Mental mistakes are hurting defense
Blue-line philosophy is based on speed, not bulk of defenders
Twice in Thursday’s stunning come-from-ahead loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, Claude Giroux scored from within a stick’s length of Tristan Jarry. The reasons why the Penguins were outmanned in front of their net differed on those goals.
Yes, the Penguins not employing the beefiest or nastiest crew of blue-liners was a factor in one of them. But the other breakdown? That was mostly mental.
Let’s look back at the secondperiod goal that pulled the Flyers within 3-2.
When the Flyers worked the puck up the wall to Nicolas AubeKubel, Evgeni Malkin and Marcus Pettersson both charged at him. Meanwhile, winger Kasperi Kapanen, who sagged between the circles, passed Oskar Lindblom off in front of the net. The problem was nobody else realized they had to rotate over to pick him up.
John Marino briefly stood behind his net watching the puck then saw too late that the Flyers forward was unchecked. Jarry made the first save but Giroux, who had been Marino’s mark, looped around the far post to knock in the rebound.
“We’ve got to be a lot stronger there,” Pettersson would lament a day later.
Whether you ask the guy behind the bench or any angry uncle who watched that 4-3 loss from their recliner, you won’t get much pushback on that notion.
The Penguins, with one of the league’s skinniest sets of blue-liners, are doing some good things on their own end. Per Sportlogiq’s tracking data, they rank in the top seven in the NHL in total shot attempts against, offensivezone puck possession permitted, rush chances allowed and percentage of shots they block.
But when it comes to shots from the inner slot, which is essentially defined as anything from between the hashmarks and in, they rank 29th in the league.
If you want to rank in the top 10 in any defensive statistic, that’s the one. About half of the NHL’s goals are being scored there these days, per Sportlogiq.
“The majority of games are won or lost at the net front,” Mike Sullivan said.
The Penguins are giving up 2.29 goals against per game from the inner slot overall and 1.57 inner-slot goals at 5-on-5. They’re dead last in both categories.
Asked a question about that on Friday, Sullivan made no mention of muscle.
“It’s attention to detail. It’s collective effort and making sure that we defend the most dangerous area of the rink,” he said. “And so it’s a group thing and there are a lot of details that go into it. So we’ve just got to get better as a group.”
The coach added that the Penguins need to trust their teammates and stick to their assignments instead of freelancing, which can lead to two players defending one opponent and another opponent all alone in front, celebrating a score.
The Penguins sometimes “caught in between” when “duplicating jobs,” he said.
“The majority of guys have played this type of game for a while now,” Sullivan said of his system. “The concepts that are instilled here have been here for a while. And so everybody needs to buy in and everybody needs to be committed.”
Much has been made about the size of the blue-line corps, which by design is an assembly of quicker, mobile puck-movers. Bulkier guys such as Jamie Oleksiak, Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbranson were deemed suboptimal fits in Sullivan’s scheme, so former general manager Jim Rutherford scratched his need for speed.
In many ways, the plan has unfolded as hoped. With Kris Letang, Mike Matheson and other defensemen frequently joining the rush or jumping into the
offensive fray, the Penguins have gotten 11 goals from them at 5-on5. And they are getting to more loose pucks and often limit the puck possession of opponents.
But it is true that their lack of bulk on the back end has hurt the team at times.
Recently, The Athletic reviewed the height and weight of all NHL players. The average defenseman weighed 202.3 pounds and was a shade under 6-foot-2 tall.
The 11 to suit up for the Penguins in 2021 weigh an average of 192.2. Only Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci are above — and not by much — that 202.3 mark.
That weight disparity definitely made a difference on a number of those net-front goals. Giroux’s game-winner from inside the blue paint Thursday comes to mind. He outmuscled John Marino for a tap-in. Maybe
a bigger defender could have lifted his stick — or just blasted Giroux into the net before the pass arrived.
Of course, there aren’t a ton of people on the planet with size and physicality but who can also run a power play or repeatedly chase down a puck, step around a check and snap an accurate breakout pass the way Marino can. It’s a trade-off.
Time will tell if the new frontoffice duo of Brian Burke and Ron Hextall prefers the former or the latter for the Penguins. For now, there are the guys they got.
So what can Letang, Marino and the Penguins do to wall off the inner slot?
“I think between the defensemen, forwards and the goaltender, there needs to be more communication so we don’t duplicate or make mistakes,” Letang said.
Pettersson said more physicality
on the perimeter will slow opponents and allow the three low defenders to establish inside positions in order to box them out.
“We can kind of keep track of them and not let them roam around,” he said. “Because when they get their speed in the offensive zone and get to use all five guys, it’s hard to keep track of all their guys and eventually they’re in front.”
And when it is time to battle in the blue paint, they must do better at bumping bodies, holding their ground, lifting sticks and whacking away any loose pucks.
But the Penguins can’t do that if they’re not in the right position in the first place, which has been as big of an issue as the size of the guys on their blue line.