Penguins abandoned their identity, and now they might need big changes
Critical decisions loom for the Penguins after a disastrous first-round playoff sweep at the hands of the Islanders.
On Monday, the day before the Pittsburgh Penguins would attempt to stave off a first-round sweep against the New York Islanders, defenseman Justin Schultz subtly brought up core reasons for the Penguins’ collapse.
“Our identity has changed over the years,” Schultz said. “We play fast and get the puck up quick. That’s what we do best. We haven’t done that this series.”
Schultz was on the ice at the final buzzer as the Penguins lost again the following day, 3-1, to unceremoniously flame out of the postseason.
After the game, Evgeni Malkin echoed Schultz’s sentiment as only Malkin can.
“If we’re fast enough, we win game.”
In the past, they were indeed fast, and they did win games. The Penguins won the Stanley Cup two years in a row with a fast-paced, skillful style that thrived on talent and youthful auxiliary players orbiting the superstars. Those teams had defensemen who could move the puck, a deeper set of forwards, and a sense of urgency.
That has changed. After the second Cup, two defensemen (Ron Hainsey and Trevor Daley) departed, and Ian Cole was traded midseason. Personnel shifted, and Rutherford couldn’t find adequate replacements.
The speedy and skillful identity faded, and Rutherford was content to let it fade. He brought in strongman and fourth-line goon Ryan Reaves for half a season. Hainsey and Daley replacements Jamie Oleksiak and Matt Hunwick didn’t have the puck skills of their predecessors. Most egregiously, Rutherford handed a five-year contract to lumbering d-man Jack Johnson last summer, inexplicably trading speedy winger Conor Sheary to free cap space. The Johnson contract looks like it will haunt the Penguins for years.
NHL GMs, evidently, cannot be trusted with a fast, skillful team, even one they played a huge role in creating. Rutherford’s predecessor, Ray Shero, ended up fired in part because he spent too much time acquiring players who could fight and hit for the superstars. Malkin and Sidney Crosby were left carrying the forward group because players like Tanner Glass and Steve Downie sunk the bottom six. Managerial conservatism in hockey can kill teams. The front office prioritized anything but elevating the stars, and the Penguins piled up calamitous playoff losses as a result.
There were no obvious forwards on this roster that fit the profile of someone like Glass. The style of play, though, lost its pace. Had Pittsburgh played with the same attacking vigor and speed against the defensive-minded Islanders that they used to oust the trapping Senators two years ago, perhaps the series would been different.
Now, the Penguins stare at an ugly deja vu.
Remnants of the Cup teams are there. Jake Guentzel scored 40 goals this season and developed extraordinary chemistry with Crosby. Kris Letang was a legitimate Norris Trophy contender in the regular season before a late injury. Jared McCann, acquired for the unproductive Brassard near the trade deadline, filled the scoresheet and seemed to gel on Crosby and Guentzel’s first line. It’s odd, then, to see the Penguins move away from the fast-paced identity that won them Cups. The rest of the personnel has deteriorated, but core pieces haven’t left.
The defensive corps dragged the team down in the playoffs, and fared poorly throughout the season as the team teetered in and out of a playoff berth. Against the Islanders, Letang and Brian Dumoulin struggled mightily. Letang was reckless and mistake-prone, and Dumoulin looked rusty (coming off a pair of multi-week regular season absences) and slow to the puck. Dumoulin’s curiously subpar performance carried over to the rest of the defensemen.
Johnson, scratched for Game 1 but paired with Schultz for the following three, robs the Penguins of Schultz’s puck movement, especially important given that Letang is the only other d-man capable of controlling possession and exiting the zone. Johnson can’t move the puck, or survive in space. Forwards who play with Johnson see their production diminished — this was a not-insignificant cause of Malkin’s sluggish regular season.
With the entire defensive six collapsing upon themselves, the forwards had to do stuff on their own. Even Crosby’s line, which often produced the Penguins’ best even-strength chances, failed to conjure goals against an organized, hard-working Islanders team. The other lines, which stayed surprisingly consistent, produced little.
And so arrive the existential questions that come with crumbling at the hands of a less talented team in the postseason. The Penguins, used to these questions, could face as many cries to blow up major parts of the team as they did when they lost two straight playoff series to the Rangers in 2014 and 2015.
Letang, perpetually a lightning rod for fans, and Phil Kessel, whose appearance of indifference ruffles feathers when he fails to produce, will be at the center of rumors in a crucial offseason. The entire defensive corps will face serious reevaluation.
Rutherford is trade-happy, and promises to keep those tendencies up in the offseason. He will not have an easy job, with significant money already tied up. Rutherford, partially due to his own Johnson-related blunders, will have to be creative to reform the outer parts of the roster.
Calls to trade Letang or Kessel — or even Malkin, who did look disinterested against the Islanders — are premature. Barring significant Kessel unrest (which is not out of the realm of possibility), Rutherford should roll with the core he has and see what he can do about reframing the rest of the roster.
He has to revamp the defense, and look into upgrades to the bottom six. He should at least try to shop slumping Patric Hornqvist, a feisty net-front presence who once played well with Malkin and Crosby and enjoyed a role on the first power play unit. Hornqvist’s new deal, signed in February, looks like it could be an issue, given that he’s 32 and scored just three goals in 39 games after returning from injury in January. Losing a piece like him — he scored the game-winning goal in Game 6 of the Cup Final two years ago — could be hard to accept, but changes are necessary.
Johnson’s albatross of a contract will be impossible to move, unless Rutherford can find a gullible general manager somewhere. The Penguins are tied to Erik Gudbranson, another lumbering d-man whom they acquired midseason, through 2020. Gudbranson fared shockingly well after arriving from the Canucks, but the playoffs revealed signs of the incompetence he had displayed for so long in Vancouver. Unloading him will be difficult as well.
The one clear trade candidate Rutherford has is defenseman Olli Maatta, who ended up as a healthy scratch for the final three games of the playoffs after a subpar Game 1. Maatta was very good for the Penguins during the Cup runs and for stretches during the last couple of regular seasons, but struggled against the Capitals last year, and now looks like trade bait. He’s 24 and under team control through 2021.
Rutherford will likely need a new fourth-line center, with 42-year-old Matt Cullen entering free agency. He’ll need to add at least one significant piece to the forward corps, if he manages to finagle the salary cap to his liking.
Fans should hope he refrains from Gudbranson-type acquisitions, and instead looks for a return to what made them successful in previous Cup runs: a focus on the stars, and a high-pressing, fast-forechecking team. Coach Mike Sullivan, who will be coaching for his job next season, should work to develop that identity again.
The story will be the same for these Penguins: it’s all about maximizing the Crosby and Malkin years. They don’t have many prime seasons left. They can’t afford to waste a year swinging blockbuster trades that offload Crosby and Malkin’s fellow stars, nor can they afford to stockpile lower-tier players who don’t fit the system. This offseason will go a long way toward dictating the future, possibly the final years of assured Penguins contention.