after a brutal road schedule to start.

It wouldn’t be a total shock if Sullivan goes back to DeSmith on Tuesday against Toronto especially after beating them last week to try and continue riding the hot hand.

Ron Hextall spent the entire offseason trying to get rid of the wrong defenseman.

Marcus Pettersson was the name that spent all of the time in the rumor mill to clear out the Penguins’ log jam. Despite showing some signs of decay last year, the Penguins never considered seeing what teams, if any, would’ve taken Dumoulin off their hands. They certainly regret that now.

Dumoulin has been a wreck this season and anyone with an untrained hockey eye could see it. Mike Sullivan finally made some changes on Wednesday and sent Dumoulin to the third pairing to play with Jan Rutta and significantly reduce his minutes.

Fortunately, Dumoulin’s contract is coming to a close after this season and he’ll be an unrestricted free agent. The Penguins won’t be renewing that. The problem currently, though, is that the Penguins are a cap strapped team thanks to some inefficient moves by Hextall in the offseason that left the Penguins no wiggle room to make upgrades.

Dumoulin counts $4.1 million against the cap this season and is playing like a replacement-level player. They can’t afford to push that cap hit to the press box because that isn’t a good use of assets when someone like Ty Smith or even Mark Friedman is in the AHL currently because the Penguins don’t have the cap space or the roster space to use him right now.

Dumoulin is virtually unmovable right now and the Penguins are forced to eat the last bit of that contract with the hope that Dumoulin can even be a shell of himself in the coming months until he hits free agency and the Pens can free themselves of him and the albatross cap hit.

Hextall did good to ensure the Penguins’ core will retire with each other barring some drastic circumstance. They felt it was important to finish together and also gave them all the best chance to win.

It was Hextall’s job to surround them with the talent necessary to do that. So what did his offseason list look like?

Petry has been much-maligned by the Penguins’ fan base to this point. Poehling hasn’t been noticeably bad in the Penguins’ bottom-six but he’s been a part of the scoring deficiency in that area. Kapanen has been flat out bad for his cap hit and was healthy scratched for two games, seemingly only getting back into the lineup because of Filip Hallander’s sickness. Heinen started out hot but has regressed in the past two weeks. Archibald has been a pleasant surprise but seemed to be an interesting use of cap space when the Penguins already possessed players in the AHL that likely could fill that spot. Friedman started the year in the AHL. DeSmith’s season was highlighted above.

This list highlights a lot of the problems with the current NHL team. They let Evan Rodrigues walk and then signed for a cap hit that is $1.2 million less than what Hextall gave Kapanen. Radim Zohorna was lost to waivers after a cap crunch really hurt his chances of making the team.

The general manager has had less-than-ideal asset management in the past five months and it has hurt the Penguins’ bid for a 17th straight berth in the postseason. Sure, there is a long way to go but things need to turn around because Hextall hasn’t allowed himself much wiggle room.

The early indication is that the Penguins have a lot to figure out and that much might be true. However, the talent on this team is undeniable and I believe they’ll end up dancing for a 17th year in a row.

Crosby is due to break out of his short funk in a big way. Brock McGinn is finding his stride and the Penguins’ third line is looking better because of it. They’ve got some AHL depth that could supplant any struggling bottom-six forwards. I think they’re going to be okay.

If the goaltending gets figured out and Jarry reverts back to form, the Penguins could again make themselves a team no one wants to see come mid-April solely based upon the layers of talent they possess.

We’ll meet in this space again after December 15th when the Penguins take on the Florida Panthers in their 30th game of the year.

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